taruskin versions of boris godunov

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Musorgsky vs. Musorgsky: The Versions of "Boris Godunov"Author(s): Richard TaruskinSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 91-118Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746756

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Musorgsky v s . Musorgsky:

T h e Versions o f B o r i s Godunov

RICHARD TARUSKIN

Practitioners of literary hermeneutics draw afundamental distinction between meaning and

significance. The former term refers to the in-trinsic sense of a text, the latter to its contextual

relevance. A complete act of understanding in-volves both interpretation and critique,2 that is,it attempts to take account both of meaning andof significance-what Husserl described as the

"inner and outer horizons" of any cognition.3When contexts are chosen for their historical

bearing on an object or text, the establishmentof significance amounts to a historical explana-tion of the object, as conversely it contributes to

the comprehension of the context. As anywhole is comprehended, its parts are explained.

This roundabout and perhaps gratuitous lit-

19th-CenturyMusic VIII/2 Fall 1984).? by the Regentsofthe University of California.Notes beginon p. 115.

When anartistrevises,it means he is dissatisfied.-Musorgsky to Rimsky-Korsakov,

15August 1868.1

tie disquisition is offered by way of justificationfor a fresh approach to what may seem a tired

and refractory subject. Boris Godunov, amongmajor operas, shares the dubious distinction

with Don Carlos of having the most complexcreative history and the most bafflingly abun-

dant "wealth" (asBudden put it of Verdi's opera)"of alternative and superseded material, so lit-

tle of which can be dismissed out of hand."4 Itspurely textual problems have been admirablyaddressed by three generations of scholars, be-

ginning with Pavel Lamm's epoch-making edi-

tion of 1928 and extending through Robert

Oldani's meticulous dissertation, completedexactly half a century later.5 But clarification of

the chronological, philological, and biblio-

graphical record has not put an end to debate asto what the

opera's optimumform should

be,or

what its composer's true intentions were

(whether or not these two questions are re-

91



CENTURY gardedas identical-a debate in itself). In factMUSIC the clarification has only exacerbatedthe de-

bate.Foras long as the focus hasbeenmainly on

establishing the texts of the two authentic (i.e.,authorial)versions of the operaand on describ-

ing their structures more or less indepen-dently-that is, on "meaning," as definedabove-no convincing rationale has ever beenofferedfor the revision in all its aspects,nor has

any serious rationale for choosing them everbeen proposed.

As a result, conflation has become the rule.

The more music (fromboth versions)a produc-tion includes, the greater ts claim to "authen-

ticity." Since absolute inclusiveness is impos-sible, for reasons that will emerge in thediscussion that follows, no two productionsseem ever to be textually identical, and hardlyany production-whether the text is Mu-sorgsky's "original"or one of the many subse-

quent redactions-precisely conforms to either

of the two versions Musorgskymadehimself.In part this situation has arisen from the

composer's reputation as an idiot savant, to be

second-guessed with confidence in one's ownbetter judgement. This is a view that even the

composer's staunchest supportersstill seem atleast tacitly to share, and one becomes used to

readingself-righteouscarpingat Rimsky-Korsa-kov's editorialexcesses offeredaspreface o jus-

tify editorial instrusions just as radical. But intruth,the situation is difficult and in some waysunique.

In the case of a composerlike Verdi,who wasa dominant presence on the operatic stage ofhis day, tracingthe versions-say, of Macbeth,Simon Boccanegra, or Don Carlos-means

tracing the history of their productions. The

changes made can be accounted for at least

partlyin terms of the practicalexigencies of thestage. Not only do these considerationsprovideexplanations, they also provideagreatdiversityof supporting documentation-performancematerial, letters, theatrical archives, etC.BorisGodunov, as is well known, was completely re-vised before there were any productions. In-

deed, revision was a precondition for produc-tion. Thus, not only is there very little

documentary evidence to explain the revision,but in addition the few practicalfactorsbearingon it-the demandsof the ImperialTheaters Di-

rectorate, the looming Russian censorship-have been traditionally emphasized far out of

proportionto their truerolein accountingfor it.

The question of censorshiphas been effectivelydisposedof by Oldani.6But even he accordsthe

rejection by the ImperialTheaters Directoratethe status of prime (orsole)motivating force forthe revision.7Other, less cautious writers haveseen fit to attribute everything about the revi-

sion, even its harmonic idiom, to the demandsof the TheaterDirectorate.8

It is here that considerations of "signific-

ance" can be of assistance. If Musorgsky'sver-sions are not only described but compared,andnot only compared but "inserted"9 nto suchvaster structures as the history of Russian op-era,that of Russianhistoriographyas embodiedin Russian art and literature, and Musorgsky'sown esthetic attitudes and their vicissitudes,we may come closer to an understanding,evenanexplanationof the way he revised his master-

piece. We may even arrive at an account of therevision coherent enough to at last suggestmo-tivation for all its aspects: the scenes added aswell as the scenes removed and the scenes re-

vised, the deletions in the remainingscenes aswell as the interpolations. To achieve this weshall have to consider the two Borises afreshfrommany angles:their ideologicaland histori-

ographical conceptions, their relationship to

the literary source in Pushkin, their dramatur-gical structures, their musical styles (involvingquestions of form, declamation, and the use of

leitmotiv), influences and models (includingsome quite unexpected),and the elusive yet all-

importantmatter of "tone."The thesis that will emerge fromthis funda-

mental reexamination will be one that viewsthe second version as no mere retouching,sup-

plement, or bowdlerization of the first, but anew opera, n many ways opposed,bothideolog-ically andmusico-dramatically,to the old. The

Imperial Theaters Directorate and its OperaCommittee, it will be argued,played an alto-

gethernegligible role in determiningthe natureof the new Boris (thoughits rejectionof the op-eramay have been the spurthat set the revisionin motion). A clear understandingof the diver-

gent tendencies representedby the two Boriseswill perhapsinhibit the rage to conflate. Suchinhibition should arise, in any case, not out of

92



any a priori ethical compunction, but out of abetter knowledge of Musorgsky, his time and

place, his work, its "meaning"and its "signific-

ance. "It is not our primary purpose to prescribeto

performers.As Buddenput it, referring o DonCarlos, "when performedwith sufficient musi-cal and dramatic understandingany combina-tion of versions can be made to sound convinc-

ing."10Andin the case of Musorgsky'swork,weare even preparedto add "anybody'sversion."We hold no moral grudgeagainst Rimsky-Kor-

sakov, Diaghilev, Shostakovich, Rathaus, orany of the other arrangers and impresarioswhose so easily derided abors have insuredthe

opera'ssurvival into our own enlightenedtime;in fact we thank them. But what sounds con-

vincing under the impressionofagreatperform-ance is not always convincing upon reflection,and there is a dimension of understandingthattranscends individual performances. Each of

Musorgsky's versions possesses a good dealmore integrity than either, but particularlythe

second, is usually given creditfor. A clearerpin-pointing of their unique qualities will renderthem more distinct as musico-dramatic entit-ies. These distinctions, perhaps,will make adif-ference in their appreciation.

I

The first public inkling that there was morethan one completed version of Boris Godunovwas given by V. V. Stasov in his lengthy necrol-

ogy, published in two installments by the jour-nal Vestnik Evropy within months of Mu-

sorgsky's death in 1881. "Originally," wrote

Stasov,

the operaBorisGodunovwas to haveconsistedof

onlyfour actsand was almostwhollydevoidof thefeminineelement.All those closest to Musorgsky,(myselfincluded),ecstaticallythoughwe admiredthemiraclesofdramaturgyndoffidelity othefolk[pravdy arodnoilwith whichthese fouracts werefilled, neverthelessremonstratedo him at everychancewe got that his operawas incomplete, hatmuch hatwasneededwas acking, nd hathowevergreat hebeauties hatalreadyxisted n theopera,tcouldseemoccasionally nsatisfactory.ll

Though (by Stasov's account)Musorgskyre-sisted these importunings as long as he could,

the opera's rejection by the ImperialTheatersDirectorate in February 1871 (Stasov incor-

rectly has "fall 1870")forced him round. It may

surprise those who have been conditioned byconventional accounts to despisethe much-ma-

ligned Directorate, to read how thoroughlySta-sov approvedof their decision. "Therejection,"he declared, "was extremely beneficial to the

opera; Musorgsky decided to expand it," as aresult of which "Boris Godunov achieved its

completed form [as]one of the greatest worksnot only of Russianbut of all Europeanart."

Stasov went on to list the additions Mu-sorgskymade to his operain 1871-72. First andforemost he placed the Scene at the Fountain,which, he claimed, hadbeen partof the concep-tion all along, and had been almost fully com-

posed, but then dropped-"God knows why"-and restoredat the urgingof Stasov andofVictorHartmann (the artist of the Pictures at an Exhi-

bition). For some reason Stasov failed to men-

tion the rest of the Polish Act, i.e., the scene inMarina'sboudoiror the confrontation betweenthe Pretenderand Rangoni, although from Mu-

sorgsky's letters to Stasov himself we nowknow that it was "the Jesuit" (Rangoni)that

chiefly inspired him in composing the Polishscenes.12Next, Stasov listed the genre interpo-lations for the minorwomen's roles (animaldit-ties all): the Hostess's song about the drakein

the Scene on the Lithuanian Border(hereafterthe Inn Scene),andthe three that went into theScene in the Tsar's Quarters in the Kremlin

(hereafter he Terem Scene)-the Nanny's songabout the gnat, the Tsarevich's "ClappingGame,"and his songabout his pet parrot.Third,Stasov listed the episode with the chimingclock at the endof the Terem Scene. Fourth, he

KromyForestScene, whose position at the end

of the opera was suggested by Musorgsky'sfriend, the history professor V.V. Nikolsky,who in 1868 had given him the idea of an operaon Pushkin's Boris Godunov to begin with. ("Iconfess," wrote Stasov, who enjoyed takingcredit for things, "that I was in despair and

deeply envied Nikolsky that it was he and not Iwho imparted to Musorgsky so brilliant, so

magnificent an idea.")Andfinally, Stasov listed

the offstage chorus of monks at the end of theCell Scene, forgettingto mention the other oneearlierin the scene at the end of Pimen's mono-

93

RICHARDTARUSKINMusorgskyvs.Musorgsky



C9ENTURY logue and the awakeningof Grigory,the futureMUSIC Pretender."None of these wonderful creations

of Musorgsky's would have existed," he ob-served in

conclusion,"ifhis

operahadbeen ac-

cepted immediately by the Directorate andmounted on the stage."

But Stasov did not tell the whole story. Hisaccount of the revision of Boris was one-sidedandself-serving,emphasizinghis own contribu-tions in the form of research-texts and situa-tions from Karamzin'sHistory of the RussianState, P.V. Shein's Russian Folk Songs, andother

sources, manyof them

incorrectlyiden-

tified.'3 His version stood, however, until the

year of the Revolution, when an extremely im-

portant article on Boris Godunov appeared nthe short-livedand now virtuallyforgottenjour-nal Muzykal'nyi sovremennik, the work of the

journal's editor Andrei Rimsky-Korsakov,sonof the opera's most notorious arranger.'4Rimsky-Korsakov had followed in Stasov's

footstepsas caretakerof musical

manuscriptsat

the Imperial Public Libraryin St. Petersburg(from 1918 to his death in 1940 he would behead of the Music Division). As a result both ofhis family backgroundand of his professionalactivities, he was intimately acquainted withthe manuscript sources of Musorgsky's chef-d'oeuvre, some of which still belonged to his

mother, and in his article he gave a detailed de-

scriptionof them. Fromthis it

emergedthat the

revision process had been no simple matter of

expansion and completion, but that much hadalso been deleted; and that what remained hadbeen extensively recast.

For the first time it now became publicknowledge that a whole scene in the first ver-sion had been done away with: the Scene at St.

Basil's, in which the Holy Fool (Yur6divy)had

originallymade his

appearanceand had con-

fronted the Tsar directly, as he no longerdid inthe revised version of the opera.'5And for thefirst time it was revealed that the alterationsinthe Terem Scene went so much furtherthan thehandful of additions listed by Stasov as toamount to a wholly new musico-dramatic con-

ception, far less directly indebted to Puskinthan the originalversion of the scene had been.

Rimsky-Korsakov reportedfurther that the

opening scene of the prologue,in the courtyardof the Novodevichy Monastery(Rimsky-Korsa-kov mistakenly called it the Chudov Monas-

94

tery,confusing it with the one in which the CellScenetakes place)hadoriginallyended not withthe chorus of pilgrims but with another crowd

scene,and that the Cell Scene had included a

lengthy narrationby Pimen describingthe mur-der of TsarevichDmitry, with atext drawn(likethe rest of the scene) verbatim from Pushkin.The only alterationsRimsky-Korsakovailed totabulate were fairly minor ones involving theend of the Inn Scenel6and the Death Scene. Inthe case of Shchelkalov's monologue in the lat-ter scene, the relevantmanuscriptwas unavail-able to

him;'7the rest of the

changesin the

death scene (all deletions) were small and es-

caped his notice. As we shall see, however,some were farfrominsignificant.

