Scene II represents a public square in Moscow. Through the crowd is

seen the figure of Galitsin, who is being hurried under close escort into exile. Dositheus joins the throng, and hears from Martha that Peter has ordered the wholesale execution of the Old Believers. Their leader resolves that death shall be self-inflicted. Andrew Khovansky, ignorant of his father’s assassination and of the general turn of events, now appears on the scene, and entreats Martha to deliver up the young Lutheran. He is told that Emma is honourably united to the man she loves, and in his consternation Andrew threatens Martha with death at the hands of his Streltsy. She bids him proceed with his threat. His repeated horn-blasts are answered in unexpected fashion by a body of his men, who, guarded by Peter’s soldiers, are bringing axes and faggots to the place chosen for their execution. It does not take place. Peter’s merciful decree of pardon is delivered to them by a herald.

The Old Believers’ hermitage in a wood near Moscow is the scene of the fifth and final act. There, under the leadership of Dositheus, preparations are being made for a self-administered martyrdom. Andrew, still hoping to find Emma, is prevailed upon by Martha to mount the pyre, to which she then applies the brand. The Old Believers sing their hymn until the flames overpower them. The trumpets of Peter’s soldiery are heard, and the curtain falls to the music which symbolizes the rising of the new Russia from the ashes of the old.

XV.

As drama, “Khovanshchina” is better planned than “Boris Godounof,” despite the summary curtailment to which Moussorgsky was obliged to subject the work. On the dramatic side it possesses perhaps in a greater degree the quality of nationalism; the consequences of the Nikonian revision have a greater significance for the larger public than the misdemeanours of Boris and Otrepief. In the matter of construction, the difference between the two works is principally in respect of detail. Moussorgsky has abandoned, in “Khovanshchina,” his rigid adherence to the method of “throughout-composition”; there are repetitions which reveal an intention of seeking a compromise between an allegiance to the principles of his School and the desire to use a beautiful melody more than once. “Khovanshchina” is, in a word, slightly more “operatic” than “Boris Godounof.”

The principal characters are again represented by themes, and here one observes that in their repetition there is just a shade more deliberateness. The motive most frequently used is that of the massive figure of Khovansky, than which it would have been impossible to conceive anything more appropriate.

A remarkable feature of the score is the wealth of music of an ecclesiastical kind. Already in “Boris” Moussorgsky had shown a complete mastery of the ancient modal method of writing. In “Khovanshchina” he achieves some of his most successful pages when composing chants for the Old Believer chorus.

A cardinal point of difference between the music of “Boris Godounof” and that of the later work is that, whereas in the former the lyrical pages are, as it were, mostly ornamental, in “Khovanshchina” they are part and parcel of the vocal line. The inclusion in “Boris” of the Clapping Game, the Nurse’s Song of the Gnat, and the Inn-keeper’s Song, is perfectly legitimate, as they are relevant to the dramatic action. But they are decorative; they are part of the folk-colour. In “Khovanshchina” there are a few identifiable specimens of folk-song, such as Martha’s song in Act III, the hymn to Khovansky in the country-house scene, and a fragment sung by the sleepy strelets immediately following the curtain’s first rise; but their folk-origin is not betrayed, as are those of the earlier work, by their text. They are used where original music would have served as well, and the allegory of the folk-text fits into the dramatic situation.

XVI.

There are several numbers of great beauty in “Khovanshchina” which might easily be given a separate performance. First among these should be mentioned the Persian Dances. Among some of the composer’s friends they were looked upon as an unwarrantable interpolation. The assumption that old Prince Khovansky had among his household some Persian captives was too slender an excuse for this music. Hearing it, one is quite prepared to give Moussorgsky the benefit of the doubt. The dances are introduced by a few anticipatory phrases; by this means the composer avoids the break which would have given them more the appearance of a ballet included as a sop to the orthodox opera-goer. The Song of the Haiduk (Hungarian mercenary), sung by Khovansky’s serving-maids immediately before the Persian Dances, is also exceedingly charming; it is obviously traditional. The choral song in honour of Khovansky, in the first act, is highly appropriate music, and could hardly have been improved upon as a means of suggesting the attitude of his followers towards the Prince. In singling out one from the many fine specimens of music of a devotional kind, it is upon the chorus of Old Believers in the last act, written in the Phrygian mode, that the choice must fall. The wonderful Song of Divination ought not to need mention as one of the numbers detachable from the score, since that is often given on the concert-platform.

“Khovanshchina” seems to merit a place apart in the field of Russian Opera. It is a fusion of the Glinkist and Dargomijskian traditions in that it deals with national subjects, incorporates the folk-idea, both literary and musical, and is designed and constructed on lines which are favourable to the development of a rational type of opera; in such an opera the severity of declamation is relieved on suitable occasions by melody, and a compromise is thus reached, admitting of the treatment of any literary subject at all suitable for the purposes of opera.

“Khovanshchina” is a work in which such a compromise becomes imperative. But for its acceptance the store of Russian national music-drama would have been robbed of an example that makes a direct appeal to the religious as well as to the patriotic sensibilities of the Russian nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] “Moussorgsky,” Félix Alcan, Paris, 1911.

[9] A Russian musical essayist, wrongly supposing this to have referred to the whole operatic fragment, has cited these words as evidence of the composer’s power of detachment.

[10] “Les Faux Démétrius,” Paris, 1853.

[11] “Musique d’autrefois et d’aujourd’hui,” Dorbon-Ainé, Paris.