![Rimsky-Korsakov Serow crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Rimsky-Korsakov_Serow_crop.png)
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ.
la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakow''.
The BGN/PCGN
transliteration of Russian
The romanization of the Russian language (the transliteration of Russian text from the Cyrillic script into the Latin script), aside from its primary use for including Russian names and words in text written in a Latin alphabet, is also essential ...
is used for his name here. ALA-LC system: Nikolaĭ Andrevich Rimskiĭ-Korsakov, ISO 9 system: Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov. (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908)
was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as
The Five. He was a master of
orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orch ...
. His best-known orchestral compositions—''
Capriccio Espagnol
''Capriccio espagnol'', Op. 34, is the common Western title for a five movement orchestral suite, based on Spanish folk melodies, composed by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. It received its premiere on 31 October 1887, in S ...
'', the ''
Russian Easter Festival Overture
''Russian Easter Festival Overture: Overture on Liturgical Themes'' (russian: Светлый праздник, translit=Svetly prazdnik, translation=Bright festival), Op. 36, also known as the ''Great Russian Easter Overture'', is a concert overt ...
'', and the symphonic
suite
Suite may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition
** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach
** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó
** ''Suite ...
''
Scheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' der ...
''—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. ''Scheherazade'' is an example of his frequent use of
fairy-tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...
and
folk subjects.
Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a
nationalistic
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: T ...
style of classical music, as did his fellow composer
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev (russian: Милий Алексеевич Балакирев,BGN/PCGN transliteration of Russian: Miliy Alekseyevich Balakirev; ALA-LC system: ''Miliĭ Alekseevich Balakirev''; ISO 9 system: ''Milij Alekseevič Balakir ...
and the critic
Vladimir Stasov
Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (also Stassov; rus, Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ста́сов; 14 January Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_in_Eastern_Europe.html" ;"title="/nowiki> O.S._2_January.html" ;"title="Adoption of ...
. This style employed
Russian folk song and
lore along with exotic harmonic,
melodic
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinat ...
and
rhythmic Rhythmic may refer to:
* Related to rhythm
* Rhythmic contemporary, a radio format
* Rhythmic adult contemporary, a radio format
* Rhythmic gymnastics, a form of gymnastics
* Rhythmic (chart)
The Rhythmic chart (also called Rhythmic Airplay, and ...
elements in a practice known as musical
orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition,
harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...
, and orchestration at the
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as th ...
in 1871. He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, link=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka., mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recogni ...
and fellow members of
The Five. Rimsky-Korsakov's techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
.
For much of his life, Rimsky-Korsakov combined his composition and teaching with a career in the Russian military—first as an officer in the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from ...
, then as the civilian Inspector of Naval Bands. He wrote that he developed a passion for the ocean in childhood from reading books and hearing of his older brother's exploits in the navy. This love of the sea may have influenced him to write two of his best-known orchestral works, the musical tableau ''
Sadko'' (not to be confused with his later
opera of the same name) and ''Scheherazade''. As Inspector of Naval Bands, Rimsky-Korsakov expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing, which enhanced his abilities in orchestration. He passed this knowledge to his students, and also posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law
Maximilian Steinberg
Maximilian Osseyevich Steinberg (Russian Максимилиан Осеевич Штейнберг; – 6 December 1946) was a Russian composer of classical music.
Though once considered the hope of Russian music, Steinberg is far less well known ...
.
Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original
Russian nationalist
Russian nationalism is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence in the early 19th century, and from its origin in the Russian Empire, to its repression during early B ...
compositions. He prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire (although there is controversy over his editing of the works of
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
), and shaped a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator. Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered "the main architect" of what the classical-music public considers the "Russian style".
His influence on younger composers was especially important, as he served as a transitional figure between the
autodidactism
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or educational institution, institutions (such as schools). Generally, ...
exemplified by Glinka and The Five, and professionally trained composers, who became the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century. While Rimsky-Korsakov's style was based on those of Glinka, Balakirev,
Hector Berlioz
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...
,
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
and, for a brief period, Wagner, he "transmitted this style directly to two generations of Russian composers" and influenced non-Russian composers including
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
,
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...
,
Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas ( or ; 1 October 1865 – 17 May 1935) was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, having abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions. His b ...
, and
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral su ...
.
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:34.]
Biography
Early years
![Rimski korsakov birthplace](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Rimski_korsakov_birthplace.jpg)
Rimsky-Korsakov was born in
Tikhvin
Tikhvin (russian: Ти́хвин; Veps: ) is a town and the administrative center of Tikhvinsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on both banks of the Tikhvinka River in the east of the oblast, east of St. Petersburg. Tikhvin ...
, east of
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, into a
Russian noble family. Tikhvin was a town of
Novgorod Governorate
Novgorod Governorate (Pre-reformed rus, Новгоро́дская губе́рнія, r=Novgorodskaya guberniya, p=ˈnofɡərətskəjə ɡʊˈbʲernʲɪjə, t=Government of Novgorod), was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Ru ...
at that time.
![Rimsky-Korsakov family COA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Rimsky-Korsakov_family_COA.jpg)
Throughout history, members of the family served in Russian government and took various positions as governors and war generals.
Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov
Ivan Nikolajevich Rimsky-Korsakov, né ''Korsav'' (29 June 1754 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – 31 July 1831 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian courtier and lover of Catherine the Great from 1778 to 1779. He was a membe ...
was famously a lover of
Catherine the Great
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes
, house =
, father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
, mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp
, birth_date =
, birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anha ...
.
[''Tatiana Rimskaya-Korsakova (2008)'']
N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. From the Family Letters
– Saint Petersburg: Compositor, 247 pages, pp. 8–9 By a Tsar's decree on May 15, 1677, 18 representatives of the Korsakov family acquired the right to be called the Rimsky-Korsakov family (Russian adjective 'Rimsky' means 'Roman') since the family "had a beginning within the Roman borders", i.e.
Czech lands
The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands ( cs, České země ) are the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1918, the Czech Socialist Republic sin ...
, which used to be a part of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
. In 1390, Wenceslaus Korsak moved to the Grand Prince
Vasily I of Moscow
Vasily I Dmitriyevich ( rus, Василий I Дмитриевич, Vasiliy I Dmitriyevich; 30 December 137127 February 1425) was the Grand Prince of Moscow ( r. 1389–1425), heir of Dmitry Donskoy (r. 1359–1389). He ruled as a Golden Hor ...
from the
Duchy of Lithuania.
The father of the composer, Andrei Petrovich Rimsky-Korsakov (1784–1862), was one of the six illegitimate sons of Avdotya Yakovlevna, daughter of an
Orthodox priest
Presbyter is, in the Bible, a synonym for ''bishop'' (''episkopos''), referring to a leader in local church congregations. In modern Eastern Orthodox usage, it is distinct from ''bishop'' and synonymous with priest. Its literal meaning in Greek (' ...
from
Pskov
Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=pskov-ru.ogg, p=pskof; see also names in other languages) is a city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, located about east of the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population ...
