Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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;
422 SEROV SERPENT
features of 'Judith.' 'Serov knew how to
catch the crowd,' writes Tchaikovsky, and ' if
this opera suffers from poverty of melodic
inspiration, want of organic sequence, weak
recitative and declamation, and from harmony
and instrumentation that are purely decorative
—yet what sensational effects the composer
succeeds in piling up ! . . . The whole thing
literally crackles with them. Serov had only
a mediocre gift, united to great experience,
remarkable intellect, and extensive erudition
therefore it is not astonishing to find in
"Eogneda " numbers—rare oases in a desert—in
which the music is excellent.' Tchaikovsky
stood somewhat apart from the heated conflict
with national tendencies in which Serov was
constantly involved, therefore his judgment
may be accepted as less biassed than that of
the majority of his contemporaries. After the
triumph of Eogneda ' ' Serov rested awhile upon
his laurels. The balm of success seems to have
done something to soften his hostility to the
national school, for the lectures on Glinka
and Dargomijsky which he delivered before the
Russian Musical Society in 1866 are valuable
not only for clearness of exposition, but for
fairness of judgment.
For the subject of his third opera Serov
turned to contemporary national life as depicted
in Ostrovsky's strong, but somewhat sordid,
play The Power ' of Evil.'' His correspondence
reveals hia intentions with regard to this work.
'
Ten years ago,' he says, ' I wrote much about
Wagner. Now it is time to act. To embody
the Wagnerian theories in a music-drama written
in Russian on a Russian subject. ... In this
work, besides observing as far as possible the
principles of dramatic truth, I aim at keeping
more closely than has yet been done to the
forms of Russian popular music as preserved
in our folk-songs.' He is seeking in fact to fuse
the methods of Glinka with those of Wagner,
and produce a Russian music -drama. Serov
was a connoisseur of Russian folk-songs, but he
had not the genius of Glinka ; moreover, with
all his knowledge of the popular music he was
never penetrated by the national spirit as was
his great predecessor. In creating this Russo-
Wagnerian work Serov created something purely
artificial : a, hybrid which could bring forth
nothing in its turn. The subject of The
'
Power of Evil ' is exceedingly gloomy and not
particularly well adapted to musical treatment,
and the work never attained the popularity of
'
Judith ' and Eogneda.
'
Serov died of heart disease in January 1871.
The orchestration of The Power ' of Evil ' was
completed by one of his most talented pupils,
Soloviev. At the time of his death he was
busy with a fourth opera based upon Gogol's
'
Christmas Eve Revels, ' but this work did not
progress beyond a first sketch, from which his
widow afterwards arranged an orchestral suite.
SERPENT (Eng. and Fr. ;
published in 1877. Other compositions, all
belonging to his later years, are
'
: Stabat
Mater,' 'Ave Maria,' incidental music to 'Nero'
(1869), 'A Christmas Song ' and two or three
orchestral works, including a Gopak ' ' and
'Dance of the Zaporogne Cossacks.' Serov
married Valentina Semenovna Bergman, a
talented pupil of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire,
and the composer of several operas, one
of which, ' Uriel Aoosta ' (Moscow, 1885), brought
her some success. She was also a constant
contributor to the reviews, and in recent years
has devoted her energies to the popularising of
music among the masses. B. N.
Germ. SchlaiigeTirohr
; Ital. Serpcntone). A now obsolete instrument
forming the natural bass of the ancient
cornet family, played with a cupped mouthpiece
similar to that of the
bass trombone. It
consists of a wooden
tube about 8 feet long,
increasing conically
from f of an inch in
diameter at the
mouthpiece to 4
inches at the open
end. The name is
obviously derived
from the curved form
into which the tube is
contorted, presenting
three U-shaped turns
followed by a large
circular convolution.
The bell end is,
moreover, turned forward
from the player,
and the mouthpiece
makes a right-angled backward turn to reach
his lips. There are six holes on the front of
the instrument, to be stopped by the three middle
fingers of either hand ; those for the left hand
on the third descending branch ; those for the
right on the fourth ascending branch towards
the bell. The holes are set in groups of three,
within reach of the outstretched fingers. The
hands are' passed through the convolutions to
the front of the tube, away from the performer ;
the weight of the whole is supported on the
upper edges of the two forefingers, and grasped
by the two thumbs, which are kept at the back
of the instrument.
The serpent is considered to consist of three
parts, (1) the mouthpiece, (2) the crook, or
curved brass tube leading into (3) the wooden
body, which is built up of several pieces held
together by a, leathern covering. [The whole
of the instrument was, however, sometimes made
of brass or copper.] It is usually said to have
been invented by a canon of Auxerre, named
Edme Guillaume, in 1590. The story bears a
somewhat suspicious resemblance to that of the