here, I had to show the atmosphere of the monastery's estrangement, I had to cut Pimen off from the rest of the world. When the bell tolls, it's a reminder that there are powers mightier than man, that you can't escape the judgment of history. That's what I felt the bell was saying, so I depicted it by the simultaneous playing of seven instrumentsbass clarinet, double bassoon, French horns, the gong, harps, piano, and double basses (at an octave)-and I think the sound was more like a large real bell.
In Rimsky-Korsakov's version, the orchestra often sounds more colorful than mine. He uses brighter timbres and chops up the melodic lines too much. I juxtapose the basic orchestral groups more often, and stress more sharply the dramatic "outbursts" and "splashes." Rimsky
Korsakov's orchestra sounds calmer and more balanced. I don't think that's appropriate to Boris. He should have followed the mood changes of the characters with more flexibility. And besides, I feel that the meaning of the choruses is more easily made clear by setting off the melody. In Rimsky-Korsakov's version the melody and the subvoices usually blend, which perhaps obliterates their meaning.
Meaning in music-that must sound very strange for most people.
Particularly in the West. It's here in Russia that the question is usually posed: What was the composer trying to say, after all, with this musical work? What was he trying to make clear? The questions are nai°ve, of course, but despite their nai°vete and crudity, they definitely merit being asked. And I would add to them, for instance: Can music attack evil ? Can it make man stop and think? Can it cry out and thereby draw man's attention to various vile acts to which he has grown accustomed? to the things he passes without any interest?
All these questions began for me with Mussorgsky. And after him I must add the name of the little-known (despite all the reverence accorded him) Alexander Dargomyzhsky and his satiric songs "The Worm" and "Titular Counselor," and his dramatic "Old Corporal."
Personally, I consider Dargomyzhsky's Stone Guest the best musical embodiment of the Don Juan legend. But Dargomyzhsky doesn't have Mussorgsky's scope. Both men brought bent backs and trampled lives into music and that's why they are dearer to me than so many other brilliant composers.
I've been berated all my life for pessimism, nihilism, and other so-234
dally dangerous traits. Once I came across a marvelous letter of the poet Nikolai Nekrasov, an answer to rebukes for excessive bile. I don't remember the exact words, but the point was that he had been told that one's attitude toward reality had to be "healthy." (Here's another opportunity · to mention that aesthetic terminology- does not change in Russia with the centuries.) Nekrasov answered this demand brilliantly: to wit, that a healthy attitude can be had only toward a healthy reality, and that he would get down on his knees to the Russian who would finally burst with anger, since there were so many reasons to do so in Russia. I think that's well said. Nekrasov ends, "And when we begin to get angry more, then we'll be able to love better, that is, more-and love not ourselves but our homeland." I would sign my name to those words. "Suddenly you could see far to the ends of the earth,'' as· Gogol said in "The Terrible Vengeance."
It's become fashionable to talk about Mussorgsky over a glass or two, and I must confess that I, too, have had deep talks about him after a few rounds, but I think that I have two excuses. First, that I've always felt the same way about Mussorgsky, unaffected by fashion and
"obligatory convictions,'' by what might please them "upstairs" or in Paris. And second, I have done something of a practical nature to popularize his music, though it didn't work that way. In fact, I think I lost and Rimsky-Korsakov's edition-rather crude, after all-is still ahead.
My orchestral version of Songs and Dances of Death isn't performed too of ten either.
Really, we musicians do like to talk about Mussorgsky, in fact I think that it's the second favorite topic after Tchaikovsky's love life.
There's much that is confused and unclear both in Mussorgsky's life and in the creation of his music. There's much that I like in his biography, above all its darkness-those entire chunks of his life about which we know nothing. There are many friends whom we know only by name, and probably we have the names wrong too. Unknown people, unknown ties: he cleverly escaped history's detectives. I like that a lot.
Mussorgsky was probably the most yurodivy of the Russian-and not only the Russian-composers. The style of his letters is horrible, simply horrible, yet he states astonishingly true and new ideas, though in very bizarre; unnatural, and tiring language. It's too pretentious.
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You have to race through the letters to get their gist.
But there are a few gems, like: "The sky is dressed in a gendarme's blue-gray pants" (this is a typical Petersburg view). And I like the way Mussorgsky grumbles, " 'The world of sound is limitless.' But brains are limited!" Or take the expression "a well-hammered head."
But you have to dig for such witty remarks, haul them out of the bathetic tirades. I'm very happy to say that he wasn't a boisterous bully or squabbler in life. As I understand it, he never took offense or fought over his works in public. When he was criticized, he kept quiet, nodded, almost agreed. But the agreement lasted only as far as the door; once he was outside, he took up his work again, like one of those dolls you can't knock down. I understand and like that very much!
Everyone who felt like it harangued and criticized him. His colleagues called him a lump of dough, even an idiot. Balakirev: "His brains are weak.'' Stasov: "He has nothing inside.'' Cui was right in line too, of course: "Naturally, I don't believe in his work.'' We can laugh now, dear comrades, everything's over, no one is hurt, art goes on. But how did Mussorgsky feel? I can imagine, based on my own reactions-you may understand it all, but you read a paper and your mood plummets.
Music that doesn't stir up arguments could be soothing and charming, but is more likely to be dreary. A hue and cry in itself doesn't prove a thing, naturally, and often is nothing but publicity. I remember that when I was young they used to lure people into side shows with loud patter, but once you got inside it was a total disappointment.
But still I fear silence or concerted, nauseatingly saccharine praise much more. In the last few years my works have been praised more at home than abroad. Once it was just the reverse. But I didn't believe my "critics" then and I don't believe my bureaucratic praisers now.
Quite often it's the same people, lackeys with brass faces. What do they want from my music? It's hard to guess. Maybe they're pleased that it's become soothing and toothless? Bringing on sweet dreams? I think that they don't understand it correctly, I think they're making an honest-as honest as they can-mistake. I seek my friends' opinions and get angry when they say stupid things. But I'm desperate to find out what audiences really think. It's impossible to tell from published reviews-whether here or abroad.
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For the listener I'm a walking mummy, something like a resurrected pharaoh. I'm troubled by the thought that I'm appreciated only for the past. Troubled, but not tormented. Something else does torment me. I confess the hardest thing for me is to appear in public, to attend concerts or plays. I love the theater, and by nature I'm a gawker and an avid fan. I love all kinds of spontaneous cheerful gatherings, and my profoundly lowbrow devotion to soccer knows no bounds. And · how can televised soccer compare with the fantastic impact of watching a match at the stadium? It's like distilled water and export Stolichnaya.