, and
lieutenant general
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on th ...
Peter Voinovich Rimsky-Korsakov, who had to officially adopt his own children as he couldn't marry their mother because of her lower social status. Using his friendship with
Aleksey Arakcheyev
Count Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev or Arakcheev (russian: граф Алексе́й Андре́евич Аракче́ев) ( – ) was an Imperial Russian general and statesman during the reign of Tsar Alexander I.
He served under Tsars Paul ...
, he managed to grant them all the privileges of the noble family. Andrei went on to serve in the Interior Ministry of the Russian Empire, as vice-governor of
Novgorod
Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ...
, and in the
Volhynian Governorate
Volhynian Governorate or Volyn Governorate (russian: Волы́нская губе́рния, translit=Volynskaja gubernija, uk, Волинська губернія, translit=Volynska huberniia) was an administrative-territorial unit initially ...
. The composer's mother, Sofya Vasilievna Rimskaya-Korsakova (1802–1890), was also born as an illegitimate daughter of a
peasant serf and Vasily Fedorovich
Skaryatin, a wealthy landlord who belonged to the noble Russian family that originated during the 16th century. Her father raised her in full comfort, yet under an improvised surname, Vasilieva, and with no legal status. By the time Andrei Petrovich met her, he was already a widower: his first wife,
knyaz
, or ( Old Church Slavonic: Кнѧзь) is a historical Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times of history and different ancient Slavic lands. It is usually translated into English as prince or duke, dependi ...
na Ekaterina
Meshcherskaya, died just nine months after their marriage. Since Skaryatin found him unsuitable for his daughter, Andrei secretly "stole" his bride from the father's house and brought her to Saint Petersburg, where they married.
![Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov as cadet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Nikolai_Rimsky-Korsakov_as_cadet.jpg)
The Rimsky-Korsakov family had a long line of military and naval service. Nikolai's older brother
Voin, 22 years his senior, became a well-known navigator and explorer and had a powerful influence on Nikolai's life.
[Taruskin, ''Music'', p. 166.] He later recalled that his mother played the piano a little, and his father could play a few songs on the piano by ear. Beginning at six, he took piano lessons from local teachers and showed a talent for aural skills,
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:27.] but he showed a lack of interest, playing, as he later wrote, "badly, carelessly, ... poor at keeping time".
Although he started composing by age 10, Rimsky-Korsakov preferred literature to music.
He later wrote that from his reading, and tales of his brother's exploits, he developed a poetic love for the sea "without ever having seen it". This love, with subtle prompting from Voin, encouraged the 12-year-old to join the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from ...
.
He studied at the School for Mathematical and Navigational Sciences in Saint Petersburg and at 18 took his final examination in April 1862.
![Rimsky-Korsakov 1866](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Rimsky-Korsakov_1866.jpg)
While at school, Rimsky-Korsakov took piano lessons from a man named Ulikh. Voin, now director of the school,
sanctioned these lessons because he hoped they would help Nikolai develop social skills and overcome his shyness.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that, while "indifferent" to lessons, he developed a love for music, fostered by visits to the opera and, later, orchestral concerts.
Ulikh perceived Rimsky-Korsakov's musical talent and recommended another teacher, Feodor A. Kanille (Théodore Canillé). Beginning in late 1859, Rimsky-Korsakov took lessons in piano and composition from Kanille, whom he later credited as the inspiration for devoting his life to composition.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 16.] Through Kanille, he was exposed to a great deal of new music, including
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, link=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka., mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recogni ...
and
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
.
[Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove'' (2001), 21:400.] Voin cancelled his brother Nikolai's musical lessons when the latter reached age 17, feeling they no longer served a practical purpose.
Kanille told Rimsky-Korsakov to continue coming to him every Sunday,
not for formal lessons but to play duets and discuss music. In November 1861, Kanille introduced the 18-year-old Nikolai to
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev (russian: Милий Алексеевич Балакирев,BGN/PCGN transliteration of Russian: Miliy Alekseyevich Balakirev; ALA-LC system: ''Miliĭ Alekseevich Balakirev''; ISO 9 system: ''Milij Alekseevič Balakir ...
. Balakirev in turn introduced him to
César Cui
César Antonovich Cui ( rus, Це́зарь Анто́нович Кюи́, , ˈt͡sjezərʲ ɐnˈtonəvʲɪt͡ɕ kʲʊˈi, links=no, Ru-Tsezar-Antonovich-Kyui.ogg; french: Cesarius Benjaminus Cui, links=no, italic=no; 13 March 1918) was a Ru ...
and
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
; all three were known as composers, despite only being in their 20s. Rimsky-Korsakov later wrote, "With what delight I listened to ''real business'' discussions
imsky-Korsakov's emphasisof instrumentation,
part
Part, parts or PART may refer to:
People
*Armi Pärt (born 1991), Estonian handballer
* Arvo Pärt (born 1935), Estonian classical composer
*Brian Part (born 1962), American child actor
*Dealtry Charles Part (1882–1961), sheriff (1926–1927) a ...
writing, etc! And besides, how much talking there was about current musical matters! All at once I had been plunged into a new world, unknown to me, formerly only heard of in the society of my dilettante friends. That was truly a strong impression."
![Almaz1863](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Almaz1863.jpg)
Balakirev encouraged Rimsky-Korsakov to compose and taught him the rudiments when he was not at sea.
Balakirev prompted him to enrich himself in history, literature and criticism. When he showed Balakirev the beginning of a
symphony in E-flat minor that he had written, Balakirev insisted he continue working on it despite his lack of formal musical training.
By the time Rimsky-Korsakov sailed on a two-year-and-eight-month cruise aboard the
clipper ''Almaz'' in late 1862, he had completed and orchestrated three
movements
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
of the symphony. He composed the slow movement during a stop in England and mailed the score to Balakirev before going back to sea.
At first, his work on the symphony kept Rimsky-Korsakov occupied during his cruise. He purchased scores at every port of call, along with a piano on which to play them, and filled his idle hours studying
Berlioz's
Treatise on Instrumentation.
He found time to read the works of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
,
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
,
Friedrich Schiller and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
; he saw London,
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Fall ...
, and
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
during his stops in port. Eventually, the lack of outside musical stimuli dulled the young midshipman's hunger to learn. He wrote to Balakirev that after two years at sea he had neglected his musical lessons for months.
"Thoughts of becoming a musician and composer gradually left me altogether", he later recalled; "distant lands began to allure me, somehow, although, properly speaking, naval service never pleased me much and hardly suited my character at all."