Having given his description,Andrei,his fa-ther's loyal son, proceeded to ratify Stasov's

judgement as to the relative merits of the ver-

sions, and in terms even stronger that Sta-sov's.18 His account at least suggested, though,that there had been differences in

conception,not merely in quality of execution, between

them, andthat the earlierof the two was recov-erable from the extant sources. This was bignews, but poorlytimed. Forthe next half-dozen

yearsthere was little leisure in Russiafor musi-

cological pursuits. But in the mid-to-late twen-ties Rimsky-Korsakov's hints began to bearfruit in the form of more detailed researchand

publication.As it happened,the next stage in the progres-sive revelationof the firstBoris was contributed

by a non-Russian scholar, though one with

strongties to Russianmusicological circles. Os-karvon Riesemann (1880-1934), who had beenborn in Reval (Talinn), Estonia, and had livedandworked chiefly in Moscow, publisheda bi-

ographyof Musorgsky as the second (and,as itturned

out, last)of a

projectedseries of Mono-

graphenzur russischen Musik.19His discussionof the versions of Borisis a garbledhash derived

(attimes verbatim)fromRimsky-Korsakov'sar-ticle. But he included, as an appendix,a vocalscore of the entire Scene at St. Basil's, whichconstituted the first publication anywhere ofmaterial belonging exclusively to the earlierversion of the opera.20Riesemann'spublicationwas immediately superseded, of course, byLamm's edition, which made both authorialversions of the opera available for study and

comparisonat last. Owing to some curious am-



biguities in its presentation, however, theLamm edition didnot make the relationshipbe-tween the two versions optimally clear. Be-cause the first and second versions of the

operahad so much music in common, Lammdeemedit expedient to present the two of them runningas it were concurrently. The St. Basil's sceneand the Kromy scene, for example, are part ofthe same apparentcontinuity (with the Deathof Boris between them). The two versionsof theTerem Scene are found side by side-with the

misleading labels "preliminaryredaction" and

"principalredaction." In

addition,all

passagesthat had been deleted from the first version inthe process of revision are as it were reinstated,so that the Cell Scene, foranothertelling exam-

ple, which had been subjectedboth to addition

(the offstage choruses) and deletion (Pimen'snarrative), is presented in a form containingboth the added and deleted items, that is to say,in a conflated form that represents neither ofMusorgsky'sown

"redactions,"but ratherwhat

amounts to "supersaturated" redaction ofLamm's. Also presented in this fashion is thedeleted excerpt that Lamm was the first to dis-cover: Shchelkalov's monologue (the "readingof the ukase") at the beginning of the DeathScene. Unknown to all previous writers, it

brought to four the number of majordeletionsfromthe first version of the opera.All were duly"restored"

byLammin his edition of 1928.

Lamm's presentation gave rise to a persistentmyth that the additions first describedby Sta-sov and the deletions first describedby Rimsky-Korsakov represented two different layers ofwork on the opera, and that there were in factthree versions. These were the original (1868-

69);an "1872"version

(datedafter the latest au-

tograph full score, that of the Kromy scene),which contained the 1869versionplus the addi-tions; andan "1874"version (datedafter the vo-cal score published by Bessel),which containedthe 1872 version minus the deletions. The dele-tions could then be variously explainedawayasthe result of the censorship, or of meddlesome-

ness, on the partof the ImperialTheater Direc-torate or on the part of EduardNapravnik,theconductor of the premiere. This hypothesisseems to have been explicitly articulatedforthefirst time by Gerald Abrahamin his suppleme-

tary contribution to Calvocoressi's posthu-mously published biographyof Musorgsky inthe Dent "Master Musicians" series (1946),where he asserted that the end of the Nov-

odevichy Scene and Pimen's narrative in theCell Scene were deleted only for the vocal scoreof 1874 and representedcuts made for the first

production "on the advice of Napravnik andothers."21But this thesis, unsupportedas it is byany evidence, has been rejected by all recent

Musorgsky scholars. It does not and cannot ac-count for the alternative versions of the Terem

Scene,orfor the

episodewith the

Yurodivyand

the boys which the St. Basil's Scene and the

Kromy Scene have in common. It rests, more-

over, on the mistaken assumption that the vo-cal score of 1874 represents the version of thetext performed at the premiere. Not only Pi-men's narrative but the whole Cell Scene wascut for the first production, as was the song ofthe parrot n the Terem Scene, yet the two latteritems were included in the vocal score.

Indeed,the score bore a legend on its title page pro-claiming that it was a "complete arrangementforpiano andvoice, including the scenes not of-feredforproductionon the stage."22

This erroneous interpretation of Boris Go-dunov's creative history was nowhere statedor implied by Lamm. While his chronologicaltable on p. xvii of the vocal score does listthree versions of the

opera,his "second ver-

sion" (representingthe manuscript orchestralscore of 1872) includes both the additions andthe deletions, along with the "principalredac-tion" of the Terem Scene. The "thirdversion"

(representingthe published vocal score), else-where referred to by Lamm as the "principalversion," differs from the second only in rela-

tively minor textual matters (bothemendationsand short

cuts).The most recent commenta-

tors-Lloyd-Jones, Reilly, Oldani-prefer not to

regardthese differences as sufficient to consti-tute a full-fledged "version," (andLloyd-Joneshas mildly rebuked Lamm for according the

printed vocal score precedence over the auto-

graphfull score.23)But all agreethat the differ-ences between the orchestral and vocal scores

represent a last layer of editorial work on Mu-

sorgsky's part. (Whatis not

agreed upon,and

what is not particularlyrelevant to our presentconcerns, is which layer-printed or auto-

graph-was the later one.) So to assert that

95




19TH Lamm was so naive as to think that "Mu-CENTURY

MUSIC sorgsky, while revising the opera, continuallyexpandedit but made no cuts ... until after the

revision had been composed and scored,"24sboth incorrect and disrespectful toward thework of a greatscholar.

Nevertheless, while it is possible to disen-gage the two authorial versions from one an-other in Lamm'svocal score (thoughnot in the"supersaturated" orchestral score preparedwith the assistance of BorisAsafiev),one needsto readthe footnotes andthe criticalreport o do

so, and few, it seems, have bothered. Shosta-kovich, for instance, orchestrating the operafromLamm'sscore, simply took the operaas hefound it there, so that his orchestrationrepre-sents Lamm's "supersaturated" edaction,withall deletions (including St. Basil's) back "inplace."

Lloyd-Jones'snewer criticaledition, while animprovement in clarity over Lamm's(since St.

Basil's is relegated to an appendix along withthe earlier version of the Terem Scene) is still,like Lamm's, a conflation. Thus the recent"world premiere recordingof the original ver-sion,"25which reinstates St. Basil's before theDeath Scene (according o what is by now a tra-dition fosteredbythe BolshoiTheater,Moscow,which commissioned an orchestration of thescene from Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanovto insert

into the Rimsky-Korsakov redaction), butwhich otherwise follows the Lloyd-Jones ext,also presentsa supersaturatedversion of the op-era.Ironically enough, to find arecordedversionof the operathat accords with Musorgsky'sownfinal version, one must now turn to one of theseveral based on Rimsky-Korsakov's econd or-chestration.26For this followed the vocal scoreof 1874 more closely than either Lamm or

Lloyd-Jones.

The firstmajorcommentator to make use of thenew material published by Lamm was his col-laborator in the preparationof the full score,BorisAsafiev, writing under his pen name IgorGlebov, in the year of the new score'spublica-tion, 1928. Predictablyenough, his was a revi-sionist

account, partlyintended as a

promotionfor the 1928 Leningradproduction of the 1869version, aimed squarely at the received Staso-vian/Rimsky-Korsakovianidea that the second

96

version was the true (or"complete")realizationof Musorgsky's conception of the drama.Against all expectation, wrote Asafiev, the

"preliminaryversion" turned out to be "moreintegrated, more profound,more complete andmore penetratingthan any of the revisions, in-cluding those of the author himself."27He thenwent on to claim that the earlier version had abetter-focused dramatic theme (conflict be-tween Tsar and people, "a social and politicaltragedy, not the tragedy of Boris's con-science"28),and a more concentrated dramatic

structure,while the second version ran off in alldirections, both external (the Dmitry-Marinasubplot)and internal (Boris'smelodramaticallyportrayed psychological torment), with theresult that the operawas reduced to "the per-sonal drama of Tsar Boris against a romanticbackgroundof popularrevolt."29

It is easy to see this thesis as typical of itsearly-Soviet time and place, and Asafiev to a

considerable extent recantedit later.30 tprovedinfluential, however, and even became some-thing of a received idea in its own right.It camewestward in a rather crudely articulated formwith Victor Beliaev's popularizingessay on theversion of Boris, which, as it happened, waspublishedin English by OxfordUniversity Press

(the British agents for the Lamm edition) twoyears before it appeared n Russian.31This ac-

count was heavily reliant on Asafiev, as Beliaevindirectly acknowledgedin his Foreword.32helatterwas even rasher han Asafiev in his claimsfor the firstversion, to the point of flatly contra-dicting the Stasovian position: "The composerdid not revise the opera because he himselffound, after its first production, that it was insome respects unsatisfactory, but because itsstaging depended upon a number of alterations

required by irrelevantpersons and external cir-cumstances"33-an assertion as unsubstanti-ated as it was crass.Thus was the legend of themalign Directorate born. "Inview of this," con-tinued Beliaev, "the 'final'version of Boris (thecomposer's vocal score, published by Bessel in1874 andnow reissued)cannot possiblybe con-sidered authentic in the full meaning of theterm. "34

The aura of exclusive authenticity whichnow attached to the 1869 version of the operalent it a prestige that few who now wrote aboutit could resist. A certain aesthetic snob appeal



19TH Quite so! And the point about "that whichCENTURY

MUSIC Musorgskyhimself denied in his later work"isa perceptive one that will rewardpursuit. Still,Isakhanova has far from "explained"the newBoris.For f increasedmasterycan bethoughttoaccount for the revisions, strictly construed,itcanaccount forneither the additions nor the de-letions. To explain the additions,one must stillinvoke the Theatrical Directorate, and no onehas yet explained the deletions satisfactorily.

The latest majorcontribution to the debate,that of EdwardReilly, illustrates the dilemmawell. Like Gozenpud,

Reillyrefrains from stat-

ing a preference for either version. He calls the1869Boris "one of the most strikingattemptsat

operatic reform in the entire nineteenth cen-

tury ... ahighly compressedcloseddrama,a sin-

gle dramatic arch with a well-defined begin-ning, middle, and end,"43 and claims that

Musorgskytamperedwith this excellent struc-ture in orderto "meet some of the criticisms hehad received." But

Reilly'slist of criticisms

(some of them extrapolatedrather than docu-

mented, which tends to bend the argument ntoa circle)-the lack of a love story, the lack of a

major eminine role,and the cutting short of the

past of the False Dmitry, "the potential tenorhero"-in no way correspondswith the list ofrevisions he gives one paragraphlater: theHostess's song, the songs of the Tsarevich andthe

Nannyin the Terem

Scene,the

"chimingclock," the rewritten dialogue of Boris and

Shuisky, the introduction of Rangoni,the exci-sion of the St. Basil's scene, and the additionofthe one at Kromy.Only those aspectsof the Pol-ish Act directly involving Marinaand the Pre-tender answer to the needs Reilly indicated.The resulting version of the opera "is more

overtly complex, somewhat less tightly orga-

nized,and more varied in musical

style"than

its predecessor.44t merits performanceof a parwith the first version because of its greaterac-

cessibility: it is "much broader n scale, longer,more variedand at certain points more overtlytheatrical and 'operatic' in the conventionalsense. Musically it is somewhat less even in

quality, but the new passages include some ofthe most lyricalandimmediately appealingpor-tions of the work."45While Reilly's

personalpreference is clearly for the first version, hegrantsthat "both versions... have distinct mer-its of their own, closely boundupwith the com-

98

poser's carefully thought-out conceptions, andeach deserves independentproductions."46

But Reilly does not really show that the con-

ceptionswere

carefullythoughtout. He

merelyasserts that they were.47And as always, the de-letions are a stumbling block: St. Basil's is

passed over in silence, while with regardtowhat Reilly (followingAbraham)calls the "ma-

jorcuts in the 1874 vocal score,"i.e., the end ofthe first scene of the prologueandPimen's nar-

rative,he remarks that they

will (and hould) lwaysremainasubjectordebate.Bothepisodesareso richdramaticallyndmusicallythat it is painful o see themremoved.Yet I thinkMusorgskywas quite properlyconcernedby thelengthof his greatly xpanded ewversion,and eltthatsomeof thestrongnner elationshipsf the irstversion houldbede-emphasizednhis newschemeofthings.48

The last remark seems a nonsequitur,

andthe whole passagecanbequestionedon groundsof chronology, since it still assumes that Mu-

sorgsky first expanded,then cut.49But neitherof these points is the chief problem.Whethertoinclude this or that item within a freely con-flated Boris will (and should) be endlessly de-bated, as Reilly says, for these will always bematters of taste. Butunless anaccount of the re-vision of Boris can show

why preciselythose

numbers that were cut hadto go, then it is reallyno account at all, if byaccount a coherentexpla-nation, rather than a mere description, ismeant. I believe that by bringinga number ofhitherto neglected factors,both internalandex-ternal,to bearupon the problem,such an expla-nation can be attempted. The rest of this essayis that attempt.

