superior to what is heard
elsewhere. The Russian peasant knows absolutely nothing about voice
production, nor, maybe, is he gifted with any unusual vocal material,
nevertheless, singing is closely bound up with every rural event of
his cheerless existence. During the last half-century many hundreds
of the native melodies sung by the Russian country people for
generations past have been collected and written down by different
musicians--Balakireff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Prokoudin, and Lisenko
amongst others. The variety of these folk-songs is astonishing.
They never become monotonous, each song having its distinctive
climax, and the air always suits the words. Often the untutored
singer has one melody in his _repertoire_, but intuitively he modifies
its strains according to the sentiment of his subject.

This general love of music applies as much to the noble as to the
peasant. "Where there is a Sclav there is a Song," says a Sclavonic
proverb, and no public ceremony or Court function is ever deemed
complete in Russia without an outburst of singing to heighten its
impressiveness. There is besides a marked dramatic ingredient in the
Sclavonic character. The typical Russian loves acting. To discover
this, it is only necessary to visit a Russian village and witness
the unconscious presentments of lyric drama or of desolate tragedy
set forth by the quaint rites of a country wedding or a rustic
funeral. Or study a Russian legend. It at once impresses you with
its wealth of dramatic situations most concisely defined. In this,
the Sclavonic folktale differs radically from its Celtic neighbour.
A comparison of the two types suggests that the Russian principally
desires a clear statement of facts; a poetic idea which must be
extracted from clouds of metaphor conveys but little significance
to his mind. An innate love of song, an innate love of acting, a
keen perception of dramatic unity, combined with a passionate love
of colour and a strong sense of movement--here surely, without any
manner of doubt, one has the basis of a well-nigh perfect school of
opera. Glinka, the cultivated musician, himself a Russian, thoroughly
appreciated these national qualities; indeed they were part and
parcel of his birthright. He could assimilate the characteristics
of his race and merge them into his own very remarkable originality.
The first product of the combined motors was _La Vie pour le Tsar_,
given at St. Petersburg in 1836. Fifty years later