Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

stop to listen to pieces executed by several voices with a precision, and a musical instinct, that I am never tired of admiring. The performers, in these rustic cµiintetti, guess, by intuition, the laws of counterpoint, the rules of composition, the principles of harmony, the effects of the different kinds of voice, and they disdain singing in unison. They execute series of concords, elaborate, unexpected, and interspersed with shakes, and delicate ornaments, which, if not always perfectly correct, are very superior to the national melodies heard in other lands.

The song of the Russian peasants is a nasal lamentation, not very agreeable when executed by one voice; but when sung in chorus, these complaints assume a grave, religious character, and produce effects of harmony that are surprising. I had supposed the Russian music to have been brought from Byzantium, but I am assured that it is indigenous : this will explain the profound melancholy of the airs, especially of those which affect gaiety by their vivacity of movement. If the Russians do not know how to revolt against oppression, they know how to sigh and groan under it,

Were I in the place of the emperor, I should not be content with forbidding my subjects to complain; I should also forbid them to sing, which is a disguised mode of complaining. These accents of lament are avowals, and may become accusations : so true it is that the arts themselves, under despotism, are not innocent; they are indirect protestations.

Hence, no doubt, the taste of the government and the courtiers for the works, literary or artistical, of foreigners: borrowed poetry has no roots. Among

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