Salammbô (Mussorgsky)

Composition history

The Russian translation of Flaubert's 1862 novel was published serially in the Saint Petersburg journal Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1863, and was read with enthusiasm by the six members of the commune in which the composer was then living. Mussorgsky was likely influenced in his choice of subject by having recently heard Aleksandr Serov's Judith, which premiered on 16 May 1863, and which shares with Salammbô an exotic setting and similar narrative details.

The unfinished vocal score consists of three scenes and three separate numbers:

Two numbers (No.2 and No.5) were orchestrated by the composer.

The chorus of priestesses and warriors (Act 2, Scene 2, Episode 3: "After the theft of the Zaimph") is a reworking of the "Scene in the Temple: Chorus of the People", the only surviving number from Oedipus in Athens (1858-1861), Mussorgsky's earliest stage-work.

In Mathô's monologue in the dungeon (the passage "I shall die alone"), the text is borrowed from the poem Song of the Captive Iroquois, by Alexander Polezhayev. The theme of this passage, accompanying a new text, was recycled in 1877 in the chorus Joshua [see Subsequent use of musical materials in this article for more details].

Mussorgsky's orchestration in Salammbô is quite ahead of its time. One example of a modern idea is, in the projected scoring for the "Hymn to Tanit" (Act 2, Scene 2), the abundance and variety of percussion, in addition to a mixture of pianos, harps, and glockenspiels of a sort which only reappeared fifty years later.

Performance history

The first staged performance of Salammbô took place at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, on 29 March 1983 in a version revised and edited by Zoltán Peskó. The work was repeated on 30 March and on 1, 2 and 6 April. It had originally been agreed that the role of Salammbô in these performances would be sung by Lyudmila Shemchuk and that of Mathô by Georgy Seleznev, but the Soviet authorities subsequently withdrew the exit visas of both singers, and they were substituted by Annabelle Bernard and Boris Bakov respectively. Because of these enforced changes it was necessary to postpone the date of the premiere from 26 to 29 March.

Synopsis

Setting

Time: 241 to 238 B.C., before and during the Mercenary Revolt.Place: Carthage (in what is now Tunisia).

Act 1

Scene: Hamilcar's Garden in Carthage

Act 2

Scene 1:

Scene 2: The Temple of Tanit in Carthage

Act 3

Scene 1: The Temple of Moloch

Scene 2:

Act 4

Scene 1: The Dungeon of the Acropolis

Scene 2:

Subsequent use of musical materials

Mussorgsky reused much of the music from Salammbô in later works. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov gives the following account of thematic borrowing in his memoirs, Chronicle of My Musical Life (1909):

The Song of the Balearic Islander (Russian: «Песнь балеарца», Pesn' baleartsa) was included by the composer in a collection of his juvenilia composed between 1857 and 1866 called Youthful Years (Russian: «Юные годы», Yunïye godï, 1866). The song is No. 17 in the series of manuscripts consisting of 17 songs and one duet.

Several measures of Salammbô's dialogue with the crowd were used in the 1867 tone poem St. John's Eve on the Bare Mountain (but appear rather to have been used in the later adaptation of this work, Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad, 1880):

Several musical themes from this project were recycled and played important roles in the composer's subsequent opera Boris Godunov (1869–1872). The borrowings concern the orchestral accompaniments only, which are fitted to new vocal lines. The correspondence in narrative detail, mood, or atmosphere in each case is often quite close:

The War Song of the Libyans (Russian: «Боевая песнь Ливийцев», Boyevaya pesn' Liviytsev) from Act 1 became the basis of the chorus Iisus Navin (Russian: «Иисус Навин»), better known as Joshua, for alto, baritone, chorus, and piano, composed in 1877. An orchestral edition prepared by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was published in 1883. The theme of the middle section of Joshua, a solo for alto and a brief women's chorus, "The women of Canaan weep", said to be of Jewish origin by Vladimir Stasov and Rimsky-Korsakov, is based on part of Mathô's monologue in the dungeon, "I shall die alone" (Act 4, Scene 1).

The 'Chorus of Priestesses' (Act 4, Scene 2) was orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov (1884), and published and performed as an independent piece after Mussorgsky's death (1881).

Versions by other hands

Zoltán Peskó was the first to orchestrate the rest of the numbers. Peskó claims to have found a Mussorgsky orchestration of No. 1 in the library of the Paris Conservatory, but this version has disappeared.