Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/119

Rh was at this time that he began to produce the series of compositions that have earned for him the title of "Creator of Russian Music."

While we cannot here go into a critical study of Glinka's works as a composer, it must be said that his opera, "Ruslan and Ludmila," is the starting-point of the truly Russian school of music. Among his instrumental pieces the most remarkable ones are "Chota," "Kamarinskoye," and "Nights in Madrid." Glinka wrote many songs, but only one of them, the "Night Review," occupies a really high place.

There is another composer whose name is extremely important in the consideration of the second period in the development of Russian music. Dargomyzhsky's career is in many ways like that of Glinka. He, too, at first, bowed to the influence of foreign models. He even imitated Glinka for some time. Among his many songs is one called the "Night Review," which is in structure similar to Glinka's song of the same name. One of his pieces, however, "Palladin," is a gem, and many think that it has never been surpassed in the treasure-house of songs.

Dargomyzhsky's opera, "Rusalka" (The Nymph), with the libretto based on Pushkin's dramatic poem of the same name, is perhaps more Russian than Glinka's "Life for the Tsar," but in it Dargomyzhsky is still far from attaining to the height he reached in his later operas, "Rogdana" and "The Stone Guest." It was Glinka who laid the foundation for the Russian school of music, but it was Dargomyzhsky that reared the walls of the structure.

There is, perhaps, no other Russian composer, with the exception of Moussorgsky, whose music expresses so realistically the truth of life. "I want the sound to express the word," said Dargomyzhsky, and this was his watchword to the end. It was the legacy he left to that wonderful group of composers which followed him and which came to be known as the "Moguchaya Kuchka" (The Mighty Group).

It was Dargomyzhsky's house that became the meeting-place of the men who were destined to carry on the noble task of creating a national music. Dargomyzhsky was the first to recognize the mighty musical genius of Moussorgsky. Through him, the young army-officer, brimful of talent, became intimately connected with Balakirev and Cui. These three men were soon joined by Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin, and the "Moguchaya Kuchka" came to be.

The work of this group of composers forms the third stage