The Russian Opera. Newmarch Rosa
… My musical sense still remained undeveloped and crude. In my eighth year (1812), when we were delivered from the French invasion, I listened with all my old delight to the ringing of the bells, distinguishing the peals of the different churches, and imitating them on my copper bowls.
“Being entirely surrounded by women, and having for playmates only my sister, who was a year younger than myself, and my nurse’s little daughter, I was never like other boys of my age; moreover the passion for study, especially of geography and drawing—and in the latter I had begun to make sensible progress—drew me away from childish pastimes, and I was, from the first, of a quiet and gentle disposition.
“At my father’s house we often received many relatives and guests; this was usually the case on his name-day, or when someone came to stay whom he wished to entertain with special honours. On these occasions he would send for the musicians belonging to my maternal uncle, who lived eight versts away. They often remained with us for several days, and when the dances were over and the guests departed, they used to play all sorts of pieces. I remember once (it was in 1814, or 1815, when I was about ten) they played a quartet by Cruselli; this music produced in me an inconceivably new and rapturous effect; after hearing it I remained all day long in a state of feverish excitement, lost in inexplicably sweet dreamy emotions, and the next day at my drawing lesson I was quite absent-minded. My distracted condition increased as the lesson proceeded, and my teacher, remarking that I was drawing very carelessly, scolded me repeatedly, until finally guessing what was the matter with me, said that I now thought of nothing but music. ‘What’s to be done?’ I answered: ‘music is the soul of me!’
“In truth at that time I loved music passionately. My uncle’s orchestra was the source of the liveliest delight to me. When they played dances, such as écossaises, quadrilles and valses, I used to snatch up a violin or piccolo and join in with them, simply alternating between tonic and dominant. My father was often annoyed with me because I did not dance, and deserted our guests; but at the first opportunity I slipped back again among the musicians. During supper they generally played Russian folk-songs arranged for two flutes, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons; this poignantly tender, but for me perfectly satisfactory, combination delighted me (I could hardly endure shrill sounds, even the lower notes of the horn when they were not played loud), and perhaps these songs, heard in my childhood, were the first cause of my preference in later years for Russian folk-melodies. About this time we had a governess from St. Petersburg called Barbara Klemmer. She was a girl about twenty, very tall, strict and exacting. She taught us Russian, French, German, geography and music. … Although our music lessons, which included reading from notes and the rudiments of the piano, were rather mechanical, yet I made rapid progress with her, and shortly after she came one of the first violins from my uncle’s band was employed to teach me the fiddle. Unfortunately he himself did not play quite in tune and held his bow very stiffly, a bad habit which he passed on to me.
“Although I loved music almost unconsciously, yet I remember that at that time I preferred those pieces which were most accessible to my immature musical intelligence. I enjoyed the orchestra most of all, and next to the Russian songs, my favourite items in their repertory were: the Overtures to ‘Ma Tante Aurore,’ by Boieldieu, to ‘Lodoïska,’ by Rodolph Kreutzer, and to ‘Les Deux Aveugles,’ by Méhul. The last two I liked playing on the piano, as well as some of Steibelt’s sonatas, especially ‘The Storm,’ which I played rather neatly.”
I have quoted verbatim from Glinka’s record of his childish impressions, because they undoubtedly influenced his whole after career, and the nature of his genius was conditioned by them. Like most of the leading representatives of Russian music, Glinka was born and spent the early years of his life in the country, where he assimilated subconsciously the purer elements of the national music which had already begun to be vulgarized, if not completely obliterated, in the great cities. Saved from the multitudinous distractions of town life, the love of the folk-music took root in his heart and grew undisturbed. Had he been brought up in one of the capitals, taken early, as Russian children often were, and still are, to the opera and to concerts, his outlook would have been widened at the expense of his individuality. Later on, as we shall see, he was led away from the tracks of nationality by his enthusiasm for Italian opera; but the strong affections of his childhood guided him back instinctively to that way of art in which he could best turn his gifts to account. It has been said that Glinka remained always somewhat narrow in his ideas and activities; but it was precisely this exclusiveness and concentration that could best serve Russia at the time when he appeared. In his letters and Autobiographical Notes, he often adopts the tone of a genius misunderstood, and hints that an unkind Providence enjoyed putting obstacles in his path. It is true that in later life, after the production of his second opera, Russlan and Liudmilla, he had some grounds for complaining of the fickleness and mental indolence of the Russian public. But his murmurings against destiny must be discounted by the fact that Glinka, the spoilt and delicate child, grew up into Glinka, the idolised and hypochondriacal man. On the whole his life was certainly favourable to his artistic development.
Stassov, in his fine monograph upon the composer, lays stress on this view of Glinka’s career. The history of art, he argues, contains only too many instances of perverted talent; even strongly gifted natures have succumbed to the ill-judged advice of friends, or to the mistaken promptings of their own nature, so that they have wasted valuable years in the manufacture of works which reached to a certain standard of academic excellence, and even beauty, before they realised their true individual vocation and their supreme powers. Glinka was fortunate in his parents, who never actually opposed his inclinations; and perhaps he was equally lucky in his teachers, for if they were not of the very highest class they did not at any rate interfere with his natural tendencies, nor impose upon him severe restrictions of routine and method. Another happy circumstance in his early life, so Stassov thinks, was his almost wholly feminine environment. Glinka’s temperament was dual; on the one hand he possessed a rich imagination, both receptive and creative, and was capable of passionate feeling; in the other side of his nature we find an element of excessive sensibility, a something rather passive and morbidly sentimental. Women had power to soothe and at the same time to stimulate his temperament. Somewhere in his memoirs, Glinka, speaking of his early manhood, says: “At that time I did not care for the society of my own sex, preferring that of women and girls who appreciated my musical gifts.” Stassov considers that these words might be applied to the whole of Glinka’s life, for he always seemed most at ease in the company of ladies.
In the autumn of 1817, being then thirteen, he was sent to the newly opened school for the sons of the aristocracy, where he remained until 1822. His schooldays appear to have been happy and profitable. He was industrious and popular alike with the masters and pupils. In the drawing class the laborious copying from the flat, with its tedious cross-hatching and stippling then in vogue, soon disgusted him. Mathematics did not greatly interest him. Dancing and fencing were accomplishments in which he never shone. But he acquired languages with a wonderful ease, taking up Latin, French, German, English and Persian. In after years he dropped to some extent Persian and English, but became proficient in Italian and Spanish. Geography and zoology both attracted him. That he loved and observed nature is evident from all his writings; and the one thing in which he resembled other boys was in his affection for birds, rabbits, and other pets. While travelling in the Caucasus in 1823 he tamed and kept wild goats, and sometimes had as many as sixteen caged birds in his room at once, which he would excite to song by playing the violin.
Glinka’s parents spared nothing to give their son a good general education, but the idea that they were dealing with a budding musical genius never occurred to them. As he had shown some aptitude for the piano and violin in childhood, he was allowed to continue both these studies while at school in St. Petersburg. He started lessons with the famous Irish composer and pianist John Field, who, being on the eve of his departure for Moscow, was obliged to hand Glinka over to his pupil Obmana. Afterwards he received some instruction from Zeuner, and eventually worked with Carl Meyer, an excellent pianist and teacher, with whom he made rapid progress. At the school concert in 1822, Glinka was the show pupil and played Hummel’s A minor Concerto, Meyer accompanying him on a second piano. With the violin he made less progress, although he took lessons from Bohm, a distinguished master and virtuoso who had not, however, so Glinka declared, the gift