Mentored by Balakirev; time with The Five
Once back in Saint Petersburg in May 1865, Rimsky-Korsakov's onshore duties consisted of a couple of hours of clerical duty each day,
but he recalled that his desire to compose "had been stifled ... I did not concern myself with music at all." He wrote that contact with Balakirev in September 1865 encouraged him "to get accustomed to music and later to plunge into it". At Balakirev's suggestion, he wrote a trio to the
scherzo
A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often re ...
of the E-flat minor symphony, which it had lacked up to that point, and reorchestrated the entire symphony.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', pp. 58–59.] Its first performance came in December of that year under Balakirev's direction in Saint Petersburg.
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:28.] A second performance followed in March 1866 under the direction of Konstantin Lyadov (father of composer
Anatoly Lyadov
Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov (russian: Анато́лий Константи́нович Ля́дов; ) was a Russian composer, teacher, and conductor (music), conductor.
Biography
Lyadov was born in 1855 in Saint Petersburg, St. Petersbur ...
).
Correspondence between Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev clearly shows that some ideas for the symphony originated with Balakirev, who seldom stopped at merely correcting a piece of music, and would often recompose it at the piano.
Rimsky-Korsakov recalled,
A pupil like myself had to submit to Balakirev a proposed composition in its embryo, say, even the first four or eight bars. Balakirev would immediately make corrections, indicating how to recast such an embryo; he would criticize it, would praise and extol the first two bars, but would censure the next two, ridicule them, and try hard to make the author disgusted with them. Vivacity of composition and fertility were not at all in favor, frequent recasting was demanded, and the composition was extended over a long period of time under the cold control of self-criticism.[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 29.]
![Balakirev from 1914 Windsor Magazine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Balakirev_from_1914_Windsor_Magazine.png)
Rimsky-Korsakov recalled that "Balakirev had no difficulty in getting along with me. At his suggestion I most readily rewrote the symphonic movements composed by me and brought them to completion with the help of his advice and improvisations". Though Rimsky-Korsakov later found Balakirev's influence stifling, and broke free from it,
[Maes, p. 44.] this did not stop him in his memoirs from extolling the older composer's talents as a critic and improviser.
Under Balakirev's mentoring, Rimsky-Korsakov turned to other compositions. He began a symphony in B minor, but felt it too closely followed
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
's
Ninth Symphony and abandoned it. He completed an Overture on Three Russian Themes, based on Balakirev's folksong overtures, as well as a
Fantasia on Serbian Themes that was performed at a concert given for the delegates of the
Slavonic Congress in 1867.
In his review of this concert, nationalist critic
Vladimir Stasov
Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (also Stassov; rus, Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ста́сов; 14 January Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_in_Eastern_Europe.html" ;"title="/nowiki> O.S._2_January.html" ;"title="Adoption of ...
coined the phrase ''Moguchaya kuchka'' for the Balakirev circle (''Moguchaya kuchka'' is usually translated as "The Mighty Handful" or "The Five").
Rimsky-Korsakov also composed the initial versions of ''Sadko'' and ''
Antar
Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) is an independent, national non-government, not-for-profit, community-based organisation founded in 1997 which advocates for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in A ...
'', which cemented his reputation as a writer of orchestral works.
Rimsky-Korsakov socialized and discussed music with the other members of The Five; they critiqued one another's works in progress and collaborated on new pieces.
He became friends with
Alexander Borodin, whose music "astonished" him.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 57.] He spent an increasing amount of time with Mussorgsky.
Balakirev and Mussorgsky played piano four-hand music, Mussorgsky would sing, and they frequently discussed other composers' works, with preferred tastes running "toward Glinka, Schumann and Beethoven's late quartets".
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 21.] Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...
was not thought of highly,
Mozart and
Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
"were considered out of date and naïve", and
J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...
merely mathematical and unfeeling. Berlioz "was highly esteemed", Liszt "crippled and perverted from a musical point of view ... even a caricature", and Wagner discussed little.
Rimsky-Korsakov "listened to these opinions with avidity and absorbed the tastes of Balakirev, Cui and Mussorgsky without reasoning or examination". Often, the musical works in question "were played before me only in fragments, and I had no idea of the whole work". This, he wrote, did not stop him from accepting these judgments at face value and repeating them "as if I were thoroughly convinced of their truth".
Rimsky-Korsakov became especially appreciated within The Five, and among those who visited the circle, for his talents as an orchestrator.
He was asked by Balakirev to orchestrate a
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
march for a concert in May 1868, by Cui to orchestrate the opening chorus of his opera ''
William Ratcliff'' and by
Alexander Dargomyzhsky
Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky ( rus, link=no, Александр Сергеевич Даргомыжский, Aleksandr Sergeyevich Dargomyzhskiy., ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪdʑ dərɡɐˈmɨʂskʲɪj, Ru-Aleksandr-Sergeevich- ...
, whose works were greatly appreciated by The Five and who was close to death, to orchestrate his opera ''
The Stone Guest''.
In late 1871, Rimsky-Korsakov moved into Voin's former apartment, and invited Mussorgsky to be his roommate. The working arrangement they agreed upon was that Mussorgsky used the piano in the mornings while Rimsky-Korsakov worked on copying or orchestration. When Mussorgsky left for his civil service job at noon, Rimsky-Korsakov then used the piano. Time in the evenings was allotted by mutual agreement.
"That autumn and winter the two of us accomplished a good deal", Rimsky-Korsakov wrote, "with constant exchange of ideas and plans. Mussorgsky composed and orchestrated the Polish act of ''
Boris Godunov'' and the folk scene 'Near Kromy.' I orchestrated and finished my ''
Maid of Pskov''."
Professorship, marriage, inspector of bands
In 1871, the 27-year-old Rimsky-Korsakov became Professor of Practical Composition and Instrumentation (orchestration) at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory,
as well as leader of the Orchestra Class.
He retained his position in active naval service, and taught his classes in uniform (military officers in Russia were required to wear their uniforms every day, as they were considered to be always on duty).
![Saint Petersburg Conservatory](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Saint_Petersburg_Conservatory.jpg)
Rimsky-Korsakov explained in his memoirs that
Mikhaíl Azanchevsky had taken over that year as director of the Conservatory,
and wanting new blood to freshen up teaching in those subjects,
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 116.] had offered to pay generously for Rimsky-Korsakov's services. Biographer
Mikhail Tsetlin
Mikhail Osipovich Tsetlin (russian: Михаи́л О́сипович Це́тлин, July 10, 1882, Moscow, Russian Empire, — November 10, 1945, New York City, United States) was a Russian poet, dramatist, novelist, memoirist, revolutionary and ...
