Both prose
and music are manifestations of the Russian Christ. To Europe in its
late hour he came as emissary of the one religious modern folk, and
called on men to recognize the truth and reform their lives in
accordance with it. He came to wrest man from the slavery of the new
gigantic body he had begotten, to wean him from lust of power, to
pacify and humble him. Once more he came to fulfil the Old Testamentary
prophets. The evangel of Tolstoy, the novels of Dostoievsky, the music
of Moussorgsky are the new gospels. In Moussorgsky, music has given the
new world its priest.
Liszt
Oh, magnificent and miserable Abbe Liszt! Strange and unnatural fusion
of traits the most noble and the most mean! One can scarcely say which
was the stronger in you, the grand seigneur or the base comedian. For in
your work they are equally, inextricably commingled. In your art it is
the actor who thrones it in the palace hall, the great lord of music who
struts and capers on the boards of the itinerant theater. Nowhere, in
all music, is grandeur nigher to the dust, and nowhere does the dust
reveal more grandiose traits. Your compositions are the most brilliant
of bastards, the most lamentable of legitimate things. They smite us
with both admiration and aversion, affect us as though the scarlet satin
robes of a patrician of Venice were to betray the presence beneath them
of foul, unsightly rags.
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