For the most part it is given to a solo violin. It is a free melodic
phrase in Oriental bravura, gently ending in a free cadenza.
There is no development of themes in this strange work. There
is constant repetition in different tonalities; there is an exceed-
ingly skillful blending of timbres; there is a keen sense of possi-
ble orchestral effects. A glance at the score shows how sadly the
pedagogue might go astray in judgment of the work, without
a hearing of it, and furthermore, the imagination of the hearer
must be in sympathy with the imagination of the composer, if he
would know full enjoyment: for this symphonic poem provokes
swooning thoughts, such as come to the partakers of leaves and
flowers of hemp; there are the stupefying perfumes of charred
frankincense and grated sandal-root. The music comes to the
listener of western birth and mind, as the Malay who knocked
among English mountains at De Quincey’s door. You learn of
Sinbad, the explorer, who is nearer to us than Nansen; of the
Kalandar Prince who spent a mad evening with the porter and
the three ladies of Bagdad, and told of his incredible adventures;
and Scheherazade, the narrator, she too is merely a shape in a
dream; she fades away, and her soul dies on the high note ex-
haled by the wondering violin.
“The melody of this Russian is wild, melancholy, exotic; a dron-
ing such as falls from the lips of white-bearded, turbaned, ven-
erable men, garrulous in the sun; and then again, there is the
reckless chatter of the babbler in the market-place, heated with
unmixed wine.”
The most boldly individual of all Russian composers is Mous-
sorgsky[321] (1831-1881). Although of intense inspiration and
of uncompromising ideals his musical education was so incom-
plete that his technique was inadequate for the expression of his
message. As the French critic, Arthur Pougin well says, “His
works bizarre though they be, formless as they often are, have
in them a force of expression and a dramatic accent of which no
one can deny the intensity. It would be unjust to pretend that
he spoke for the purpose of saying nothing; unfortunately he is
too often satisfied with merely stammering.” As Moussorgsky
himself says: “Art is a means of talking with men; it is not an
end. Starting with the principle that human speech is subject
to musical laws, I see in music, not only the expression of senti-
ment by means of sound, but especially the notation of a human
language.” In fact the dominant idea of his music was to bring