erred in all good faith. . . . Musorgsky believed anything resembling formalism to be fatal to art; he was as convinced that Rimsky-Korsakoff's idioms and methods were superfluously stiff and conventional as Rimsky-Korsakoff was convinced that Boris Godunoff and La Khovantchina were uncouth and crude."
Rimsky-Korsakoff called this doing his duty; his intentions were honourable. He also considered it his duty to rewrite Boris Godunoff, and since that work has been performed extensively in the singing theatres of Europe and America a constant hum of excited discussion regarding this version of the opera has simmered in the critical kettle. In a conversation with V. Yastrebtsieff, as reported in the Moscow weekly, Musica, June 22, 1903, Rimsky-Korsakoff said: "I originally intended writing a purely critical article on the merits and demerits of Boris Godunoff, but a new revised pianoforte score and a new orchestral score will be a more eloquent testimony to future generations of my views of this work, not only as a whole, but as regards the details of every bar; the more so, because in this transcription of the opera for orchestra, personality is not concerned, and I am only doing what Musorgsky himself ought to have done, but which he did not understand how to carry out, simply because of his lack of technique as a com-