IIThe version of Boris Godunov that Mu-

sorgsky began in September 1868 and com-

pleted on 15 December 1869 was exactly thesort of operathat those who knew him wouldhave expectedfromhim at that particularpointin his career.The originalBoris was anoperadi-

alogue, a "numberless"recitative operabasednot only in subjectbut in actual text on apreex-istent play. Its immediate model was Dargo-myzhsky's The Stone Guest, to the text of



Pushkin's "Little Tragedy"of 1830, begun inearnest in 1867 (though conceived as early as

1863)and still in progressalongside Borisup toits creator'sdeath at the

beginningof 1869. Its

immediate predecessor was Musorgsky's ownunfinished Marriage,to the text of a comedybyGogol, on which he had workedduringthe sum-mer of 1868.

The motivating premise behind all theseworkswas an extremist-realist contemptforop-eratic librettos with their provision for "musi-cal forms," and the belief that the highest real-ization of

opera'spotentialwould come about

when composers would "perform"great playslike inspiredactors. Music would be used to fixand control the rendition of the lines, thus im-

parting to them an emotional impact theywould otherwise lack, just as the words wouldlend the music in return an otherwise unattain-able specificity of intention. The need for spe-cificity reveals the positivist basis of the aes-thetic that ruled these works-a bias muchmore pronouncedin Musorgsky,who had livedin a "Chernyshevsky commune" and who hadread Gervinus's Hindel und Shakespeare,thanin Dargomyzhsky, who sometimes complainedthat his younger colleague went too far in hismusical empiricism. The same bias is revealedin the emphasis on accurate declamation as keyto an authentic musical expressionbased on the"natural"model of speech.50

In The Stone Guest, Dargomyzhskyhad com-

pletely rejected melismatic prosody (andwith

it, the possibility of vocal display) and had

adopted a fairly regular and moderate tempoakin to that of declaimed poetry. In Marriage,based on a prose text, Musorgsky,while adopt-ing an aesthetic stance no less ascetic, went ina somewhat different direction. His declama-tion was far more naturalistic than

Dargo-myzhsky's, full of "anti-lyrical"augmentedanddiminished intervals, wide leaps reflecting the

comically exaggerated contours of agitatedspeech, and exceedingly finicky rhythms set toa faster, more "conversational" tempo. By thetime he had set one act, however, Musorgskyfound his "experiment in dramatic music in

prose"confining-"a cage,"as he put it in morethan one

letter-owingboth to the

paltrinessof

the subject matter and also to the tendentious

rigorof his method. He was eagerto turn his at-tention to something more significantandcrea-

tive, the more so since his friendRimsky-Korsa-kov hadjust embarkedon the grandioseprojectof turning Lev AlexandrovichMey's historicaldramaPskovitianka ("TheMaid of Pskov") ntoa modified opera dialogue. So he fairly leapt atVladimirNikolsky's suggestion that he do thesame with Pushkin's BorisGodunov.

This play had everything, starting with an

important historical theme, something thatwas especially relevant in the late 1860s, whenhistorical drama,chiefly involving the periodofIvan the Terrible and the "Time of Troubles"that

followed,was

becomingthe dominant the-

atricalgenre n Russia.51PskovitiankawasaboutIvan's reign.)Pushkin provideda "Shakespear-ean" mixture of poetry and prose, tragedyand

comedy, which would vouchsafe the opportu-nity to combine the approachesof The StoneGuest andMarriageandevade the monotony of

style that hadplaguedboth works;a wide rangeof character types from boyar to beggar,to be

portrayednaturalistically throughdeclamation

in the manner of the songs Musorgskyhad been

writing since 1866; and a large role for the

crowd, making good the one lack Cesar Cui,speakingfor the kuchka, had noted in evaluat-

ing The Stone Guest as an operatic "canvas."

And, perhapsnot least, owing to the "predomi-nance of politics" in it and the absence of ro-

mance, Boris Godunov had been pronouncedunfit for

operatictreatment

byAlexander

Serov,the chief musical pundit of the day, to whomthe Balakirevcircle hadgrownincreasinglyhos-

tile, especially since his unexpectedly success-ful 1863 debut as an operacomposerin his own

right.52 Selecting Pushkin's play as a subjectwas thus an act of typically realist esthetic bra-vado. Political bravado, oo (or t was justkuch-kist quixoticism?), since as of 1868 Pushkin'sBoris-like Mey's Pskovitianka, for that mat-ter-was still under the censor's ban. (It was

finally stagedin 1870.)The only drawbackBorisGodunovpresented

was its length. As a full-scale play, unlike the

extremely compressed Stone Guest, it wouldhave to be adaptedfor operatic use, not set intoto as it stood. Comparisonof the 1868-69 li-brettowith Pushkin'splaywill show how deter-mined

Musorgskywas that the

adaptationbe

kept to aminimum; at this point in his careerhewas verymuch the aesthetic doctrinaire.Exam-ination of his specific selections andomissions

99




C19TH will also show how he viewed the drama,andCENTURY

MUSIC might cast doubt on some commonly held

points of view, i.e., those which tout the first

Borisas a "single dramaticarch"(Reilly)or as a"social andpolitical tragedy" Asafiev).

There is no need to proceedin detail, scene byscene, as that has long since been definitivelyaccomplished by GeraldAbraham.53But sinceAbraham'smain purpose was to compare thevarious Borises rather than to comparethe first

version with its literary source, there was noneed for him to make the kind of generalobser-vations our present purposes require. These

may be easily extracted fromhis data,however.

Musorgsky's fidelity to Pushkin in 1869 was

nearly total. With the sole exception of the hal-lucination in the Terem Scene there is nothingin the action ofMusorgsky'sdrama hatwasnot

present at least by implication in Pushkin's.As

to the actual words of the libretto, while it issomething of an exaggerationto claim, as Mu-

sorgsky did on the title page of his 1874 vocal

score, that "[the] subject [was] borrowed from A.

S. Pushkin's dramatic chronicle of the same

name, preserving the majority of his verses,"54it is certainly true that the majority of the 1869libretto's verses are in Pushkin-the very greatmajority.

Two scenes in the opera-the Cell Scene andthe Inn Scene-were full-fledged, verbatim op-era dialogue settings of complete scenes in

Pushkin, only slightly abridged. The former

took as its text a scene cast, like all of The Stone

Guest, in blank iambic pentameters. The latterwas set to an extended comic scene in prose,like all of Marriage. The melodic and declama-

tional styles of these two scenes closely resem-ble those of their respective prototypes. A com-

parison of a typical passage from Pimen's partwith one from that of Don Juan in The Stone

Guest (disguised, as it happens, as a monk) willdemonstrate the similarity of Musorgsky's and

Dargomyzhsky's approaches to settingPushkin's poetry (ex. 1).

PIMEN P

a. ! b:ev 7 I nX r I t f r F1 5 5 Iza- sve-tit on, kak ia, svo- iu lam- pa- du i, pyl' ve- kov ot khar- tii o- triakh- nuv, prav- di- vy- e ska- za- n'ia pe- re-

cresc. dim.

3n >r

1 1r \ r7-r-'-n---r ir

r

-

-pi- shet Da ve- da-iut po- torn- ki pra- vo- slav- nykh zem- li rod- noi mi- nuv- shu- iu sud'- bu.

[Some aboriousmonk will]kindle,asI,his lamp,and romtheparchment haking he dustof ages,will transcribemy chronicles,that thusposterity, he bygone ortunesof the orthodoxof their own landmaylearn ..

(Trans.AlfredHayes, ThePoems,Prose,andPlaysofPushkin,p.343.)

DON JUAN

b". ' " r rnDav- no i- li ne-dav- no. sam ne znaiu No stoi po- ry lish' tol'- ko znaiu tse- nu mgno-ven-noi

A k

z-- k i p I

zhi- zni, tol'- ko s toi po- ry po- nial ia, chto zna- chit slo- vo

How longI've beenin love Ido not know,butonly that since that hourI've knownthe valueofthis brief ife, yes, only since thathour I've understoodwhathappinesscouldmean.

(Trans.A.F.B.Clark,Poems, Prose,and PlaysofPushkin,p.453.)

Example 1: a. Boris Godunov, ed. Lamm, p. 53.

b. The Stone Guest (Moscow, 1932), pp. 104-05.

100

8"scha- st'e."



These two passages, perfect specimens ofwhat Cesar Cui called "melodic recitative,"have been chosen to illustrate two declamatoryfeatures in

particular.The first is the manner of

starting phrases with anacrusesof a full beat'sduration,even though this does not naturalisti-

cally reflect Russian speech patterns. It pro-duces, rather,what one Soviet writerhas called"rounded ntonational periods,"55 nd its "nat-uralmodel," if such it be, is not conversationalspeech but the emotionally exalted tone Rus-sians invariably assume when, even today andeven in casual

surroundings,theyrecite

poetry.The passage from Dargomyzhsky exhibits thetrait in amore consistent fashion,forhis style ofmelodic recitative is more unremittinglylyricalthan Musorgsky's. The younger composer re-serves the device forthe climactic couplet, "Davedaiut .. .," where he draws out the conclud-

ing notes, (e.g., "pravoslavnykh")as well, thus"rounding"the "intonationalperiod."

The other characteristic declamational de-vice has been termed the "mute ending"

(glukhoe okonchanie): the naturalistic render-

ing of words that end on unaccented syllables,producing,typically, a pairof eighth notes (ora

triplet)on a

beat,with the

beginningof the next

beat void. In the Boris excerpt this happenson

"perepishet";in the one from Dargomyzhsky,compare"nedavno"and "ne znaiu" in the firstline. In settings of poetry,this trait is special ef-

fect, honored as often in the breach as in the ob-servance. In the examples cited, Musorgskyuses it as a foil againstwhich the lyricalclimax

(including the drawn-out "pravoslavnykh") sset off.

Dargomyzhskyuses it as an

expressivedevice, to impartasense of breathless(and, o be

sure, affected) urgency to Don Juan'sseductionof Donna Anna.

In Musorgsky's settings of prose, however,the mute ending is very much the rule, forherenaturalismin declamation is the main concern.

Virtually any passagefromMarriageorfrom theInn Scene in Boris could serve as illustration.

Example2 shows one fromeach.

The plethora of rests effectively precludes

RICHARDTARUSKINMusorgsky vs.Musorgsky

POLICEMAN

a-2 > r7 4 /" I i nr $ ^ f IF 7 ^' I^F} }A vot chto: A- lio- kha! pri te- be u- kaz? Da- vai siu-da! Vi-dish':

7X Bu 6 6 t T i 6 1 P r

^B1B7--Iiz Mosk- vy be- zhal ne- kii e- re- tik, Grish- ka 0- tre- p'ev. Zna-esh' li ty e- to?

Here'swhy: Aliokha! Haveyou got the ukase?Giveit here!Look:A certainheretic,GriskaOtrepiev,has escaped romMoscow.Didyouknowthat?

PODKOLIOSIN

. 3cres'-- piu cresc.

A khlo- pot- li- va- ia, chort voz'- mi, veshch', zhe-nit'- ba! To, da sio, da e- to. . . Chto- by

: ?* ?Li

-r fr -i pT 3 i' 3 3

'2: 6P IIe xp p 6 Pt 7,~b ( F bp bPBB- i (

to, da - to by- lo is- prav- no. Net! Chort po- be- ri, to neak l e- ko, kak ka- - sia.e- to ne tak leg- ko, kak ka- zhet- sia.

It's a troublesome hing, marriage,devil take it! This, that,andthe otherthing...everythinghas to be just so. No! Whatthe devil, it's not as easyas it seems.

Example 2: a. Boris Godunov, pp. 110-11.b.Marriage Moscow, 1933),pp. 14-15.

101



19TH anyhint of "lyricism"here. Andnote how thor-CENTURY

MUSIC oughly mixed are the note values, and how

freely duple divisions of the beat alternate with

triple.These traitsare "drawn romlife."Innor-mal, conversational Russian speech, the tonicaccent is very strongandtends to fall into a pat-tern of fairly isochronous "beats,"with the un-accented syllables arranging hemselves evenlybetween them like gruppetti.Tripletsaresuper-abundant in the "conversational" Inn Scene;they arealmost absent in the "declaimed" CellScene. The two scenes sum up between them

the state of the declamatoryart in extremist-re-alist Russian music, vintage 1860s. That, in

fact, was to a largeextent their raison d'etre.These fully-incorporatedscenes account for

only two out of Musorgsky's seven (in 1869),and-more to the point-only two out ofPushkin's twenty-five. How were Pushkin'sre-

maining twenty-three boiled down to Mu-

sorgsky's remaining five? The solution was of

the Gordian Knot variety. Musorgsky simplythrew out all the scenes in which the title char-acter failed to appear, leaving a total not of

twenty-three but only six from which to adapthis text.