(aka Mikhail Zetlin) suggests that Azanchevsky's motives might have been twofold. First, Rimsky-Korsakov was the member of the Five least criticized by its opponents, and inviting him to teach at the Conservatory may have been considered a safe way to show that all serious musicians were welcome there. Second, the offer may have been calculated to expose him to an academic climate in which he would write in a more conservative, Western-based style. Balakirev had opposed academic training in music with tremendous vigor,
[Maes, p. 39.] but encouraged him to accept the post to convince others to join the nationalist musical cause.
Rimsky-Korsakov's reputation at this time was as a master of orchestration, based on ''Sadko'' and ''Antar''.
[Zetlin, p. 195.] He had written these works mainly by intuition. His knowledge of musical theory was elemental; he had never written any
counterpoint, could not harmonize a simple
chorale
Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale:
* Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the th ...
, nor knew the names or
intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to arbitrary partially ordered sets
* A statistical level of measurement
* Interval e ...
of musical chords.
He had never conducted an orchestra, and had been discouraged from doing so by the navy, which did not approve of his appearing on the podium in uniform. Aware of his technical shortcomings, Rimsky-Korsakov consulted
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most pop ...
, with whom he and the others in The Five had been in occasional contact. Tchaikovsky, unlike The Five, had received academic training in composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, and was serving as Professor of
Music Theory at the
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...
. Tchaikovsky advised him to study.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that while teaching at the Conservatory he soon became "possibly its very best ''pupil''
imsky-Korsakov's emphasis judging by the quantity and value of the information it gave me!"
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 119.] To prepare himself, and to stay at least one step ahead of his students, he took a three-year sabbatical from composing original works, and assiduously studied at home while he lectured at the Conservatory. He taught himself from textbooks,
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:29.] and followed a strict regimen of composing contrapuntal exercises,
fugues, chorales and ''
a cappella'' choruses.
Rimsky-Korsakov eventually became an excellent teacher and a fervent believer in academic training.
[Maes, p. 170.] He revised everything he had composed prior to 1874, even acclaimed works such as ''Sadko'' and ''Antar'', in a search for perfection that would remain with him throughout the rest of his life.
Assigned to rehearse the Orchestra Class, he mastered the art of conducting.
Dealing with orchestral textures as a conductor, and making suitable arrangements of musical works for the Orchestra Class, led to an increased interest in the art of orchestration, an area into which he would further indulge his studies as Inspector of Navy Bands. The score of his Third Symphony, written just after he had completed his three-year program of self-improvement, reflects his hands-on experience with the orchestra.
![Nadezhda Purgold](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Nadezhda_Purgold.jpg)
Professorship brought Rimsky-Korsakov financial security,
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:28] which encouraged him to settle down and to start a family.
In December 1871 he proposed to
Nadezhda Purgold, with whom he had developed a close relationship over weekly gatherings of The Five at the Purgold household. They married in July 1872, with Mussorgsky serving as best man.
The Rimsky-Korsakovs had seven children. Their first son,
Mikhail, became an entomologist while another son,
Andrei
Andrei, Andrey or Andrej (in Cyrillic script: Андрэй , Андрей or Андреј) is a form of Andreas/Ἀνδρέας in Slavic languages and Romanian. People with the name include:
*Andrei of Polotsk (–1399), Lithuanian nobleman
*A ...
, became a musicologist, married the composer Yuliya Veysberg and wrote a multi-volume study of his father's life and work.
Nadezhda became a musical as well as domestic partner with her husband, much as
Clara Schumann
Clara Josephine Schumann (; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a ...
had been with her own husband Robert.
She was beautiful, capable, strong-willed, and far better trained musically than her husband at the time they married—she had attended the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in the mid-1860s, studying piano with Anton Gerke (one of whose private students was Mussorgsky) and music theory with
Nikolai Zaremba, who also taught Tchaikovsky.
[Neff, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:423.] Nadezhda proved a fine and most demanding critic of her husband's work; her influence over him in musical matters was strong enough for Balakirev and Stasov to wonder whether she was leading him astray from their musical preferences.
[Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:401.] Musicologist Lyle Neff wrote that while Nadezhda gave up her own compositional career when she married Rimsky-Korsakov, she "had a considerable influence on the creation of
imsky-Korsakov'sfirst three operas. She travelled with her husband, attended rehearsals and arranged compositions by him and others"
for piano four hands, which she played with her husband.
"Her last years were dedicated to issuing her husband's posthumous literary and musical legacy, maintaining standards for performance of his works ... and preparing material for a museum in his name."
![Rimsky-Korsakov by Repin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Rimsky-Korsakov_by_Repin.jpg)
In early 1873, the navy created the civilian post of Inspector of Naval Bands, with a rank of Collegiate Assessor, and appointed Rimsky-Korsakov. This kept him on the navy payroll and listed on the roster of the Chancellery of the Navy Department but allowed him to resign his commission.
The composer commented, "I parted with delight with both my military status and my officer's uniform", he later wrote. "Henceforth I was a musician officially and incontestably."
As Inspector, Rimsky-Korsakov applied himself with zeal to his duties.
He visited naval bands throughout Russia, supervised the bandmasters and their appointments, reviewed the bands' repertoire, and inspected the quality of their instruments. He wrote a study program for a complement of music students who held navy fellowships at the Conservatory, and acted as an intermediary between the Conservatory and the navy. He also indulged in a long-standing desire to familiarize himself with the construction and playing technique of orchestral instruments.
These studies prompted him to write a textbook on orchestration.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 136.] He used the privileges of rank to exercise and expand upon his knowledge. He discussed arrangements of musical works for military band with bandmasters, encouraged and reviewed their efforts, held concerts at which he could hear these pieces, and orchestrated original works, and works by other composers, for military bands.
In March 1884, an Imperial Order abolished the navy office of Inspector of Bands, and Rimsky-Korsakov was relieved of his duties.
He worked under Balakirev in the
Court Chapel
A court chapel (German: Hofkapelle) is a chapel (building) and/or a chapel as a musical ensemble associated with a royal or noble court. Most of these are royal (court) chapels, but when the ruler of the court is not a king, the more generic "co ...
as a deputy until 1894, which allowed him to study Russian Orthodox church music. He also taught classes at the chapel, and wrote his textbook on
harmony for use there and at the Conservatory.
Backlash and ''May Night''
Rimsky-Korsakov's studies and his change in attitude regarding music education brought him the scorn of his fellow nationalists, who thought he was throwing away his Russian heritage to compose fugues and
sonatas.
[Schonberg, p. 363.] After he strove "to crowd in as much counterpoint as possible" into his Third Symphony, he wrote
chamber
Chamber or the chamber may refer to:
In government and organizations
* Chamber of commerce, an organization of business owners to promote commercial interests
*Legislative chamber, in politics
* Debate chamber, the space or room that houses delib ...
works adhering strictly to classical models, including a string sextet, a string quartet in F major (Op. 12) and a quintet for flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano in B-flat. About the quartet and the symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness,
Nadezhda von Meck
Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck (russian: Надежда Филаретовна фон Мекк; 13 January 1894) was a Russian businesswoman who became an influential patron of the arts, especially music. She is best known today for her artistic ...
