An Autobiography

Copyright 1936 by Simon and Schuster, Inc.

ONE: Development of the Composer

I

As memory reaches back along the vista of the years, the increasing distance adds to the difficulty of seeing clearly and choosing between those incidents which make a deep impression and those which, though perhaps more important in themselves, leave no trace, and in no way influence one's development.

Thus, one of my earliest memories of sound will seem somewhat odd.

It was in the country, where my parents, like most people of their class, spent the summer with their children. I can see it now. An enormous peasant seated on the stump of a tree. The sharp resinous tang of fresh-cut wood in my nostrils. The peasant simply clad in a short red shirt. His bare legs covered with reddish hair, on his feet birch sandals, on his head a mop of hair as thick and as red as his beard—not a white hair, yet an old man.

He was dumb, but he had a way of clicking his tongue very noisily, and the children were afraid of him. So was I. But curiosity used to triumph over fear. The children would gather round him. Then, to amuse them, he would begin to sing. This song was composed of two syllables, the only ones he could pronounce. They were devoid of any meaning, but he made them alternate with incredible dexterity in a very rapid tempo. He used to accompany this clucking in the following way: pressing the palm of his right hand under his left armpit, he would work his left arm with a rapid movement, making it press on the right hand. From beneath the red shirt he extracted a succession of sounds which were somewhat dubious but very rhythmic, and which might be euphemistically described as resounding kisses. This amused me beyond words, and at home I set myself with zeal to imitate this music—so often and so successfully that I was forbidden to indulge in such an indecent accompaniment. The two dull syllables which alone remained thus lost all their attraction for me.

Another memory which often comes back is the singing of the women of the neighboring village. There were a great many of them, and regularly every evening they sang in unison on their way home after the day's work. To this day I clearly remember the tune, and the way they sang it, and how, when I used to sing it at home, imitating their manner, I was complimented on the trueness of my ear. This praise made me very happy.

And it is an odd thing that this occurrence, trifling though it seems, has a special significance for me, because it marks the dawn of my consciousness of myself in the role of musician.

I will confine myself to those two impressions of summer, which was always associated with a picture of the country, and of all the things to be seen and heard there.

Winter was quite another story—town. My memories of that do not go so far back as those of summer, and I date them from the time when I was about three years old. Winter, with its curtailing of liberty and amusements, with its rigorous discipline and interminable length, was not likely to make enduring impressions.

My parents were not specially concerned with my musical development until I was nine. It is true that there was music in the house, my father being the leading bass singer of the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg, but I heard all this music only at a distance—from the nursery to which my brothers and I were relegated.

When I was nine my parents gave me a piano mistress. I very quickly learned to read music, and, as the result of reading, soon had a longing to improvise, a pursuit to which I devoted myself, and which for a long time was my favorite occupation. There cannot have been anything very interesting in these improvisations, because I was frequently reproached for wasting my time in that way instead of practicing properly, but I was definitely of a different opinion, and the reproaches vexed me considerably. Although today I understand and admit the need of this discipline for a child of nine or ten, I must say that my constant work at improvisation was not absolutely fruitless; for, on the one hand, it contributed to my better knowledge of the piano, and, on the other, it sowed the seed of musical ideas. Apropos of this, I should like to quote a remark of Rimsky-Korsakov's that he made later on when I became his pupil. I asked him whether I was right in always composing at the piano. “Some compose at the piano,” he replied, “and some without a piano. As for you, you will compose at the piano.” As a matter of fact, I do compose at the piano and I do not regret it. I go further; I think it is a thousand times better to compose in direct contact with the physical medium of sound than to work in the abstract medium produced by one's imagination.

Apart from my improvisation and piano-practice, I found immense pleasure in reading the opera scores of which my father's library consisted—all the more so because I was able to read with great facility. My mother also had that gift, and I must have inherited it from her. Imagine my joy, therefore, when for the first time I was taken to the theatre where they were giving an opera with which as a pianist I was already familiar. It was A Life for the Tsar, and it was then I heard an orchestra for the first time. And what an orchestra—Glinka's! The impression was indelible, but it must not be supposed that this was due solely to the fact that it was the first orchestra I ever heard. To this day, not only Glinka's music in itself, but his orchestration as well, remains a perfect monument of musical art—so intelligent is his balance of tone, so distinguished and delicate his instrumentation; and by the latter I mean his choice of instruments and his way of combining them. I was indeed fortunate in happening on a chef d'oeuvre for my first contact with great music. That is why my attitude towards Glinka has always been one of unbounded gratitude.

I remember having heard another lyrical work that same winter, but it was by a composer of the second rank—Alexander Serov—and on that occasion I was impressed only by the dramatic action. My father had the leading part, a role in which he was particularly admired by the Petersburg public. He was a very