For Borishimself loomed not nearly as largein Pushkin's scheme of things as in Mu-

sorgsky's. Indeed, calling his play Boris Go-dunov was merely the poet's tendentious nodin

the direction of Shakespeare'sHenryIV andhisheavy crown. The tradition to which his playbelonged was that of the "Demetrius play," a

genrethat had its heydayin the SpanishandEn-

glish theaters of the early seventeenth century(Lopede Vega, Fletcher),and continued to pro-duce specimens well into the nineteenth. Im-mediate predecessors of Pushkin's Demetriusdrama ncludedplays byKotzebue(1782),Schil-

ler (1805),and, in Russia, Sumarokov(1771).Inall of these plays the Pretender was the title

character,the Tsar merely his target(the samewould be true of Hebbel's Demetrius, com-pleted in 1864,andOstrovsky's Dmitry the Pre-tender and Vasily Shuisky of 1867).56

Now, while the balance between the twomain characters is more even in Pushkin thanin the work of his predecessors, he factremains

that Dmitry is on stage more of the time thanBoris (eight scenes), and is portrayedjust as

imaginatively and"roundly"as the title charac-

ter. Neither Tsar nor Pretendercan be said todominate Pushkin's drama.It is a true "chroni-

cle," for which reason"Russia,"or,more senti-

mentally, "the Russianpeople"is often cited asits protagonist.Dmitry couldjust as easily havebeen the central characterof the operabut forthe inevitable attractions exerted by the tor-turedfigureof the Tsar on the imaginationof a

composer reared in the Dostoevskian sixties,and the opportunities the role affordeda practi-tioner of opera dialogue by its wealth of beauti-ful (and famous) soliloquies. Perhaps,too, the

relative brevity of Boris'srole was itself seen asan asset, since the scenes containing it, whenisolated and reshuffleda bit, produceda highlyconcentrated(ifnot altogethercoherent)drama.

Hereis asummaryof how Musorgskydistrib-uted and dovetailed the material of Pushkin'ssix Borisscenes to make the rest of his 1869 li-bretto:

Sc.4 (TheKremlin alace): oris'speecheso theas-sembledboyars ndPatriarchhis irstappearancentheplay)wereexcerpted ndadaptedoproducehecentralmonologuentheCoronationcene.Thedec-orativechoral ableauxon eithersideof the mono-logue were Musorgsky'sidea. The addedtext,though,amounts o no more han hatof thefamous"Slava" nd wo lines forShuisky.

Sc. 11 (TheTsar'sPalace):This sceneprovided,n

courseof actionand n words, he frameworkf theTeremScene.Afairly engthy xchange etween heTsarand heboyarSemyonGodunovwasreplaced ya heavily abridged araphrase.he hallucination tthe end was originalwith Musorgsky probablypromptedby Holofernes'shallucinationscene inSerov's udith). wice his scene s interruptedy n-terpolationsrom-

Sc. 8 (TheTsar'sPalace):Aftera briefexchangeortwo courtierswhoexitimmediately ponBoris'sn-

trance, hissceneconsistswhollyofthe Tsar's reatShakespeareanoliloquyaboutkingshipand con-science.The firstthirty-sevenines,boileddowntotwenty-nine, ecamehe centralmonologue, IHaveAttained the Highest Power"(Dostigia vyssheivlasti),while sevenof the last nine inesbecame heclosingmonologuemmediately recedinghehallu-cination.

Sc. 19(Squaren frontof the CathedralnMoscow):This sceneclosely corresponds ith the St. Basil's

scenein the opera.Musorgsky dded he chorusofthepeoplebeggingbread ndtheconcludingepriseof theYurodivy'song.

102



Sc. 17(TheTsar'sCouncil)and Sc. 22 (TheTsar'sPal-

ace): Episodesfrom these two scenes were conflatedto producethe Death Scene. Scene 22 furnished thefarewell to the Tsarevich and the "beginningof the

ceremony of the tonsure," as Pushkin put it in theconcluding stage direction, that is, the ritual of mo-nastic vows with which the Russian Tsarspreparedfor death. This gave Musorgskythe idea for the cho-rus of monks at the conclusion of the scene. The ac-tual death agony was Musorgky's;Pushkin let thecurtain fall on the tonsure ceremony. Shuisky's re-portto the boyarsof the Tsar'shallucination was ob-viously Musorgsky's,as the hallucination itself hadbeen.

Fromscene 17, curiously enough, Musorgskycut

out Boris's own lines. One of his speeches, however,became the basis for the decree readby Shchelkalovat the beginningof the Death Scene.57The main ap-propriation rom scene 17was the tale of the miracleworkedby the sainted InfantDmitry, told in the playnot by Pimen-who, of course, logicallyhas nothingto do with the Tsar-but by the Patriarch.

To this Musorgsky attached a prefatory scene

(Novodevichy) derived from two crowd scenes(scenes 2 and 3) near the beginning of Pushkin's

play, and his libretto was complete.58It was in every way an opera dialogue li-

bretto, and in setting it Musorgsky maintained

with fair consistency the two declamational

styles illustrated above with respect to the Cell

and Inn Scenes, depending upon whether the

text at a given moment was verse or prose. The

St. Basil's scene was the only other scene be-sides the Inn Scene written entirely in prose;elsewhere, wherever Musorgsky set Pushkin di-

rectly, the text is verse. The only (partial) excep-tion is the Terem Scene, which in the Pushkin

original mixes prose and verse. Musorgsky fur-

thered the mixture by frequently paraphrasingthe text, especially in the concluding mono-

logue and in the episode with Shuisky, substi-

tuting his own prose for Pushkin's verse. And inthese passages, accordingly, the second decla-

mational manner takes over from the first. This

applies as well to the crowd music in the open-

ing scene at Novodevichy, especially the clos-

ing section, after the chorus of pilgrims has

ended. Here, in one of the boldest declamatorystrokes in the entire opera, Musorgsky wrote a

scene for the chorus in naturalistic prose recita-

tive, over an orchestral continuityderived from

fragments of themes from the orchestral Intro-duction and the pilgrim's chorus.

This device of orchestral continuity was onewhich Musorgsky had just recently hit upon,andwhich he now cultivated very deliberately.

In composing Marriagehe was confrontedwitha severe problem of musical coherence (onewhich, in the opinion of many-including hisfellow kuchkists-he did not adequatelysolve),caused by his deliberately asymmetrical andathematic prose recitative. This hurdle was sotroublesome that it forced Musorgsky to re-write completely the single act of Gogol's playhe managedto finish, which therefore exists in

two distinct versions contained in two auto-graph fair copies: the standard version, in-scribedto Stasov(atthe PublicLibraryn Lenin-

grad), which served as the basis for both

publications of the work,59and what we may inthis case justly designate a "preliminaryver-sion,"now at the Glinka Museum in Moscow.60The revisions affected the vocal parts hardlyatall-a pitch or note value here, a rest there. But

the accompaniment was altogether trans-formed. From a virtual "secco" it became a

fairly elaborate affair,commenting on the dra-matic goings-on at times wittily (e.g.,the "cur-licues" that so amused Dargomyzhskythat hecould never proceed at private runthroughsinSt. Petersburgwithout stopping to laugh61),attimes in a naive "mickey-mouse" fashion. At

times, moreover, the revisions in the accompa-

niment aspiredto a higher, structurally unify-ing purpose. One such instance, especiallystrikingas it bears direct witness to the compos-er's intentions, comes near the end. Over thephrase given in example3a (seep. 104), n whichthe bachelor anti-hero Podkoliossin expresseshis perennial inertia and cold feet, Musorgskypencilled in a note to himself, "on the openingphrases of the first scene" (na khodakh 1-i

stseny). In the revised version (ex. 3b), the ac-companiment is made to incorporatea refer-ence to the melodic phrasethat opens the opera(ex.3c), producinga sort of primitive leitmotiv.

Nor is this the only instance ofrecurringmo-tives in the second version of Marriage.Eventhe first version had a few, but they were asskimpy andhaphazard n their development asin The Stone Guest, where the only characters

to sportidentifying themes62wereDonnaAnna,the Statue, and, most improbably,one of thesmallest roles of all, the Monk (or rather,

103




KOCHKARIOV

A

PODKOLIOSIN

'f^ ,iP

a.e-c- - 7v ^ r 7 6r iI7F V g r

Da, ved', ty so- gla- sen!la? Nu

net,ia esh- cho ne sov- sem so-

gla-sen

<a khodakhI-istensy

r - z- -5

KOCHKARIOV PODKOLIOSIN

".! I 1 i5 l^r 1.. i.6 6Da, ved', ty so- gla- sen! Ia? No net, ia esh-cho ne sov-sem so-gla-sen

ii: , X- , fK;

Well, hen, you agree!l 0i

Well, then,you agree!I?Well,no, I don'tyet entirely agree.

etc.

c

bb-Example3: a. Marriage, irstversion (after acsimile in Sovetskaia muzyka 28/3 [March,1964], 83).

b. Marriage, econdversion(Moscow,1933), p. 60.c. Marriage,p. 1.

"monks in general,"since the theme is also as-sociated with the disguised Don Juan).Thesethemes of Dargomyzhsky's were mere tags,

used mainly to accompanyentrancesandexits;rarelywere they calleduponto sustain the kindof continuity (onehesitates to use the wordde-

velopment) found on so many pagesof Boris.Inthe revisedMarriage,on the otherhand,identi-

fying themes areappliedanddeployedfarmore

systematically, and it is evident that by usingthem Musorgsky sought to compensate for the"formlessness"of his setting, in which the vo-

cal lines are so much less structured thanDargomyzhsky's.Everycharacter n the revised

Marriage (except for the manservant Stepan)

has at least two identifyingthemes, which recurso often that the accompaniment seems attimes a veritable patchwork. However abun-

dant, though, these themes remain static com-ponents of what remains,by andlarge,a "punc-tuating" orchestra,and they do grow tiresomeas the act wears on. Butthere is one outstandingexception to this generalization: the match-maker's Fiokla's lengthy enumeration of a

dowry (the longest speech in the play). Mu-

sorgskyset the whole thing as continuous elab-

oration, moto perpetuo style, of the signature

tune that announcedher first entrance(ex.4).These methods of deploying identifyingthemes were a permanent acquisition for Mu-

104

19THCENTURY

MUSIC




Example4: Marriage,p. 17.

sorgsky.Nor should we forgethis Salammb6of

1863-66, where recurring motives had alsoplayed a conspicuous role, not only structuralbut also dramaturgical.Mato's prison mono-

logue in act IV,evidently modelled on Ivan Sus-anin's act IVmonologue in A LifeFor the Tsar,makes striking use of recallingthemes as Matoreflects upon the past action of the drama.63

The leitmotiv treatment in Borisrepresentsakind of synthesis of the identifying-themetech-

nique one finds in Marriageand the recalling-tune device one encounters in Salammbo, justas Boris itself representsa kind of synthesis ofthe operatic genres representedby Musorgsky'stwo earlier attempts. The use of identifyingthemes is pervasive.Inhis analysis of the opera,Andrei Rimsky-Korsakov identified and dis-cussed motives for the six most importantchar-actersin the first version of the opera:Boris(ac-

tually a whole complex of themes about whichthere will be more to say later), the Pretender,Prince Shuisky, Pimen, Varlaam,even Fyodor(the Tsarevich).64He could have gone a gooddealfurther,as he noted himself in callinganar-

bitraryhalt to his survey: "The dimensions ofan article do not permit us in the present con-nection to dwell in detail on the minor charac-ters"65; ut it is preciselyhere, amongthe small

fry,that one can best appreciate he rigorof Mu-

sorgsky's procedure. Literally every characterwho appears in more than one scene has an

identifying theme, whether Shchelkalov at thetwo ends of the opera,66 r the police officer(atNovodevichy, the Inn on the Lithuanianborder,and-by implication-St. Basil's: quite a

beat!).67 Even Mityukha, the representative of

the crowd, has a fleeting phrase that identifieshim both in the Novodevichy and St. Basil's

scenes (ex. 5). And although Xenia appearsinonly one scene, Borissings to heror abouther in

two, and in both he does so to the same orches-tralmusic.68

As for Boris himself, we have alreadynotedthat no one theme is used to characterizehim inall his manifestations. This befits the complex-ity of the role. But what is strikingis the extentto which the accompaniments to his utter-

ances-particularly the two big soliloquies inthe Terem Scene-are woven out of a practi-cally seamless fabric of leitmotivs. "I Have At-tained the Highest Power" is based rigorouslyon two themes-both salvaged from Sa-lammbo-which seem to have been meant to

present the Tsar's two contrasting sides. The

first, an arching, aspiring melody that had per-meated the big Temple Scene in the earlierop-

A A

_.4 AA A J J

1-A AA A

A AA

r- "A

I

A A

,,,, A, I,/ A A A A A f̂A= A ==-

:}j 1 ,+1_LyzLI11W rl 11 _ - r I-~~~~~~~~~~~- -l _ -.

t-_t

Example5: a. BorisGodunov,p. 10.b. Boris Godunov,p. 307.

105

b.