, that they "were filled with a host of clever things but ...
ereimbued with a dryly pedantic character".
Borodin commented that when he heard the symphony, he kept "feeling that this is the work of a German ''Herr Professor'' who has put on his glasses and is about to write ''Eine grosse Symphonie in C''".
According to Rimsky-Korsakov, the other members of the Five showed little enthusiasm for the symphony, and less still for the quartet.
Nor was his public debut as a conductor, at an 1874 charity concert where he led the orchestra in the new symphony, considered favorably by his compatriots.
He later wrote that "they began, indeed, to look down upon me as one on the downward path". Worse still to Rimsky-Korsakov was the faint praise given by
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sa ...
, a composer opposed to the nationalists' music and philosophy. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that after Rubinstein heard the quartet, he commented that now Rimsky-Korsakov "might amount to something" as a composer.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', 151.] He wrote that Tchaikovsky continued to support him morally, telling him that he fully applauded what Rimsky-Korsakov was doing and admired both his artistic modesty and his strength of character.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', 157 ft. 30.] Privately, Tchaikovsky confided to Nadezhda von Meck, "Apparently
imsky-Korsakovis now passing through this crisis, and how it will end will be difficult to predict. Either a great master will come out of him, or he will finally become bogged down in contrapuntal tricks".
[As quoted in Brown, ''Crisis Years'', p. 229.]
![Mikhail Glinka by Ilya Repin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Mikhail_Glinka_by_Ilya_Repin.jpg)
Two projects helped Rimsky-Korsakov focus on less academic music-making. The first was the creation of two folk song collections in 1874. Rimsky-Korsakov transcribed 40 Russian songs for voice and piano from performances by folk singer Tvorty Filippov,
who approached him at Balakirev's suggestion. This collection was followed by a second containing 100 songs, supplied by friends and servants, or taken from rare and out-of-print collections.
[Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:402.] Rimsky-Korsakov later credited this work as a great influence on him as a composer;
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 166.] it also supplied a vast amount of musical material from which he could draw for future projects, either by direct quotation or as models for composing
fakeloric passages.
The second project was the editing of orchestral scores by pioneer Russian composer Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857) in collaboration with Balakirev and Anatoly Lyadov.
Glinka's sister, Lyudmila Ivanovna Shestakova, wanted to preserve her brother's musical legacy in print, and paid the costs of the project from her own pocket. No similar project had been attempted before in Russian music, and guidelines for scholarly musical editing had to be established and agreed.
While Balakirev favored making changes in Glinka's music to "correct" what he saw as compositional flaws, Rimsky-Korsakov favored a less intrusive approach. Eventually, Rimsky-Korsakov prevailed.
"Work on Glinka's scores was an unexpected schooling for me", he later wrote. "Even before this I had known and worshipped his operas; but as editor of the scores in print I had to go through Glinka's style and instrumentation to their last little note ... And this was a beneficent discipline for me, leading me as it did to the path of modern music, after my vicissitudes with counterpoint and strict style".
In mid-1877, Rimsky-Korsakov thought increasingly about the short story ''
May Night'' by
Nikolai Gogol. The story had long been a favorite of his, and his wife Nadezhda had encouraged him to write an opera based on it from the day of their betrothal, when they had read it together. While musical ideas for such a work predated 1877, now they came with greater persistence. By early 1878 the project took an increasing amount of his attention; in February he started writing in earnest, and he finished the opera by early November.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that ''
May Night'' was of great importance because, despite the opera's containing a good deal of contrapuntal music, he nevertheless "''cast off the shackles of counterpoint''
mphasis Rimsky-Korsakov. He wrote the opera in a folk-like melodic idiom, and scored it in a transparent manner much in the style of Glinka.
Nevertheless, despite the ease of writing this opera and the next, ''
The Snow Maiden
''The Snow Maiden'' (subtitle: A Spring Fairy Tale) ( rus, Снегурочка–весенняя сказка, Snegúrochka–vesénnyaya skázka, italic=yes ) is an opera in four acts with a prologue by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composed ...
'', from time to time he suffered from creative paralysis between 1881 and 1888. He kept busy during this time by editing Mussorgsky's works and completing Borodin's ''
Prince Igor
''Prince Igor'' ( rus, Князь Игорь, Knyáz Ígor ) is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the Ancient Russian epic '' The Lay of Igor's Host'', which re ...
'' (Mussorgsky died in 1881, Borodin in 1887).
Belyayev circle
![Belyayev by Repin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Belyayev_by_Repin.jpg)
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that he became acquainted with budding music patron
Mitrofan Belyayev
Mitrofan Petrovich Belyayev (russian: Митрофа́н Петро́вич Беля́ев; old style 10/22 February 1836, St. Petersburg22 December 1903/ 4 January 1904) was an Imperial Russian music publisher, outstanding philanthropist, ...
(M. P. Belaieff) in Moscow in 1882. Belyayev was one of a growing coterie of Russian nouveau-riche industrialists who became patrons of the arts in mid- to late-19th century Russia; their number included railway magnate
Savva Mamontov
Savva Ivanovich Mamontov (russian: Са́вва Ива́нович Ма́монтов, ; 3 October 1841 (15 October N.S.), Yalutorovsk – 6 April 1918, Moscow) was a Russian industrialist, merchant, entrepreneur and patron of the arts.
Bus ...
and textile manufacturer
Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov (russian: Па́вел Миха́йлович Третьяко́в; 27 December 1832 – 16 December 1898) was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Ga ...
. Belyayev, Mamontov and Tretyakov "wanted to contribute conspicuously to public life".
[Taruskin, p. 49.] They had worked their way into wealth, and being Slavophiles in their national outlook believed in the greater glory of Russia.
Owing to this belief, they were more likely than the aristocracy to support native talent, and were more inclined to support nationalist artists over cosmopolitan ones.
[Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', p. 42.] This preference paralleled a general upsurge in nationalism and Russophilia that became prevalent in mainstream Russian art and society.
