In Marina Frolova-Walker's seminal monograph on the development of nationalism in Russian music, starting from the early 19th century with the rise of Glinka and Pushkin artistic cults [Chp. 2] to around the 1940s and early 50s with the Stalinist Soviet Union [Chp. 6], her fourth chapter entitled "The beginning and the end of the Russian style" outlines in significant detail how the Kuchkists, most particularly the incontrovertible outliner of what Russian music functionally is Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, developed their idea of the Russian musical ethos and inevitably how it fell away and became rather obsolete once it's identity construction based on negation-based parameters began to prove untenable [alongside Melgunov's destruction of their idyllic picture of Russian folk culture]. While this biography is not a complete summary of the entire chapter, as much of the musical analysis of certain pieces is ancillary to the main tenants of the entire chapter, I will relate the vital aspects of the chapter, and conclude with a paragraph of why its important for my overall dissertation.
In order to set the scene, throughout the chapter she provides several key dates, all of which are imperative to keep in mind, as much of the development of nationalist sentiments [and their antitheses] are based on the publication or production of certain key compositions and compendiums.
As Frolova-Walker notes, in the 1820-1830s, the b6 scale-degree [usually issuing a lean or melodic pull towards equilibrium], as well as decorated dissonant chords, and modulations to the fourth scale-degree were fairly ubiquitous and common in Russian repertoire. She points out Russian romances and songs as being the exemplification of this fact. However, with the publication of Glinka's second and last opera Ruslan and Lyudmila in/around 1837-1842, the foundation was inadvertently set for the posthumous identification of 'Oriental' colouring, although during Glinka's time this was not a construct to be identified, as it was simply part of the semantic vocabulary of the time. She points to the peremennost [changeable modal centers] presented in examples like Lyudmila's Cavatina "How Sad I am, dear Parents" and Finn's Ballad "Welcome my Son," particularly the #5/b6 and its destabilizing effect on the texture. She does go on to list one more example, the Act V Chorus "Oh you Light Lyudmial" where Glinka uses variational re-harmonization until he is all but forced to utilize chromaticism to keep the re-harmonizational trend alive.
The whole chapter does balance between a two-fold dialectic when speaking about nationalism's face in Russian music, noting two Scholars in particular, Gerald Abraham's assertion of the Kucha calling-card of 5-#5-6-b6-5, and Richard Tarushkin's conception of Orientalist infatuation and the Tchaikovskian quality of nega [extreme pleasure and satisfaction], with additional contribution by the 'cor anglais' [a lower-pitched woodwind, practically equivalent to an oboe - You can hear this type of instrument in an upcoming concert at Pushkin House in London!] In the same opera, Frolova-Walker provides several examples of this principle, the controversial Ratmir's Waltz and Aria "The heat of the day has given way to a calm night," controversial in that the supposed Orientalism that is observable following Glinka's opera was not then considered to be anything out of the ordinary, leading to the controversy that in-fact it's not actually Oriental. The Western dance form is treated to Eastern musicalisms, although this was not considered perplexing by audiences nor composers. She mentions that it was only when the Kuchkists began adopting Glinka's 'Oriental' aesthetics that critics like Cui and Laroche began castigating its usage, considering it to be immoral or inappropriate due to its high-spirited visage.
Frolova-Walker then goes to mention A. Rubenstein's Persian Songs, published in 1854. This set of songs used more transparent chromaticism and altered scale degrees [including #5], and thus situating Rubenstein in the forefront of the Orientalist camp of composers. However, his brand of Orientalism wouldn't really catch on, and as the Kuchkist's popularity began to rise, Glinka's Orientalism [a more tasteful, less obvious kind] overshadowed him, and he was ultimately forced to concede and adopt his lexicon instead, i.e., The Demon.
One of the more important dates, if not the most important date in this chapter is the period of the 1860s when, as Frolova-Walker notes, the terms "Russian School" and "Russian style" were formally created, and along with it an observable framework of what this functionally meant. This is where most of my interest lies in using this chapter, as in order to theoretically comprehend what makes Russian Hip-Hop 'Russian,' at least from a fuller and more theoretical standpoint, one must know what originally was considered the main pillars of the 'Russian style.' This period also marked when the Kuchkists began to rise in public notoriety for their passion for the Russian experience and folk-music's pivotal role in crafting [what was to become] the romanticized folkish heritage.
Within the chapter, she also makes it a note to mention that much of the work, while originating with Glinka, truly began with Balakirev. Hence, the reason why the Moguya Kuchka's circle is often referred to as the 'Balakirev Circle'! He had adopted Glinka's taste for chromaticism almost instantly, and while not attributing the Orientalist label onto it, instead adhering to the nega-aspects of leans and embellished diatonicism, contributing most potently to Kuchka's permutation of nega into quasi-Orientalism. As Frolova-Walker states, the #5 pathology laid out by Glinka was a "topic-neutral feature of Balakirev's vocabulary." It didn't hold any particularized meaning, but that didn't stop the Mighty Handful from giving it one!
