Dubinushka, Op.62

Long known as a humble working song, “Dubinushka” (Little Axe) became one of the most effective of all expressions of Russian people power. Leon Trotsky was perhaps the first to realise the potential of the tune when he wrote his own “proletarian” words for it in prison in 1898. More sensationally, in the unrest following the massacre of a thousand peaceful demonstrators on their way to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in January 1905, Fyodor Chaliapin was moved to sing “Dubinushka” on the stage at the Bolshoi. Far from being deterred by Nicholas II’s efforts to silence “this loud-mouthed ruffian,” Chaliapin took to performing it at charity concerts and on one occasion had five thousand workers singing it along with him.

It was in this emotive 1905 context that Rimsky-Korsakov made his orchestral version of “Dubinushka.” Having been removed from his post at the St Petersburg Conservatoire after signing an open letter in protest at the Winter Palace massacre (along with Rachmaninov, Taneyev and Chaliapin) he was a national hero all the more admired for having his works banned for a while in the major Russian cities. Clearly elated by his new status, Rimsky set “Dubinushka” as a brilliant march, its swaggering gait rather different from the laborious body language traditionally associated with the tune. Indeed, it has as much in common with the Wedding March in The Golden Cockerel, to which he was to turn his attention a year later, as with the original working song. In this case he does little with his briskly triumphant theme apart from repeating it in different colours - most effectively of all perhaps when he awards it to the strings - very briefly developing it and putting an unexpected harmonic obstacle in its way just before the end.

Gerald Larner©2000