By 1883 Rimsky-Korsakov had become a regular visitor to the weekly "quartet Fridays" ("Les Vendredis") held at Belyayev's home in Saint Petersburg. Belyayev, who had already taken a keen interest in the musical future of the teenage
Alexander Glazunov, rented a hall and hired an orchestra in 1884 to play Glazunov's First Symphony plus an orchestral suite Glazunov had just composed. This concert and a rehearsal the previous year gave Rimsky-Korsakov the idea of offering concerts featuring Russian compositions, a prospect to which Belyayev was amenable. The
Russian Symphony Concerts The Russian Symphony Concerts were a series of Russian classical music concerts hosted by timber magnate and musical philanthropist Mitrofan Belyayev in St. Petersburg as a forum for young Russian composers to have their orchestral works performed ...
were inaugurated during the 1886–87 season, with Rimsky-Korsakov sharing conducting duties with Anatoly Lyadov. He finished his revision of Mussorgsky's ''
Night on Bald Mountain
''Night on Bald Mountain'' (russian: Ночь на лысой горе, translit=Noch′ na lysoy gore, links=no), also known as ''Night on the Bare Mountain'', is a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). Inspired by Russian ...
'' and conducted it at the opening concert.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 281.] The concerts also coaxed him out of his creative drought; he wrote ''
Scheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' der ...
'', ''
Capriccio Espagnol
''Capriccio espagnol'', Op. 34, is the common Western title for a five movement orchestral suite, based on Spanish folk melodies, composed by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. It received its premiere on 31 October 1887, in S ...
'' and the ''
Russian Easter Overture'' specifically for them.
He noted that these three works "show a considerable falling off in the use of contrapuntal devices ...
eplacedby a strong and virtuoso development of every kind of figuration which sustains the technical interest of my compositions".
Rimsky-Korsakov was asked for advice and guidance not just on the Russian Symphony Concerts, but on other projects through which Belyayev aided Russian composers. "By force of matters purely musical I turned out to be the head of the Belyayev circle", he wrote. "As the head Belyayev, too, considered me, consulting me about everything and referring everyone to me as chief". In 1884 Belyayev set up an annual
Glinka prize, and in 1885 he founded his own music publishing firm, through which he published works by Borodin, Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov at his own expense. To select which composers to assist with money, publication or performances from the many who now appealed for help, Belyayev set up an advisory council made up of Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. They would look through the compositions and appeals submitted and suggest which composers were deserving of patronage and public attention.
[Maes, p. 173.]
The group of composers who now congregated with Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov became known as the
Belyayev circle, named after their financial benefactor. These composers were nationalistic in their musical outlook, as The Five before them had been. Like The Five, they believed in a uniquely Russian style of classical music that utilized folk music and exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements, as exemplified by the music of Balakirev, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Unlike The Five, these composers also believed in the necessity of an academic, Western-based background in composition—which Rimsky-Korsakov had instilled in his years at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Compared to the "revolutionary" composers in Balakirev's circle, Rimsky-Korsakov found those in the Belyayev circle to be "progressive ... attaching as it did great importance to technical perfection, but ... also broke new paths, though more securely, even if less speedily ..."
Increased contact with Tchaikovsky
![Porträt des Komponisten Pjotr I](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Portr%C3%A4t_des_Komponisten_Pjotr_I._Tschaikowski_%281840-1893%29.jpg)
In November 1887, Tchaikovsky arrived in Saint Petersburg in time to hear several of the Russian Symphony Concerts. One of them included the first complete performance of his
First Symphony, subtitled ''Winter Daydreams'', in its final version. Another concert featured the premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's Third Symphony in its revised version.
[Brown, ''Final Years'', 91.] Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky corresponded considerably before the visit and spent a lot of time together, along with Glazunov and Lyadov.
[Brown, ''Final Years'', p. 90.] Though Tchaikovsky had been a regular visitor to the Rimsky-Korsakov home since 1876,
and had at one point offered to arrange Rimsky-Korsakov's appointment as director of the Moscow Conservatory,
[Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', p. 31.] this was the beginning of closer relations between the two. Within a couple of years, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote, Tchaikovsky's visits became more frequent.
During these visits and especially in public, Rimsky-Korsakov wore a mask of geniality. Privately, he found the situation emotionally complex, and confessed his fears to his friend, the Moscow critic Semyon Kruglikov. Memories persisted of the tension between Tchaikovsky and The Five over the differences in their musical philosophies—tension acute enough for Tchaikovsky's brother Modest to liken their relations at that time to "those between two friendly neighboring states ... cautiously prepared to meet on common ground, but jealously guarding their separate interests". Rimsky-Korsakov observed, not without annoyance, how Tchaikovsky became increasingly popular among Rimsky-Korsakov's followers. This personal jealousy was compounded by a professional one, as Tchaikovsky's music became increasingly popular among the composers of the Belyayev circle, and remained on the whole more famous than his own. Even so, when Tchaikovsky attended Rimsky-Korsakov's
nameday
In Christianity, a name day is a tradition in many countries of Europe and the Americas, among other parts of Christendom. It consists of celebrating a day of the year that is associated with one's baptismal name, which is normatively that of a ...
party in May 1893, Rimsky-Korsakov asked Tchaikovsky personally if he would conduct four concerts of the
Russian Musical Society
The Russian Musical Society (RMS) (russian: Русское музыкальное общество) was the first music school in Russia open to the general public. It was launched in 1859 by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna and Anton Rubinstei ...
in Saint Petersburg the following season. After hesitation, Tchaikovsky agreed. While his sudden death in late 1893 prevented him from fulfilling this commitment in its entirety, the list of works he had planned to conduct included Rimsky-Korsakov's Third Symphony.
Increasing conservatism; second creative drought
![RKorsakow](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/RKorsakow.jpg)
In March 1889, Angelo Neumann's traveling "
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
Theater" visited Saint Petersburg, giving four cycles of ''
Der Ring des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibe ...
'' there under the direction of
Karl Muck
Karl Muck (October 22, 1859 – March 3, 1940) was a German-born conductor of Classical music. He based his activities principally in Europe and mostly in opera. His American career comprised two stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). M ...
.
The Five had ignored Wagner's music, but ''The Ring'' impressed Rimsky-Korsakov: he was astonished with Wagner's mastery of orchestration. He attended the rehearsals with Glazunov, and followed the score. After hearing these performances, Rimsky-Korsakov devoted himself almost exclusively to composing operas for the rest of his creative life. Wagner's use of the orchestra influenced Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration,
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:30.] beginning with the arrangement of the
polonaise
The polonaise (, ; pl, polonez ) is a dance of Polish origin, one of the five Polish national dances in time. Its name is French for "Polish" adjective feminine/"Polish woman"/"girl". The original Polish name of the dance is Chodzony, meani ...
from Mussorgsky's ''Boris Godunov'' that he made for concert use in 1889.
Toward music more adventurous than Wagner's, especially that of
Richard Strauss and later
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...
, Rimsky-Korsakov's mind remained closed. He would fume for days afterwards when he heard pianist
Felix Blumenfeld
Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld (russian: Фе́ликс Миха́йлович Блуменфе́льд; – 21 January 1931) was a Russian and Soviet composer, conductor of the Imperial Opera St-Petersburg, pianist, and teacher.