I~C~-~Srr~l fft~ifcf r

-tvntolIj



CENTUrY era,69seems to be associated with Boris's nobleCENTURY

MUSIC qualities and frustrated good intentions. It isfirstheard where he complains (inLloyd-Jones's

translation), "In vain the wise astrologersfore-tell long life, and years of glory, free from tur-moil, "70and later it accompanieshis promiseof

mercy to Shuisky (ex. 6):

Vln.I

Example 6: Boris Godunov, ed. Lloyd-Jones(London, 1975),II,978.

The other motive, filled with dissonant chro-matic intervals, seems to be associated with theTsar'sagony of remorse, and with punishment:in Salammb6 it had been the melody to whichthe Pentarchs pronounced the death sentenceon Mato.71 nBoris,it is first heardwhere the ti-

tle character laments, "God in his wrath sentfamine to our land," and in the scene with

Shuisky it contrasts directly with the first mo-

tive, when Boris follows his promise withthreats (ex. 7):

Vcl.

^f --C--rf=

Example7:BorisGodunov, ed. Lloyd-Jones,II,984.

At the end of the Terem Scene, a lengthy se-

quence built out of this second motive givesformto the soliloquy beforethe hallucination.72

There are more. Boris's first appearance nthe opera n the CoronationScene, his speeches

in the St. Basil's Scene, andhis

central mono-logue in the Terem Scene are all introducedbythe same motive, which thus takes on the at-tributes of an identifying theme for the titlecharacteron aparwith those associated with allthe other personages n the opera.73Andfinally,two subsidiary recalling themes may be noted:the hallucination, as first witnessed and laterdescribed by Shuisky,74 and the melody to

which,in the Terem

Scene,Boris hints

obliquely to the Tsarevich of his own death("Some day, and soon perhaps,this whole king-

dom will be yours"). It returns, as it were on

schedule, in the Death Scene, and is used to in-troduce the farewellmonologue.75

But if the role of Boris is the one most thor-oughly permeatedwith leitmotivs and reminis-

cences, it nevertheless does not contain themost conspicuous and significant theme in the

opera that bears his name. That one, whichOldani has aptly termed "the opera's idee

fixe,"76belongs, of course, to Dmitry. The pro-gressof the Dmitry theme throughthe course ofthe drama, he way it stalks the Tsarand,in par-

ticular, the vagariesof its signification, have al-ways been among the special fascinations ofBoris Godunov.

In the initial version of 1869, the theme,when we first hear it, refersunambiguouslytothe "real"Dmitry, the one who died at Uglich.This happens during Pimen's narrative,at the

words, "the murderedTsarevichlay in a pool ofblood"(ex. 8a), and the againat the words, "all

at once the corpse began to shake" (ex. 8b).When, at the end of the narrative,Pimen tells

Grigorythat had he lived, the Tsarevichwouldhave been "your age, and would be reigning"(ex. 8c), the motive comes back, this time ad-justedto the majormode, in which formit is of-ten associated with the Pretender.

Before the appearanceof this transformationof the Tsarevich motive, Grigory(not yet the

Pretender)had actually been given a differentidentifying theme of his own in the 1869 ver-sion of the Cell Scene, to accompanyhis two ac-counts of his propheticdream(ex. 9). This mo-tive disappearedfrom the operain 1871 whenthe passage in which it first appearedwas re-written to providethe offstagechorus. Butsincethe chorus does not sing duringthe passagethat

replaced the second appearanceof the motive,

we may deduce that Musorgskyhad other rea-sons forremoving the theme when revisingthe

opera,reasons to which we shall return.The Tsarevich/Pretendertheme thus having

been given its "doubleexposition,"it continuesto refer ambiguously either to the "real"or tothe "false" Dmitry, depending upon the con-text. Throughoutthe Inn scene, of course,it re-fersto Grigory, he characteron stage.But in thenext scene

(the Terem)it reverts to its

originalmeaning as Boris,at the very end of his central

monologue, recalls his crime (ex. 10). When

106




The murdered Tsarevich lay in a pool of blood;

chu-do!... vdrug mert- vets za- tre- pe- tal...

(M* -'

,P Ilw _1I

-dh4.

A mrac . Al at oe te c'

A miracle!... All at once the corpse began to tremble...

He would be your age and would be reigning!... But God decreed otherwise.

Example8: a. BorisGodunov,ed. Lamm,p. 73.b. BorisGodunov,p. 76.

c. BorisGodunov, p. 77.

-?-~~~r I> t=r

II)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

,,.j. JI-.

-

--"J.

= -_..'-"~

Example9: BorisGodunov, p. 56 (fn.}.

107

T.

rkp



C9NTURY Shuisky brings news of the Pretender, and in-CENTURY

MUSIC forms the Tsar that he has taken the name Dmi-

try, the motive comes back in precisely the key,

the harmony and the orchestration (woodwindoctaves over tremolo strings) that had markedits first association with Grigory in the CellScene (ex. 10; cf. ex. 8c above). And from here onthe motive begins to take on its sinister ambigu-ity within the Tsar's terrified mind.

In the remarkable passage given in example11, Boris's mounting fear is conveyed in a pas-sage constructed wholly out of intensifying iter-

ations of the Dmitry motive. It is impossible todecide whether the reference here is to the realor false Dmitry. And that is precisely the pointof it: in Boris's mind they have meshed.

Three more times the Dmitry motive issounded during the Boris/Shuisky exchange, incontexts where the text makes it clear the real

Dmitry is its referent.77 But the third time (atthe beginning of Shuisky's arioso), the motive

sounds forth ironically in the Pretender's majormode-we are hearing it through Boris's ears

(ex. 12, seep. 110).

In the St. Basil's scene, there is no ambiguity.The considerable spate of music built on the

Dmitry motive (figs. 13 to 15) accompanies a

passage in which the crowd discusses the Pre-tender's advances. (When the "real" Dmitry is

mentioned, between figs. 10 and 11, the motiveis withheld, as the text makes reference to a Re-

quiem service for the slain Tsarevich, and thecrowd believes him alive in the person of the

Pretender.) At the beginning of the Death Scene,the boyars refer (fig. 15) to just such gullible pop-ular support for the Pretender as the St. Basil'sscene had shown, and once again the Dmitrytheme is heard in unambiguous reference to thePretender-the "risen Dmitry" as the peoplebelieve him to be. Once Boris is on stage, how-

ever, ambiguity returns. To which Dmitry doesthe motive refer in conjunction with Boris's hal-

They allegethat Iwilled the death ofDmitry,the Tsarevich

SHUISKY BORIS ,3--

b.V|rf r ^n1.B^ ^*?I

Di- mi- tri- ia vos- kres- nuv- she- e i- mia! Di- mi- tri- ia! Tsa- re- vich, u- da- lis'

^*<_ *'

iLi J5S_=

j % r r b r W ^ r -r

o

... The resurrectednameofDmitry.Dmitry!Tsarevich,go away!

Example 10: a. Boris Godunov, p. 137.b. Boris Godunov, p. 144.

108



:? - 1 1' r -1 . . r i ~Zx ^..sly- khal li ty kog-da ni- bud'... chtob de- ti mert-vy- e iz gro-ba vy-kho-

?j1- 3 ^' b ^

t)

t

i?

3

i br

-di- li... Do- pra- hi- vat' tsa- rei... tsa-

y fs 'lity ̂^t-y.i^-ff*

b r aif-r

t J = J

crese.

: r" T ~,1~'

r a5' 'I-rei za- kon- nykh... na- zna- chen-nykh, iz- bran- nykhvse- na- rod- no...

crcresc.re

r = t r s ! " = S C w = T r

, f r f f f - f f r t t ^ r y hU- ven- chan-nykh ve- li- kim Pa- tri- ar- khom... kha, kha,

kha, kha,kha,kha,kha...

i V r M P Atf cresc. f f= ==- f

(9 _ mom_:w S ,.

Haveyou everheardof deadchildrenrisingfrom theirgraves oquestiontsars? .. lawful tsars,named,elected of the people

and consecrated by the great Patriarch ... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ...

Example 11: Boris Godunov, pp. 145-46.

109

RICHARDTARUSKIN

Musorgskyvs.Musorgsky

RC)RTI



[Tranquillo]Not rushing, elaxed

SHUISKY:Whispers ecretively

Tri dnia U- gli-che,so- bo- re ia trup mla-den- tsa na- ve- shchal.

t 3 _ _

PD"" r~~~~~~------

3 3

For hreedaysin Uglich cathedral stoodbythe boy'sbody.

Example 12: Boris Godunov, p. 151.

lucination (fig. 27)-the "live" one or the"dead" one? And when Pimen recounts his in-sidious tale of the angel-Dmitry, one againhears the major-mode leitmotiv (fig. 44) as if

throughBoris's ears. It is throughthese touchesabove all that we are made to "see" musically

into Boris's soul, and are made so painfullyaware of the Tsar's predicament-in Reilly'swords, "Boris himself finally cannot distin-

guish what is real, and is literally frightenedtodeathat the specterthat has risen in his mind totaunt him"78--that we seem to experience it

along with him. This magnificent ambiguity,and the empathy to which it gives rise, are

clearly the work of a musical psychologist of

genius.

But however impressed we may be with thecumulative impact of the Dmitry theme, it willnot do to claim for the 1869 Boris,as so manyhave done,a structuralunity it does not possess.Those who assert the initial version to bea "sin-

gle dramaticarch,"ora concentrated "collision

of two hostile forces-Tsar and people,"79aresimply forgetting the pairof scenes amountingto the entire "secondpart"of the initial version,and to the entire first act of the revisedversion,devotedto the earlystagesof the Pretender'sca-reer. This pair of scenes-whole scenes from

Pushkin, one recalls, not conflations-gives amuch closer view of Grigory/Dmitrythan the

precedingpair had given of Boris, even though

Grigory is given no long monologues (sincePushkin had given him none). And then, at theend of the Inn Scene, he jumps out of the win-

dow-and out of the opera!It is hardlyreason-able to supposethat Musorgskywould have fol-lowed the career of the future Pretender so

closely up to this point if it had been his priorintention to drophim so abruptly rom the castof characters. It is for this reason that we can

readily credit Stasov's contention that theScene at the Fountain,at least, hadbeen partofthe original plan, even though not a shred of

documentaryevidence survives in support.Onecan even surmise when Musorgskysketched itfor the originalversion of the opera.

The seven scenes comprisingthe initial ver-sion of Boris Godunovwere composedin order,as may be verifiedby the dates on the autograph

vocal scores.80Five out of the seven scenes aredated, and the missing dates can be easily ex-

trapolated.For the undated Inn Scene, we haveStasov's testimony that Dargomyzhsky heardit,81which means that it was at least sketchedout before 5 January1869,when Dargomyzhskydied82-a date that falls comfortably betweenthose of the scenes immediately preceding(theCell Scene, completed 5 December 1868) and

following (theTeremScene, completed21 April1869).83The other undated scene is the Death

Scene, whose periodof composition may be ex-

trapolatedby comparingthe date of the St. Bas-il's scene (22 May 1869) with that of Stasov'sletter to his brother Dmitry, in which he fol-lows the information that "Musorgsky has

finally finished BorisGodunov" with a descrip-tion ofPimen's Death Scenemonologue(18July

1869).84These datesnot only allow us to ascertaintheorderin which the scenes were composed,but

110

19TH

CENTURYMUSIC



also to judge the speed at which Musorgskyworked.If we take "October1868,"the date in-scribedby Musorgskyin his volume of Pushkininterleaved with blank

pagesfor

writingthe li-

bretto,85as the starting point, then the Nov-

odevichy scene (4 November 1868) was com-

posed in something like a month; theCoronation Scene (14 November)in a mere ten

days; the Cell Scene (5 December) in three

weeks; the Inn Scene ("1869") in somethinglike a month. The next date of completion isthat of the Terem Scene: 21 April 1869,or closeto four months later. Even if we allow for the

greater length of the Terem Scene and assign it

(say)a two-month gestation, andeven if we as-sume that Stasov's letter to his brother waswritten very close to the actual date of the com-

pletion of the Death Scene, which would allowthat relatively short scene a generous twomonths in the writing, theredefinitely seems tobe some lost time between the Inn and theTerem. One

mayhazard a

guess, then,that this

is when Musorgsky sketched an initial versionof the Fountain Scene.

One can guess, too, that this version wouldhave borne scant resemblance to the one weknow. It would have to have been, like the restof the 1869 libretto, a severe opera dialogue ad-

aptation of Pushkin's text. So there would havebeen no Rangoni,though theremight have beenPushkin's

verydifferent Pater

Czernikowski;there could scarcely have been a polonaise(thoughPushkin had one), given the inordinatekuchkist-realist scruples about divertissement

Musorgsky would have had to overcome in or-der to write one; and of course therewouldhavebeen no culminating love duet. Marina's exitlines in Pushkin are cold and haughty as ever:"Until you've overthrownGodunov,I'llhearnotalk of love." Pushkin's Fountain

Scene,despiteits romantic setting, was just one more scene of

political intrigue. (Pushkinthought of this as atour de force: "A tragedywithout love appealedto my imagination," he wrote in 1829 to Niko-lai Raevsky.86)No wonder, then, that Serov andeven Cui thought it impossible for music. Mu-

sorgsky, having tried to set the FountainScene,probablycame at first to the same conclusion.