Frolova-Walker goes into the particulars of Balakirev's worldview around Orientalism in wonderful detail, talking about how his works like The Firebird, Tamara, and Islamey didn't use Orientalism as a device to be used, but as the intrinsic fabric of the work itself. He saw the Russian ethos as encapsulating these elements of melodic 'spice' [if you will], and not situated externally to them. In Frolova-Walker's words, by using [what we now call] Orientalist features like chromatic leans and modulatory devices, a "distinct, non-European identity" was being formed, the very goal of the Kuchkists mind you! However, not all were happy with Balakirev, most particularly Russian Music critic Vladimir V. Stasov who, in his 1868 book entitled "The Origins of Russian Epics," argued a point that many have in the political spectrum. That being, Russia had no claim to anything cultural of its own, and only adopted from other cultures [while changing some details here and there]. You'll see another detractor by the name of Prince Vladimir Odoesvsky rear his head to show this contempt for some actions further onwards.
So, by 1867, the whole idea of Orientalism has become rather passé and not new at all, at least in the mind of Balakirev. Frolova-Walker points to his overture In Bohemia [full title "Overture on Czech Themes 'In Bohemia"], published in 1867 [with revision in 1905] as proof of this. In this work, he mixes a Moravian folksong with other ethicized melodies and folk songs, thus created a composite 'Orientalist' identity, one that had no staunch claim to any one land. And so, by the 1870s Orientalism had become the Kuchkist's primo-facto aesthetic marker, although Frolova-Walker notes this was still contested.
Now that the chronological details are out the way, primarily as there are still some left unsaid, now we can get into the more practical and usable parts of the chapter [i.e., the stuff that I will actually be using, summarized in a summary at the end. If you don't want to read this all, skip down there].
Like I said, although Gerald Abraham is used to set up the bulk of the chapter with his assertion of the "Kuchka calling-card," it is Richard Tarushkin's recognition of "the very morpheme of nega" and the "essential nega undulation" that could perhaps define this entire chapter quite well, although not the predominate tenant of what makes Russian music 'Russian.' More is said on this, along with the 'cor anglais' instrument, but it's essential superfluous to the aims of using this chapter in particular. I will skip ahead for sake of brevity.
Outlined by Rimsky-Korsakov, and again by Frolova-Walker are the five tenants of what made the Russian aesthetic, called five "strains of technique." The original source for the delineations of these tenants is from Vasily V. Yastrebtsev's second volume [1898-1908] of his composited recollections and conversations with the composer, "Memories of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov", published in 1917 right at the start of the Soviet Union. I will list them for you...
1. Tritones [unresolved dissonances?]
2. Keys situated in aug 4th/dim. 5th relationships
3. Excessive use of parallel fifths
4. Parallel seconds alla Borodin
5. The usage of B minor and Db Major
+ 1 ) "changing background variation-technique"
Each new strophe of a song receives different musical treatment.
It's put clearly this way: "continual recycling of first and second themes
with varied orchestral dressing" [Taylor, 2013]
These next couple sections, I will summarize the information, hopefully curtly!
In the section entitled "Folksong's New Look," the sanguine, almost sickly idealist way that the Kuchkists looked at the folksong tradition in America is expunged, not only by Rimsky-Korsakov, but thoroughly investigated by Frolova-Walker. Like I had said, Balakirev's treatment of folksong is staunchly refuted by Odoesvky for being flippant and overly unsophisticated in complexion. However, Frolova-Walker notes that their objectives were completely different, and thus the way they were going to use folksong was inevitably going to differ radically. However, the Kuchkist's utilization was a bit different, as although they tried to utilize 'non-Western harmonies,' they were running up-against the quandary that the forms they were using had to inevitably be Western, as there was no alternative, Russian or otherwise. This was only made worse by the publication of Y. N. Melgunov's "Russian folk songs recorded directly from the voices of the people and published with explanations" (issue 1–2, 1879–1885) which had unequivocally shown that the folk-music reality that the Kuchkist was using was not at all the people's reality.
Thus, the realization had been made, laid out by Frolova-Walker in clearly understandable detail. The Kuchkist's "Nationalist myths" [including the fictitious folk culture that Rachmaninnoff would ultimately take from] was nothing but repackaged myths of different varieties. However, their adoption of folksong was entirely one-sided, and rather misguided as well! As retold by Frolova-Walker, although they strove to embrace the multiplicities of folk culture and emancipate it from the melancholia associated with it [i.e., the Mongolian Lingering Song - protyaznaya pecnya], at the same time they rebuked where folk-song actually lived, the street. They detested urban as well as 'high' folk-songs, along with 'tavern songs.' Why? Russianness was supposedly the...
"dignified, communal life of peasantry, following ancient traditions, and preserving Russian virtues lost to the cosmopolitan inhabitants of the towns and cities."
