individual genius--but
Russia, in the number and variety of these original melodies is most
exceptional. The Russian expresses himself spontaneously in song, and
so we find appropriate music for every activity or incident in daily
life: planting songs, reaping songs, boating songs, wedding songs,
funeral songs; Russian soldiers sing on the march and even enter upon
a desperate charge with songs on their lips. In certain battles of the
Crimean War this fact caused much comment from the English officers.
For many centuries the bulk of the Russian people has been
downtrodden; and the country, with its endless steppes and gloomy
climate, is hardly such as to call forth the sparkling vivacity found
in the Scandinavian and Hungarian songs. The prevalent mood in Russian
folk-songs is one of melancholy or of brooding, wistful
tenderness--very often in the old Greek modes, the Aeolian, Dorian and
Phrygian. From this we see the close connection existing between the
Russian and Greek Churches. The Russian liturgy is exceedingly old,
and Russian church music, always unaccompanied, has long been
celebrated for its dignified character, especially those portions
rendered by men's voices, which are capable of unusually low
notes,[305] as majestic as those of an organ.

[Footnote 305: In Grove's Dictionary, under Bass, occurs this
statement: This voice, found, or at least cultivated, only in Russia
is by special training made to descend to FF [Music].]

During the entire 18th century the development of music in Russia was
in the hands of imported Italians; the beginnings of a national type
being first made in the works of Glinka, born 1804. By the middle of
the 19th century two schools had arisen, the Neo-Russian group of
Balakireff, Borodin, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakoff and Moussorgsky, who
believed in the extreme development of national traits in melody,
rhythm and color; and a second group which was more cosmopolitan in
its tastes and believed that Russian music, without abandoning its
national flavor, could be written in a style of universal appeal. The
chief members of this group were Rubinstein and Tchaikowsky, and
distinguished pupils of the latter, in particular Rachmaninoff and
Glazounoff. To the world at large Tchaikowsky, of them all, has made
the strongest appeal; though he himself said that Rimsky-Korsakoff as
an orchestral colorist was more able, and certainly Moussorgsky has a
more strongly marked individuality. Tchaikowsky (1