But if this iswhy

theGrigory/Dmitryplotline came to its sudden end, one has to ask why

the pairof scenes devoted to the Pretenderwere

left in place. Forit is absurd to arguethat withthe loss of the Pretender the operasufferednoloss in dramatic unity. Explainingthis lacuna

awaybecame a

majorstumblingblock forthose

committed to establishingthe superiorityofthe1869Boris.The usual solution was to claim it asa virtue by sheer critical fiat. Thus Calvo-coressi:

A very remarkable eatureof the originalversion(one, ndeed, hat makes t somethingunique n thehistoryof yricdrama)s thatGrigoryever eappearsafterhe has effectedhisescapentoLithuania ndbe-

gunhis activitiesasthePretender. e remains n thebackground,voked time aftertime by referencesmadeby Shuisky,byBoris,bythepeopleandbythecouncillors [i.e., the boyars].87

Or as Reilly puts it, "the imposter Grigoryisgiven just enough concreterealityto become anever more menacing psychological reality asDmitry in the remainder of the work."88 Just

enoughfor

whom, though?Not for those he

menaces, for they never see him at all. The

"psychological reality" is Boris's perception;the "concretereality"is (presumably) he audi-ence's. The one does not contribute to theother; Reilly's point is self-contradictory.If thePretender is powerful because he is unseen,then omitting the "secondpart"ofthe 1869ver-sion would be a gainin dramatic ntensity, not aloss. No information is

conveyedto the audi-

ence by the Cell orInn Scenes that would be in-

dispensable to follow the course of a dramashorn of them. The audience could as well betold of the Pretender's rise along with Boris,when Shuisky brings his terrible news in theTerem Scene. In short, the Cell andInn Scenesare superfluous to the "single dramatic arch"the initial version is so often purportedto be,and which indeed it would be without

them.If, after dropping the Polish scene, Mu-

sorgskyhadgonebackandremovedthe "second

part" as well, he would have been left with adramaderivedsingle-mindedly from the Boris-dominated scenes in Pushkin's sprawlingchronicle. This would have been a drama fo-cused entirely on Boris'srise and fall. It wouldhave been an unprecedentedlyterse,yet sweep-

ingand

wholly logical progression-a piecede-

cidedly more bien faite than Pushkin's. Byturningthe poet's unruly playinto awholly per-

111




CENTURYsonal and psychological drama of conscience

MUSIC and nemesis, Musorgsky would have indeedachieved his "single dramatic arch," andachieved a unity of impression that would vir-tually have turned Pushkin's historical scenesinto another "Little Tragedy"like The StoneGuest.

But this he did not do, forhow could he have

dispensed with his "second part"?The reasonhe needed it lay partly in Pimens's narrative,which, it could be argued,makes a substantivecontribution even to a conception of the drama

wholly centered on Boris, for it contains the

only account in the play of the details of Boris'scrime. And the Cell Scene also introduces the

all-important Dmitry leitmotiv in a dramaticand"organic" ashion that would have been dif-ficult or impossible to achieve elsewhere. Butthere cannot be any such "strict"justificationfor the Inn Scene. Its raison d'etre has to be

sought not in the contribution it makes to thedramatic structure of the opera,but in its

spe-cific qualities as a scene. As the most extensiveprose scene in Pushkin's play, and one thatfulfilled the "Shakespearean"requirement ofcomic relief, it was doubly a "must" for Mu-

sorgsky,fresh fromthe compositionof Marriageand still so deeply committed to the most un-

compromising brand of post-Dargomyzhskianrealism. Setting the Inn Scene was another "ex-

perimentin dramaticmusic in

prose";t recom-

mended itself not on the basis of its dramaticfunction, of which it possessed little in Mu-

sorgsky's radically scaled-down version ofPushkin's drama,but as an inviting, nay com-

pelling, musical opportunity.And once the InnScene was retained,the Cell Scene didbecomea

dramaturgicallynecessarypreface.What we have then in the 1869 version of

Boris is a set of scenesvery roughly

hewn fromPushkin's unwieldy block of poetic marble,se-lected accordingto diverse andunrelatedcrite-ria. On the one hand we have the "dramaticarch" achieved by the radical expedient of ex-

tracting and conflating all the scenes fromPushkin in which the title characterappears;onthe other, a couple more scenes that recom-mended themselves for musical and stylisticreasons. Farfrom

showinghow

carefullyMu-

sorgskystructuredhis dramaticconception,thefirst Boris boldly displays a quintessentially re-alist disdainfor a well-made play.

112

It remains to examine the ideologicalandhis-

toriographicalcontent of the initial version ofBoris. This can perhapsbest be done by omit-

tingthe "second

part"altogetherfromconsider-

ation, for reasons related to the foregoingdis-

cussion, and inquiring into the way the fate ofthe title character s understoodand treated. In

particular it will mean testing Asafiev's idea,which has been faithfully echoed since (espe-cially in the Soviet Union, but not only there),that the central theme of the initial version ofthe operais that of "popularunrest," "the lossof

popularfaith in the

powersthat be and their

downfall,which takes place in parallelwith therise of popular discontent." "All the rest,"Asafiev stoutly maintained,

areoutcroppingsn thesurface:hepalacentrigues,thepersonalragedy,headventuretories-all thisis merely the coloring,the "anecdotal" "soby-tiinoe"]content,and also the consequences f themainpremise-consequenceshat couldhavebeen

otherwise.89In testing this hypothesis, we must remem-

ber that it is reallyPushkin'sideologywe are n-

vestigating. The nature of the relationship of

operato play in the first version was such thatthe composer was more or less bound willy-nilly to adopt the poet's vision of events, how-ever selective that adoption may have been.Once this is

admitted,Asafiev'scontentions be-

come not only untenable but downright para-doxical.

As all students of Russian literature know,Pushkin found the subject of his drama,andeven in large part its treatment, ready-made nKaramzin's History, a very paradigm ofCaesaristic historiographyand a prime propofthe Official Nationality of the Nikolai I era. For

Karamzin,he

legitimacyof a ruler

dependedon

anything but the consent of the governed-wit-ness his famous treatment of Ivan the Terrible,whom he despised and condemned, but whose

right to rule he never questioned. He even

praisedRussia for having endured Ivan's mon-strous tyranny "with love for the autocracy,forshe believed that God sends plagues, earth-

quakesandtyrantsalike."90Boris Godunov was

presentedas a

justruler

tragicallydoomed

bya

crime-exactly as Pushkin presentedhim, and,following Pushkin, Musorgsky.

The opening words of Karamzin's second



chapter on Boris, the chapter that describes his

downfall, will bring both Pushkin and Mu-

sorgsky forcibly to mind:

Havingattained his ends,havingrisenfrompetty ser-vility to the heights of power by dint of tireless effortandinexhaustible resourcesof guile,perfidy, ntrigue,and villainy, could Boris enjoy to the full the gran-deur his soul had so craved-a grandeurpurchasedatso high aprice?And could he enjoythe puresatisfac-tion of his soul, a soul so beneficent toward his sub-jects and therefore, so deserving of his country'slove?At best, not forlong.91

This was the model for the great central mono-logue in which the "Tsar-Herod" bares to theaudience the soul so dramatically described byKaramzin. As the historian declared:

This wise sovereign, rightly acclaimed throughoutEuropefor his high-mindedpolicies, his love of en-lightenment, his zeal to be true father of his country,finally for the fine conduct of his social andfamiliallife, would have to taste the bitter fruit of lawlessnessand become one of the most astoundingvictims ofheavenly judgement. Its harbingerswere the inneranxiety of Boris's heart and the various calamitiesagainstwhich he asyet still struggled ntensely, withall the steadfastnessofhis spirit,only to findhimselfall at once enfeebled and as it were helpless againstthe ultimate manifestation of his awesomefate.92

What we have here, then, is a drama of neme-sis and of the defiled conscience of a just man-

the very stuff of personal tragedy since Aeschy-lean times. The Pretender, not the people, wasthe Fury. What topples the Tsar is not popularunrest but "heavenly judgement." That unrestis characterized, with anything but approval, asthe "bitter fruit of lawlessness," a scourge oncrown and populace alike. What Karamzin,with a scholar's reserve, merely called the "in-ner anxiety of Boris's heart," became for

Pushkin his defining trait. And Musorgsky, go-

ing much further than Pushkin, translated this

anxiety into a palpable specter-palpable not

only in the famous, if melodramatic hallucina-

tion, butthroughout

theopera

in the form of the

Dmitry leitmotiv.

Musorgsky strengthened the theme of con-science over anything in Pushkin in other ways,too-not all of them of the subtlest. The end ofthe Terem Scene proceeds from the closingspeech of Pushkin's scene 11, in which Boris,

reeling from Shuisky's revelations, momentar-

ily falters (how unlike Musorgsky's portrayal!)before

regaininghis composure:

I choke! ... Letme drawbreath!I felt it; all my blood surgedto my faceAndheavily receded. .93

to the concluding lines of Pushkin's "HighestPower" soliloquy in scene 8, with which Mu-

sorgsky prepared Boris's hallucination:

But f she[i.e.,conscience]

efoundTo have a single stain, then misery!With what a deadlysorethe soul dothsmart;The heart,with venom filled, beatslike a hammerAnd dins reproach nto the buzzing ears;The head is spinning,nausea torturesone,And bloody boys revolve beforethe eye.94

At the joint, Musorgsky interpolated a line ofhis own-"O cruel conscience, how horriblyyou punish me!" (O sovest' liutaia, kak

strashno ty karaesh'!)-and, lest anyone missthe point, gaveit a climactic setting, which con-tains not only the highest, but also the longestnotes in the whole title role as of 1869 (ex. 13a).Inview of what we shall have to say lateraboutthe ideological differences between the firstBoris and the second, it seems aproposto notehere, in advance, that the setting this line re-ceived in the second Terem Scene is wholly de-

void of this climactic quality (ex. 13b).

BORIS f42E

9Ni I I I X (1

0 sovest' liu- ta- ia.

-0- -OI -

kak strashno ty ka- ra- esh'!

- t ? t 0L -_

b. - rK -P v If p.j!)t - IT I I

O sovest' liu- ta-ia, kak strash-no ty ka- ra-esh'!...

Example 13: a. Boris Godunov, p. 153 (version of 1869).b. Boris Godunov, p. 223 (version of 1871).

113

RICHARDTARUSKIN

Musorgskys.Musorgsky

-lA#r-, .r



19TH Even more telling is the way Musorgskyhan-CENTURY

MUSIC died the tale of the miracle-workingTsarevich.In Pushkin's play the tale is narratedby the Pa-triarch

Jobin the course of a

meetingof the

Tsar's Council at which methods are beingsought to deal with the spreadof popular sup-portfor the Pretender.The tale of the miracle isoffered as proof that the Tsarevich is indeeddead and the Pretenderan impostor. The Patri-archfollows the tale with this advice:

ToUglichthenIsent,where t was earnedThatmanysufferers ad ikewise ound

Deliverance t thegraveof the Tsarevich.This s mycouncil: o the Kremlin endThe sacred elics,place hem nthe MinsterOftheArchangel;learlywill thepeopleSeethen thegodlessvillain's raud;he fiend'sDreadmightwillvanishas a cloudofdust.95

In Musorgsky's version the tale-rather im-

probablygiven to Pimen, an unlikely visitor tothe Tsar's Council if there ever was one, but

well known to the audience as Boris'simplaca-ble foe, and associated furthermorewith thePretender'sbeginnings-becomes the final in-strument of nemesis and brings on the fatalseizure.

The argumentthat the centralconflict in the1869 version of Boris was between ruler andruledusually centers on the Teremmonologuesandespecially on the St. Basil'sscene, their one

and only direct confrontation. Of the first ver-sion of "I Have Attained the Highest Power,"Asafiev has written that "fromthe point of viewof the dramaticimpulse-popular discontent-Boris'saspect and the characterof his thoughts... are more clearly motivated [than in the revi-

sion]."96But while populardiscontent is men-tioned in both versions of the monologue, onlyin the second version is it connected with the

crime andusurpation.Givenbelow is Pushkin'soriginal passage (sc. viii, 19-31)-Musorgskyset all of it in 1869 except "The living power...only the deadthey love"-followed by his owntext forthe revisedTerem scene:

PUSHKIN:

I thoughtTogive my people glory and contentment,

Togaintheir

loyallove and

bygenerous gifts,But Ihave put away emptyhope;The ivingpowers hateful o the mob-Onlythedead hey ove.Wearebut ools

114

When our heart shakes because the people clapOrcryout fiercely. When our and was strickenBy Godwith famine, perishingin tormentsThepeople uttered moan. I openedto them

Thegranaries,I scatteredgold amongthem,Found abor for them;yet for all my painsTheycursedme! Next, a fireconsumed their

homes;I built for them new dwellings; thenforsoothTheyblamed me forthe fire!Such is themob,Such is its judgement!97

MUSORGSKY:

Famine, ndplague, nd earanddevastation...Likewildbeasts hepeople oam, trickenwith dis-

ease:AndRussiagroansnhunger nd npoverty..Inthis afflictiondire, ent downbyGodForallmygrievous ins apunishment,Theynameme causeofall theseevilthings.Andcurse he nameofBoris verywhere!98

Only in the revision, in otherwords,andonly tothe extent that Musorgsky departed fromPushkin's text, are the people cast in the role of

nemesis, a role solely reserved in the originalversion for Boris's conscience and its "objectivecorrelative,"the Pretender.