That brings us to our next section, "Evocations of Church Music" where, much to the antitheticality of their entire movement, the Kuchkists again disregarded another central tenant of the Russian identity, that being Orthodoxy. The lead detractor in this camp was the Music and Art Critic Vladimir Stasov, the shrewd but nonetheless rigid ideologue for the Mighty Five themselves. A fierce adherent to the popular trend of "critical realism," he despised religiosity, mythology, and all that which divided the music from the people. He was absolutely unassailable when it came to his beliefs that each nation should have "its own national art" and should look to its own culture as a way to invigorate this process. However, to do this he thought it best to rid Russian music of its Orthodox perfunctory. This led to the 19th century, Russian belief that Orthodox music and its corollary attributes was "insufficiently Russian" and was rather musically poor. Take from that what you will, but I disagree fully.
Frolova-Walker goes into detail about the "monastery style of harmonization," what this actually constitutes of musically, and the exact reasons why some tenants were incredibly important for the construction of a nationalist identity that was not connected to the Western world [although again, the forms they used were inevitably conceived of in and were a part of the Western world]. But, remember our zealous Prince Odoevsky, in the 1860s right when the Kuchkists were rising in social prestige, he had considered sacred music to be of a dichotomous ontology: The "pure" [Russian] vs. the "Western" [Greek and medieval Europe]. Whether or not this is true, it's safe to say it was ignored.
In the penultimate section entitled "Progressive Harmony," Frolova-Walker notes that the Kuchkists were always looking for novel harmonies to utilize in their efforts to distance themselves from the West. This was the most apparent in their animosity and straight rejection of using the V-I authentic cadence, arguably the most popular, cadential form in the Western world, then and now. In efforts to now use this insidious affect of the world they were trying to ignore, Rimsky-Korsakov instead used decorated dominate sevenths, or cadences that used alternative chords to arrive at the tonic. In this section, Frolova-Walker also mentions the heavy influence of Liszt on Balakirev's harmonic creativity, as well as Rimsky-Korsakov, this trickling down to the others as well. This is most prominent in the moniker associated with the Octatonic scale [eight-note scale], the "Rimsky-Korsakov" scale, however its origins are dubious and may have actually from Liszt instead!
Some of the other features of the Lisztian embrace by the Kuchkists were two very strong influences, those being unabashed chromaticism, and what is called 'modal diatonicism,' this being a fancy phrase for the utilization of the eight Church modes in harmonic union within keys and their correlating pitches. This playful take on compositional harmony was all in service of an even larger goal, and that to destabilize harmony itself, using anything in their musical playbook that "weakened functional harmony." Frolova-Walker gives some examples of Liszt's lasting influence, like protracted forms with "static" or "attenuated" [weakened] and unstable harmonic patterns that tested boundaries but never actually crossed them like Liszt or late Scriabin.
[I have skipped an entire section that was dedicated to analyzing Rimsky-Korsakov's music, most of which proved unnecessary to read]
In this last section, called "Rimsky-Korsakov against Russian Music," Frolova-Walker notes in explicit detail Rimsky-Korsakov's disgust with the course that the Kushkists were taking, and his total dejection of anything that could be called a 'Russian style.' Instead, referencing a letter to his wife, written in 1891, about his disillusionment with the very idea of a 'Russian national music' [see Nelson, 2013 for more]. In this letter, and indeed the excerpt that is used by Frolova-Walker, she notes that Rismky-Korsakov was looking towards the Italians and their 'true life' credibility, their passion as sensed through works like Rigoletto and others, with the 'life and soul' of those like Chopin and Glinka. In the same breath, he showed his opposition to the 'cold and cerebral composition' of the Russian path, as seen through composers like Sokolov and Glazunov, his student and yet very far-away colleague.
To Rimsky-Korsakov, the 'Russian style' was now nothing more than a 'set of conventions' that composers followed, just like any other aesthetic choice, and thus to say that the Russians had anything credibly theirs would be incorrect at best, or even purposefully fallacious at worst. He had mentioned that 'harmony and counterpoint' had been a 'pan-European' adoption into Russia, and that the 'Russian traits' touted by the Kuchkists were only deducible if you take away all the foreign traits that have made their way into the compositional process. That which was "inappropriate to the Russian spirit," after having been taken away from the aesthetic style, would leave the true, Russian style.
Thus, if one had to summarize what the 'New Russian School' was in its base ontology, as the sagacious Frolova-Walker had put it, in a troika of points: 1) “self-imposed restrictions,” 2) “Negation” of Western and non-Russian musical components and technical procedures, and 3) “Negative” reduction and supplant them with “positive” idioms that could express the Russian sentiment. However, there was a fourth, as exemplified by Rimsky-Korsakov already but put plainly as plain could be, “by removing from the common language of music those devices which are inappropriate to a Russian style” [for the exact quote and more, read Helmer, 2018].
To conclude, with the rise of Stravinsky’s Eurasianist predilections and the neo-primitive works like Petrushka, Les Noce, and the more ‘violent’ and bloodied postmodernist take on Russian music, the historical grandeur of upholding the Kuchkist mythology of the great folk heritage had run dry, and all that was left was a “repository of material” that could used at leisure. This is where Rite of Spring would inevitably surface from, and with it the death of the Silver Age of Russia, arguably the best version of Russia to ever have been created.
What followed [until the Russian present] would be 'Anomie of Mass Complexion."
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