He was bor ...
play Debussy's ''
Estampes
''Estampes'' ("Prints"), L.100, is a composition for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It was finished in 1903. The first performance of the work was given by Ricardo Viñes at the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris. This three-movement pian ...
'' and write in his diary about them, "Poor and skimpy to the nth degree; there is no technique, even less imagination." This was part of an increasing musical conservatism on his part (his "musical conscience", as he put it), under which he now scrutinized his music and that of others as well.
Compositions by his former compatriots in The Five were not immune. While working on his first revision of Mussorgsky's ''Boris Godunov'', in 1895 he would tell his
amanuensis, Vasily Yastrebtsev, "It's incredible that I ever could have liked this music and yet it seems there was such a time." By 1901 he would write of growing "indignant at all
f Wagner's
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
His ...
blunders of the ear"—this about the same music which caught his attention in 1889.
[Maes, p. 181.]
In 1892, Rimsky-Korsakov suffered a second creative drought,
brought on by bouts of depression and alarming physical symptoms. Rushes of blood to the head, confusion, memory loss and unpleasant obsessions
[Abraham, ''New Grove'', 16:31.] led to a medical diagnosis of
neurasthenia
Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...
.
Crises in the Rimsky-Korsakov household may have been a factor—the serious illnesses of his wife and one of his sons from
diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
in 1890, the deaths of his mother and youngest child, as well as the onset of the prolonged, ultimately fatal illness of his second youngest child. He resigned from the Russian Symphony Concerts and the Court Chapel
and considered giving up composition permanently.
[Maes, p. 171.] After making third versions of the musical tableau ''Sadko'' and the opera ''The Maid of Pskov'', he closed his musical account with the past; he had left none of his major works before ''May Night'' in their original form.
Another death brought about a creative renewal.
The passing of Tchaikovsky presented a twofold opportunity—to write for the Imperial Theaters and to compose an opera based on Nikolai Gogol's short story ''
Christmas Eve'', a work on which Tchaikovsky had based his opera ''
Vakula the Smith
''Vakula the Smith'' (russian: Кузнец Вакула, Kuznéts Vakúla, Smith Vakula ), Op. 14, is a Ukrainian-themed opera in 3 acts, 8 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Yakov Polonsky and is based on Nikolai G ...
''. The success of Rimsky-Korsakov's ''
Christmas Eve'' encouraged him to complete an opera approximately every 18 months between 1893 and 1908 — a total of 11 during this period.
He also started and abandoned another draft of his treatise on orchestration,
but made a third attempt and almost finished it in the last four years of his life. (His son-in-law
Maximilian Steinberg
Maximilian Osseyevich Steinberg (Russian Максимилиан Осеевич Штейнберг; – 6 December 1946) was a Russian composer of classical music.
Though once considered the hope of Russian music, Steinberg is far less well known ...
completed the book in 1912.
) Rimsky-Korsakov's scientific treatment of orchestration, illustrated with more than 300 examples from his work, set a new standard for texts of its kind.
[Leonard, p. 149.]
1905 Revolution
In 1905, demonstrations took place in the St. Petersburg Conservatory as part of the
1905 Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
; these, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote, were triggered by similar disturbances at
St. Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...
, in which students demanded political reforms and the establishment of a
constitutional monarchy
A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies dif ...
in Russia.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 411.] "I was chosen a member of the committee for adjusting differences with agitated pupils", he recalled; almost as soon as the committee had been formed, "
l sorts of measures were recommended to expel the ringleaders, to quarter the police in the Conservatory, to close the Conservatory entirely".
![Repin 17October](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Repin_17October.jpg)
A lifelong liberal politically,
[Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:405.] Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that he felt someone had to protect the rights of the students to demonstrate, especially as disputes and wrangling between students and authorities were becoming increasingly violent. In an open letter, he sided with the students against what he saw as unwarranted interference by Conservatory leadership and the Russian Musical Society.
A second letter, this time signed by a number of faculty including Rimsky-Korsakov, demanded the resignation of the head of the Conservatory. Partly as a result of these two letters he wrote, approximately 100 Conservatory students were expelled and he was removed from his professorship.
[Rimsky-Korsakov, ''My Musical Life'', p. 412.]
Just before the dismissal was enacted, Rimsky-Korsakov received a letter from one of the members of the school directorate, suggesting that he take up the directorship in the interest of calming student unrest. "Probably the member of the Directorate held a minority opinion, but signed the resolution nevertheless," he wrote. "I sent a negative reply." Partly in defiance of his dismissal, Rimsky-Korsakov continued teaching his students from his home.
Not long after Rimsky-Korsakov's dismissal, a student production of his opera ''
Kashchey the Immortal'' was followed not with the scheduled concert but with a political demonstration,
which led to a police ban on Rimsky-Korsakov's work.
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:32.] Due in part to widespread press coverage of these events,
[Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:406.] an immediate wave of outrage against the ban arose throughout Russia and abroad; liberals and intellectuals deluged the composer's residence with letters of sympathy, and even peasants who had not heard a note of Rimsky-Korsakov's music sent small monetary donations.
Several faculty members of the St. Petersburg Conservatory resigned in protest, including Glazunov and Lyadov. Eventually, over 300 students walked out of the Conservatory in solidarity with Rimsky-Korsakov.
By December he had been reinstated under a new director, Glazunov.
Rimsky-Korsakov retired from the Conservatory in 1906. The political controversy continued with his opera ''
The Golden Cockerel
''The Golden Cockerel'' ( rus, Золотой петушок, Zolotoy petushok ) is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, his last opera he completed before his death in 1908. ...
''. Its implied criticism of monarchy, Russian imperialism and the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
gave it little chance of passing the censors.
The premiere was delayed until 1909, after Rimsky-Korsakov's death, and even then it was performed in an adapted version.
[Maes, p. 178.]
![Rimsky-Korsakov Grave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Rimsky-Korsakov_Grave.jpg)
In April 1907, Rimsky-Korsakov conducted a pair of concerts in Paris, hosted by impresario
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
, which featured music of the Russian nationalist school. The concerts were hugely successful in popularizing Russian classical music of this kind in Europe, Rimsky-Korsakov's in particular. The following year, his opera ''Sadko'' was produced at the
Paris Opéra
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be k ...
and ''The Snow Maiden'' at the
Opéra-Comique.
He also had the opportunity to hear more recent music by European composers. He hissed unabashedly when he heard Richard Strauss's opera ''
Salome'', and told Diaghilev after hearing Claude Debussy's opera ''
Pelléas et Mélisande'', "Don't make me listen to all these horrors or I shall end up liking them!"
Hearing these works led him to appreciate his place in the world of classical music. He admitted that he was a "convinced kuchkist" (after ''kuchka'', the shortened Russian term for The Five) and that his works belonged to an era that musical trends had left behind.