In the St. Basil's scene it is the Yurodivywhois usually cited aspersonificationorrepresenta-tive of the people's wrath. But he is neither. Hestands apartfrom the crowdin every way. The

people think the Tsarevich is alive; the Yuro-

divy knows he is deadat Boris's hand.The peo-

ple remain submissive to Boris. They do notthreaten him. In their chorus of supplication(Musorgsky'sidea, not Pushkin's) they addresshim as theirLittle Father(batiushka);the Yuro-

divy challenges and insults Boris, calling himthe "Tsar-Herod."At this the crowd, accordingto a stage direction due to Musorgsky, not

Pushkin, "disperses in horror."The Yurodivy,then, far from representing the people, is one

more embodiment of dreadnemesis, one morepersonification of Boris's conscience.99

But the people do not lack a representative.For what else is Mityukha? He epitomizeseverythingthat characterizesthe crowdin playand in opera alike-passivity, gullibility,dullwittedness, ignorance,apathy.ForPushkin,the crowd was no more than a comic foil on a

parwith the drunkenmonks in the Inn Scene.It

has been amply demonstratedhow the poet far-cically (and "realistically") caricatured themonolithic crowd behavior chronicled by



Karamzin.10And as for the Yurodivy,Pushkin,with characteristic heartlessness, describedhim as "a very funny young fellow" in an off-handletter to a friend.'10

There is no theme of "Tsar vs. People" inPushkin, nor is there any such theme in the

original musical drama which Musorgsky so

sedulously modelled on Pushkin. That camelater. And Asafiev knew it. Obliquelyrecogniz-ing that the people play no active role in theevents depicted by the opera,he was reduced to

asserting that they hate Boris not for his crimebut with a mere "instinctive hate"'02-only in

this way could he draw them at all into the es-sential dramatic framework.An unprejudiced,logical view of the dramahas to leave them out-

side, aspassive sufferers,and aspartof the back-

groundto the events portrayed.Thus the initial version of Boris Godunov

was precisely that "personaldramaof TsarBoris

on a romantic backgroundof popularunrest"which Asafiev affected to discern in the revisedversion.'03But of course this was the very taskforwhich Marriage,and the general example of

Dargomyzhsky's realism, had prepared Mu-sorgsky-the revelation of character and emo-tion throughthe musical speech, or as he put itto Stasov, "the living man in living music."'04Where Musorgsky had gone even further thanhis predecessorwas in the applicationof Dargo-myzhskian techniques to the chorus,105nd inhis incrediblydetailed remarks andstage direc-tions to the

principals,not only on the delivery

of lines but, even more tellingly, on reactions tothem. The first version of BorisGodunovis the

apogeeof that tendency in Russianoperawhichviewed the role of composeras a kind of exalteddramaticexecutant orregisseur. 06

(Tobe continued.)

NOTES'Modest Petrovich Musorgsky,Literaturnoenasledie, ed.Alexandra Orlova and Mikhail Pekelis (henceforthMus:LN),I (Moscow, 1971),107.2Cf.August Boeckh'sclassic division of the science of her-meneutics. Kritik he defines as "thatphilologicalfunctionthrough which a text is understood not simply in its ownterms andfor its own sake, but in order o establish a rela-tionship with something else, in such awaythatthegoal s aknowledge of this relationship itself" (Encyclopidie undMethodologie derphilologischen Wissenschaften[Leipzig,

18861,p. 170,asquotedin E.D. Hirsch,Jr.,"Objective nter-pretation,"Publications of the ModernLanguageAssocia-tion 75 [1960], 463). To Hirsch'sarticle,andto his laterex-pansion of its theoretical premises in The Aims ofInterpretation Chicago, 1976),Iowe the wayIhave framedmy point of departurehere.3See Helmut Kuhn, "The Phenomenological Concept of'Horizon'," n Philosophical Essaysin Memoryof EdmundHusserl,ed. MarvinFarber Cambridge,Mass., 1940).4JulianBudden,TheOperasof Verdi,III London,1981),38.5The Lamm edition of the vocal score of Boris Godunov,containingafull criticalreport,was the first volume of M. P.

Musorgsky,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, publishedjointlyby the State Music Publishers(Muzgiz),Moscow,andUni-versalEdition,Vienna.(Inthe Kalmusreprintof the Lammedition, the Borisvocal score is the secondvolume, not thefirst.)Also ofprimary mportance s Lamm'sarticledescrib-ing his source work: "Vosstanovleniepodlinnogo teksta'BorisaGodunova'," n Musorgskii:"BorisGodunov,"Stat'ii issledovaniia (Moscow, 1930),pp. 13-18. The most au-thoritative edition of the full score of the operais that ofDavid Lloyd-Jones London,1975),also with a full criticalreport.Valuable for its clarification of the tangledmess ofeditions andredactions n whichMusorgsky'smusic hasap-

pearedover the

yearss EdwardR.

Reilly,TheMusicofMus-sorgsky:A Guide to theEditions (NewYork,1980).Thesec-tion on Boris originally appearedas a "Scorography"!]inthe Musical Newsletter 4 (Fall 1974), 10-17, 23. Finally,

Oldani's dissertation,New Perspectiveson Mussorgsky's"BorisGodunov"(UniversityofMichigan,1978),contains achapteron "Stemmata,"which has beenpublishedas "Edi-tions of Boris Godunov" in Musorgsky: In Memoriam1881-1981, ed. Malcolm H. Brown(AnnArbor, 1982),pp.179-214.6Seech. 5 of his dissertation,also publishedas "Boris Go-dunov and the Censor,"this journal2 (1979),245-53. Hisconclusion: "The censors may have provided Musorgskywith a rationalization that the loss of the Cell scene [from

the premiereproductionin 1874]was perhaps orthe best,but their directeffect, it now seems clear,was minimal."7NewPerspectives,p. 143.Lacking urtherdocumentation,his furtheraccount of the revisionamounts to no more thana chronicle drawn from the dates on the autographsand afew scattered remarksin the composer'sletters (pp. 143-46).There is no explanation,no evaluation,not even a com-parisonof the two versions beyonda descriptivetable enu-meratingtheirrespectivecontents.The question,in fact,iselaboratelybegged (pp. 233--40),appeal being disappoint-ingly made to Musorgsky'sputatively chronicuncertaintyas to "whatform [his works]shouldtake" and his "indeci-

siveness, possibly a result ofhis amateur's raining" p.237)with Calvocoressi cited as authority. It is the old idiot sa-vant view again, hardlya "new perspective"on the com-poserorhis work.8E.g.,MaureenCarr,"The Sound of Mussorgsky," OperaNews 39/12 (25January1975),p. 25: "Theplayingdown ofmodality in the revision probably ndicates an attempt tomake the operamorepleasingto the ImperialTheater com-mittee."9Cf.Lucien Goldmann: "Theillumination of a meaningfulstructure constitutes a processof comprehending t; whileinsertion of it into a vaster structure s to explainit" ("Ge-

netic StructuralistMethod in the Historyof Literature,"nMarxism and Art, ed. B. Langand F.Williams [New York,1972], p. 249).'?TheOperas of Verdi,III,156n.

115




19TH "This andthefollowing quotationsfromStasov'snecrologyCENTURY aretaken from VladimirVasilievich Stasov,Izbrannyeso-

MUSIC chineniia II(Moscow,1952),197-98.1218April 1871.Mus:LN, I, 122.'3Forcorrectives see Mikhail Pekelis, "Musorgskii-pisa-tel'-dramaturg," ntroductoryessay to Mus:LN, II (Mos-cow, 1972), 18-19; Alexandra Orlovaand MariaSchneer-son, "AfterPushkin andKaramzin:Researchinghe Sourcesfor the Libretto of Boris Godunov,"Musorgsky: n Memo-riam, ed.Brown,esp.pp.253, 267; andmy "The Present nthe Past: Russian Operaand Russian Historiographyca.1870," in Russian and Soviet Music: Essays for BorisSchwarz,ed.Malcolm H. Brown(AnnArbor,1984),pp.77-143,esp. 121-32. In the two last-namedcontributions,Sta-sov's assertions vis-a-vis Karamzin are scrutinized. Formore on P. V. Shein'sfolkloreanthologyandStasov'suse ofit on Musorgsky'sbehalf,see the appendix o the forthcom-

ing secondpartof the presentarticle.'4AndreiRimsky-Korsakov, "'Boris Godunov' M.P. Mu-sorgskogo,"Muzykal'nyi sovremennik 5-6 (January-Febru-ary 1917),pp. 108-67.'5Actuallyaverybriefand naccuratereference o this scenehad been included in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov'sdiscus-sion of Boris n his Chronicleof MyMusicalLife, (trans.Ju-dah A. Joffe[London, 1974], p. 110), originallypublishedeightyearsearlier, n 1909.'6Unknown to even Lamm,this was first made known byLloyd-Jonesn the criticalnotes to his edition (vol.II,p.23).He also printed a facsimile of the original ending of the

scene (plate4, following p. 71 of the second volume of theedition). The facsimile has since reappearedn the NewGrove12,871.'7Lammdiscoveredit among Stasov'spapers n the PublicLibrary,Leningrad.See the critical notes to his vocal score,p. xxiv-xv (Russian),xxxvi (German);also Lamm, "Vos-stanovleniepodlinnogoteksta 'BorisaGodunova',"p. 21.'8"At his stageof life, Musorgsky-by naturenot at all dis-posed(unlike, forexample,his friendRimsky-Korsakov)omerciless self-criticism-had notyet had time to nurture nhimself that pathologicalamour-proprewhich manifesteditself later, after the premiereof Boris;he was still young,his talent had maturedtoo much in his own eyes;the short-comings of the originalversion of Boris,partly connectedwith its text ... partlyattributable o Musorgsky'snexperi-ence as an operaticcomposer,called attention to themsel-ves far too loudly forhim long to remaindeafand nsensibleto them" (" BorisGodunov'M. P.Musorgskogo," . 117).'9ModestPetrowitschMusorgski Munich, 1926).20TheEnglish-languageedition, which appearedafter the

publication of Lamm's vocal score (Moussorgsky, rans.Paul Englund[New York, 1929:rpt. 19711)did not includethis appendix.21MussorgskyNew York,1962),p. 166.

22Aphotographof this title pagemay be seen in AlexandraOrlova, Trudyi dniM. P.MusorgskogoMoscow, 1963), ac-ing page288.23See is discussionof"EditorialMethod" n the secondvol-ume of his edition, pp. 19-21.24Oldani, Editionsof BorisGodunov,"p. 198.25Angel DLX-3844,JerzySemkow,cond.26E.g.,Angel3633, AndreCluytens,cond.27"IgorGlebov," "Muzykal'no-dramaturgicheskaia ont-

septsiia opery 'Boris Godunov' Musorgskogo,"in BorisAsafiev, IzbrannyetrudyIII Moscow, 1954),79.28Ibid., . 90.

29Ibid., . 91.30Seehis lengthy postwar study, "'Boris Godunov' Mu-

sorgskogokak muzykal'nyi spektakl' iz Pushkina,"which

however remained unpublished until the posthumous(1954) Academy of Sciences collection of Asafiev's works(III,100-59).31VictorBelaiev [sic], Musorgsky'sBoris Godunov and itsNew Version, rans.S. W.Pring London,1928); he Russian

version, "Dve redaktsii 'BorisaGodunova',"was incorpo-rated n the anthology "BorisGodunov,"Stat'i i issledova-niia, referred o in fn. 5 above.32Theacknowledgment is to Sergei Popov, who, Beliaevwrites, "mademe acquaintedwith a seriesof unpublishedpapersrelating to the subject in which I was interested"(Musorgsky'sBoris Godunov, p. v). This could only havebeen the collection K vosstanovleniiu "BorisaGodunova"Musorgskogo, n which two articles by Asafiev, includingthe one cited above,firstappeared.Popovwas the editor ofthis volume, which was publishedin Russiathe sameyearBeliaev'spiece appearedn England.33Beliaev, . 7.This sentenceis italicized in the original ext.34Ibid., p. 7-8. All these italics may well have been addedbyOxfordUniversityPress,since the Bessel reissueof Borishad beenpublished n 1926bytheir rivalsJ.& W.Chester.35Mussorgsky,. 143. Onmatters of detail Calvocoressiun-critically acceptsAsafiev's("Glebov's")udgments,quotinghim verbatimand at length. He stops short of declaringanabsolutepreferencefor the firstversion,however,openingthe door to conflation: "The complete [i.e., "supersatu-rated"]version is longer than the primitive version, butmakesupfor ts lengthbyaffording pportunities orrelaxa-tion andpoints ofreposewhich, far rombreakingorundulydelayingthe courseof action,co-operatesn it" (p.156).Onthe otherhand,the Polish act is "merelya longintermezzo,charmingorimpressivein parts,but at times, I think, tedi-ous" (p.155).36"Mussorgsky's Boris' and Pushkin's," originally pub-lished in Music & Letters 26 (1945),quoted from GeraldAbraham,Slavonic and RomanticMusic(New York, 1968),p. 187. Italics are mine. On the erroneousmatter of the"1872" and "1874"versions see above.37Still,JosephKermanwas followingthe Beliaevline as re-cently as 1975:"Theplain fact is that all versions of BorisGodunov except the first arepastiches, and that even the

composer'sown pastiche-the secondversion-lacks finalauthority" ("ThePuzzle of Boris,"OperaNews 39/12 [25January1975],12).38See"Stsena 'pod Kromami' v dramaturgii 'Borisa Go-dunova',"Sovetskaia muzyka 34/3 (March1970),90-114.39Russii pernyiteatrXIXveka,III Leningrad, 973),70.40Ibid.41Ibid., . 71.42N.Isakhanova,"Put' k sovershenstvu,"Sovetskaia mu-zyka 30/7 (July1966),60.43TheMusicof Mussorgsky,pp.5, 6.44Ibid., . 8.

45Ibid., . 11.46Ibid.470neshould mention, however,Reilly'scleverandpersua-sive rationalizationof the Polish Act as having been con-ceived"notasa vehicle for the displayof Romanticpassion,but to show the deceptivenessof such passionandhow itcanbe used anddivertedto other ends"(p.9).48Reilly,p. 10.49For somewhat more elaboraterefutation of this viewthan the one offered n the precedingsection of the presentarticle, see Oldani,"Editions of BorisGodunov,"pp. 197-99, orhis dissertation,pp.76-82.

50For thoroughtreatmentof this esthetic andits musicalembodiments in Dargomyzhskyand the youngMusorgsky,see my OperaandDrama n Russia(AnnArbor,1981),ch.3.

116



51Seemy "ThePresent n the Past"(cf.fn. 13),pp.78-80.52"Drama ndoperaarebyno meansidentical,andasubjectthat is excellent in itself andexcellentlydeveloped n aplay,can be completelyunsuitable foropera.The best examples:Goethe's Faust (the first part), Shakespeare's Hamlet,

Pushkin'sBoris Godunov. These veryprofounddramasarefounded on characters n whom rationalthought predomi-nates, andthought is an element byits verynatureunmusi-cal."A. N. Serov,Izbrannyestat'i I(Moscow,1950),259.53"Musorgsky'sBoris' and Pushkin's" (see fn. 36, above).Onesmall corrective to Abraham'sadmirably horough ur-vey may be offered. InMusorgsky's irst scene (TheCourt-yardof the Novodevichy Monastery),Pushkin's scenes 2(RedSquare) nd3 (Novodevichy)arenotquitesofreelycon-flated andadaptedas Abrahamreports.Much of Shchelka-lov's speech is found in the openingexchangebetween twomembers of the crowd in scene 2, an exchangewhose veryfirstwordis the striking participle,"Neumolim!"(implaca-ble), with which Shchelkalov begins his appealin the li-bretto. Some of the contents of Musorgsky'schorus of pil-grimsis foundin the lines PushkingaveShchelkalov n theplay-e.g., the reference to processionswith the holy im-ages of the Vladimir andDon madonnas. The words of thepristav (policeman)and ofMityukha-roles for choralcory-phees in Musorgsky'stext-are in large partprefigurednthe lines Pushkingavethe crowd.54Ofcourse, the claim was even more of anexaggerationn1874than in 1869,butby 1874 t wasmerelyaslogan denti-fying the opera's"tendency,"a paraphrase f the formula

first used by Dargomyzhskyon the title pageof his Rusalka(1856)-"Libretto by the author after the drama of A. S.Pushkin, preserving many of his verses"-and echoed byCesar Cui on the title page of William Ratcliff(1869),thefirst kuchkist opera o achievepublication:"Textborrowedfrom the dramatic ballad of HeinrichHeine, in the transla-tion of A. N. Pleshcheev." Thepublisherof Ratcliff(Bessel),not catchingthe kuchkist nuance in Cui's use of the word"text," faced it with an inaccurate German translation:"Das Sujet ist der Heinischen TragodieWilliam Ratcliffentlehnt."55MikhailDruskin, Voprosymuzykal'noi dramatugiiopery(Leningrad, 952),p. 83.56For history of the genre-more comprehensive, n fact,than its title implies-see Ervin C. Brody,TheDemetriusLegend and Its LiteraryTreatment in the Age of the Ba-roque(Rutherford,N. J.,1972).57Aew words from one of the Patriarch'speeches,"Youdonot wish destruction to the sinner"(Tygreshnikupogibeline khochesh'),weretransformedandtransferred o the con-clusion of Musorgsky'shallucination episodeat the endofthe Terem Scene, where Borissings "You do not wish thesinner's death" (Ty ne khochesh' smerti greshnika).Theirony is that in the operaBoris addresses the lines to God

with reference o himself, while in theplaythe Patriarch d-dresses them to Boris with reference o the Pretender.58Formore details on this conflation, see Abraham,"Mu-sorgsky's'Boris'andPushkin's,"andfn. 53 above.59Ed.Rimsky-Korsakov (St. Petersburg,1908); ed. Lamm(Moscow,1933).60SeeElena Antipova, "Dva varianta 'Zhenit'by'," Sov-etskaiamuzyka 28/3 (March1964),77-85.61SeeNadezhda Purgold's(Rimskaia-Korsakova's) emoirin JayLeydaandSergeiBertensson,TheMusorgskyReader(New York,1947),p. 124.62Forhis term cf.JosephKerman,"Verdi'sUse ofRecurringThemes," Studies in Music Historyfor Oliver Strunk,ed.HaroldPowers(Princeton,1968),pp.495-510. "Identifyingthemes," or what are usually loosely designatedleitmo-

tives, are usefully distinguished there from "recallingthemes,"Kerman'srenderingofErinnerungmotive.63SeeMusorgsky,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, ed. Lamm,vol. IV,no. 1(Kalmusreprint,vol. XIX),pp. 172ff.64"BorisGodunov' M.P.Musorgskogo,"pp. 141-49.

65Ibid., p. 148-49.66Cf. he Lamm vocal score,pp.20, 329.67Cf. he Lammvocal score,pp. 3, 12,29 (Novodevichy);pp.106-07, etc. (The Inn);p. 306 (St.Basil's).No police officersingsin the St.Basil'sscene,butaccordingo thestagedirec-tion they are "often to be seen among the crowd." Eventhough the list of dramatispersonaeincludes only one of-ficer ("Nikitich," as he is addressedby the women in theopeningscene),and even thoughasinglebass-baritoneingsthe role both at Novodevichy and at the Inn, one wonderswhetherMusorgskymeant literally (asGozenpud, orone,assumes he did) that the same officer tums up in both

scenes, or whether his leitmotif characterizes he police ingeneral,asDargomyzhskyhadcharacterizedmonks in gen-eral in The Stone Guest.68Cf.Lamm vocal score, pp. 128, 136 (TeremScene),359(DeathScene).69Polnoe obranie sochinenii, IV/1 (Kalmus:XIX),pp. 111,115-17, 121, 125, 136-37.

70Lamm,pp. 132-33.71Polnoe obraniesochinenii, IV/1, 193.72Lamm ocal score, p. 154, figs.63-65. Circumspection,ofcourse,is always in orderwhen interpreting he meaningofa leitmotif when it seems to transcend the function of a

mere identifying theme. Other interpretationsare alwayspossible. Oldani, for example, calls the first theme in "IHave Attained the Highest Power" the theme of "Boris'sMajesty and Authority" (New Perspectives,p. 248); thisleadshim to interpretthe final recurrenceofthis motive,asthe curtain descendson the Death Scene,as "irony" p.287),surelyajarringmisconstruction of its pathos.Oldani'softenperceptive discussion of Musorgsky'suse of themes and,particularly,keys, is unfortunately hamperedthroughoutbyanoverly rigid assignmentofwhat are,afterall, arbitrarylabels which when adheredto narrowlycan become com-pulsive andlimiting.73Cf.Lammpp.44, 131-32, 323. On the otherhand,one doestend to associate the motive with the famous openinglinein the title role-"My soul is sad"(Skorbitdusha)-whichlends it some of the resonance of arecallingtheme. Perhapsthat is why Oldanicalls it "Boris'sAnxiety" (New Perspec-tives, p. 247).74Lamm, p. 155-56 (TeremScepe),343-45 (DeathScene).75Lamm, p. 131, 346, 356.76NewPerspectives,p. 252.77Cf.Lamm,p. 147, fig. 50;p. 148,fig.52;p. 151,fig. 56.78TheMusic of Mussorgsky,p. 8.79Ibid., . 6; Gozepud, Russkii opernyiteatr XIXveka, III,71.80See he tablein Lamm'svocalscore,p.xvii (Russian), viii(German).81Stasov,Izbrannyesochineniia,II,200: "In he last monthsof his life Daromyzhskyalso heardexcerptsfromthe opera,includingsome of the choicest: the first scene and the InnScene,and... with magnanimousenthusiasmrepeatedbe-fore all and sundrythat 'Musorgsky s going even fartherthan I'."82Theres another bit of circumstantial evidencefordatingthe composition of the Inn Scene. As Orlova has persua-sively argued, he concert atwhich Stasovgave Musorgskythe text forVarlaam's irst song took place on 9 December1868 (Trudyi dni, p. 168).83The ast page of the newly discoveredautographvocal

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19TH scoreof theInn Scene(seefn. 16),which differs nterestinglyCENTURY from the standardversion in its use of the Dmitry theme,MUSIC carries the date 1869 god ("the year 1869").This probably

signifiesthe verybeginningof 1869,which corroborates hedate arrivedatby extrapolation.84V.V.Stasov, Pis'ma k rodnym, vol. I, part 2 (Moscow,1954),p.46.85"Conceivedn autumn 1868;workbegun n October1868.For his verywork this little book was furnishedbyLudmilaShestakova" Orlova,Trudyi dni, pp. 166-67).86Letters f Alexander Pushkin, ed. and trans. J. ThomasShaw, (Madison, 1969),p. 365.87Moussorgsky, p. 143-44.88TheMusic of Mussorgsky,pp.6-8.89Asafiev,zbrannye trudy,III,91; see alsop. 82.9?NikolaiKaramzin, Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo (St.Petersburg,1892),IX,273.91Karamzin, I,56.92Karamzin, I,55.93TranslatedyAlfredHayes(ThePoems ProseandPlaysofAlexanderPushkin, ed. AvrahmYarmolinsky, New York,1936],p.370 ["Ukh, iazhelo!. ."]).Pushkin'sBoriscontin-ues:

Forthirteen years togetherIhave dreamedEverabout the murderedchild. Yes,yes-'Tisthat!-now Iperceive.Butwho is he,Myterribleantagonist?Whois itOpposethme? An empty name, a shadow.Canbut aghost tear frommy back the purple,A hollow sound makes beggarsofmy children?This is puremadness!What s then to fear?Blow on this phantom.-and it is no more.So,I am fast resolved;I'll show no signOffear,but let no trifle be ignored.Ah!Heavyartthou, crown of Monomakh!

94ThePoems, Prose and Plays ofAlexanderPushkin,p. 353("Noesli v nei edinoepiatno...").95Ibid., . 391.96Asafiev, zbrannye trudy, III,90.97The oems,Prose andPlays ofAlexanderPushkin,p.352.98Translatedy J.P. Smith andN. Anderson AngelRecordsSDLX-3844).9For a more detailedideologicalanalysisof the 1869Borisand its relationsboth to Pushkin and to Karamzin, ee my"The Present n the Past,"pp. 121-32.'0?Brody, heDemetriusLegend,pp.241-42.'O'ToPiotr AndreevichViazemsky,7 November 1825(Let-tersofAlexanderPushkin,p. 261).'OAsafiev, zbrannye trudy, III,80.'03Ibid., . 91.'04Mus:LN, , 143. For more on the philosophicalback-grounds to Musorgsky'sesthetic see my "Handel,Shake-speareandMusorgsky:The Sources andLimits of RussianMusical Realism," in Studies in the History of Music, I(New York,1983),pp.247-68.'05Toudgebythe autographibretto(asgivenin Mus:LN, I,57-123), Musorgskyoriginally thoughtofvirtuallyabolish-ingthe chorus assuchandassigning he crowd'srepliques ocoryphees.In the end he settled on the compromiseof as-signinglines to small groups rom within the chorus.Stasov(Izbrannye ochineniia,II,199fn)claimed that this ideawasforceduponhim by Napravnik.Whetherornot this was so,there was a prototype for such choral fragmentation inSerov's1865Rogneda(see Operaand Drama n Russia,pp.110, 120),an operawhose influence on Musorgsky'sStasovwould scarcelyhave wished to acknowledge.'06See,or example, the directions forBorisduringPimen'snarrativein the Death Scene (Mus:LN,II, 103-4). Thesewere prompted by Pushkin's single remark in scene 17,"During his speechBoriswipes his faceseveraltimes witha handkerchief."

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taruskin versions of boris godunov

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