Death
Beginning around 1890, Rimsky-Korsakov suffered from
angina.
While this ailment initially wore him down gradually, the stresses concurrent with the 1905 Revolution and its aftermath greatly accelerated its progress. After December 1907, his illness became severe, and he could not work.
In 1908, he died at his Lubensk estate near
Luga (modern day
Plyussky District
Plyussky District (russian: Плю́сский райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #833-oz and municipalLaw #420-oz district (raion), one of the twenty-four in Pskov Oblast, Russia. It is located in the northeast of the oblast and borders with S ...
of
Pskov Oblast), and was interred in
Tikhvin Cemetery
Tikhvin Cemetery (russian: Тихвинское кладбище) is a historic cemetery in the centre of Saint Petersburg. It is part of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and is one of four cemeteries in the complex. Since 1932 it has been part of the ...
at the
Alexander Nevsky Monastery
Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra or Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery was founded by Peter I of Russia in 1710 at the eastern end of the Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, in the belief that this was the site of the Neva Battle in 1240 when Alex ...
in Saint Petersburg, next to Borodin, Glinka, Mussorgsky and Stasov.
Compositions
![Walentin Alexandrowitsch Serow 004](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Walentin_Alexandrowitsch_Serow_004.jpg)
Rimsky-Korsakov followed the musical ideals espoused by The Five. He employed Orthodox liturgical themes in the ''
Russian Easter Festival Overture
''Russian Easter Festival Overture: Overture on Liturgical Themes'' (russian: Светлый праздник, translit=Svetly prazdnik, translation=Bright festival), Op. 36, also known as the ''Great Russian Easter Overture'', is a concert overt ...
'', folk song in ''
Capriccio Espagnol
''Capriccio espagnol'', Op. 34, is the common Western title for a five movement orchestral suite, based on Spanish folk melodies, composed by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. It received its premiere on 31 October 1887, in S ...
'' and orientalism in ''
Scheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' der ...
'', possibly his best known work.
[Maes, pp. 175–176.] He proved a prolific composer but also a perpetually self-critical one. He revised every orchestral work up to and including his Third Symphony—some, like ''
Antar
Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) is an independent, national non-government, not-for-profit, community-based organisation founded in 1997 which advocates for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in A ...
'' and ''
Sadko'', more than once. These revisions range from minor changes of tempo, phrasing and instrumental detail to wholesale
transposition and complete recomposition.
Rimsky-Korsakov was open about the influences in his music, telling Vasily Yastrebtsev, "Study Liszt and Balakirev more closely, and you'll see that a great deal in me is not mine". He followed Balakirev in his use of the whole tone scale, treatment of folk songs and musical
orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
and Liszt for harmonic adventurousness. (The violin melody used to portray
Scheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' de ...
is very closely related to its counterpart in Balakirev's symphonic poem ''
Tamara'', while the ''Russian Easter Overtures'' follows the design and plan of Balakirev's Second Overture on Russian Themes.)
Nevertheless, while he took Glinka and Liszt as his harmonic models, his use of
whole tone
In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more det ...
and
octatonic scale
An octatonic scale is any eight- note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), this symmetric ...
s do demonstrate his originality. He developed both these compositional devices for the "fantastic" sections of his operas, which depicted magical or supernatural characters and events.
Rimsky-Korsakov maintained an interest in harmonic experiments and continued exploring new idioms throughout his career. He tempered this interest with an abhorrence of excess and kept his tendency to experiment under constant control.
The more radical his harmonies became, the more he attempted to control them with strict rules—applying his "musical conscience", as he called it. In this sense, he was both a progressive and a conservative composer.
[Maes, p. 180.] The whole tone and octatonic scales were both considered adventurous in the Western classical tradition, and Rimsky-Korsakov's use of them made his harmonies seem radical. Conversely, his care about how or when in a composition he used these scales made him seem conservative compared with later composers like
Igor Stravinsky, though they were often building on Rimsky-Korsakov's work.
Operas
While Rimsky-Korsakov is best known in the West for his orchestral works, his operas are more complex, offering a wider variety of orchestral effects than in his instrumental works and fine vocal writing.
Excerpts and suites from them have proved as popular in the West as the purely orchestral works. The best-known of these excerpts is probably "
Flight of the Bumblebee" from ''
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan ( rus, «Сказка о царе Салтане, о сыне его славном и могучем богаты ...
,'' which has often been heard by itself in orchestral programs, and in countless arrangements and transcriptions, most famously in a piano version made by Russian composer
Sergei Rachmaninoff. Other selections familiar to listeners in the West are "Dance of the Tumblers" from ''The Snow Maiden'', "Procession of the Nobles" from ''
Mlada'', and "Song of the Indian Guest" (or, less accurately, "Song of India") from ''
Sadko
Sadko (russian: Садко) is the principal character in a Russian medieval epic '' bylina''. He was an adventurer, merchant, and '' gusli'' musician from Novgorod.
Textual notes
"Sadko" is a version of the tale translated by Arthur Ransome ...
'', as well as suites from ''
The Golden Cockerel
''The Golden Cockerel'' ( rus, Золотой петушок, Zolotoy petushok ) is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, his last opera he completed before his death in 1908. ...
'' and ''
''.
The Operas fall into three categories:
* Historical drama: ''
The Maid of Pskov
''The Maid of Pskov'' (russian: Псковитянка, Pskovityanka, links=no, Pskov female resident ), also known as ''Ivan the Terrible'', is an 1872 opera originally in three acts (six scenes) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto is by the ...
'', and its prologue ''
The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga'', ''
Mozart and Salieri'', ''
The Tsar's Bride
''The Tsar's Bride'' (russian: Царская невеста, translit=Tsarskaja nevesta) is an historical verse drama in four acts by Lev Mei from 1849.Golub (1998, 951). Fifty years later Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used the play as the basis for ...
'', ''
Pan Voyevoda'', ''
Servilya''
* Folk operas: ''
May Night'', ''
Christmas Eve''
* Fairy tales and legends: ''
The Snow Maiden
''The Snow Maiden'' (subtitle: A Spring Fairy Tale) ( rus, Снегурочка–весенняя сказка, Snegúrochka–vesénnyaya skázka, italic=yes ) is an opera in four acts with a prologue by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composed ...
'', ''
Mlada'', ''
Sadko
Sadko (russian: Садко) is the principal character in a Russian medieval epic '' bylina''. He was an adventurer, merchant, and '' gusli'' musician from Novgorod.
Textual notes
"Sadko" is a version of the tale translated by Arthur Ransome ...
'', ''
Kashchey the Deathless'', ''
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan ( rus, «Сказка о царе Салтане, о сыне его славном и могучем богаты ...
'', ''
'', and ''
The Golden Cockerel
''The Golden Cockerel'' ( rus, Золотой петушок, Zolotoy petushok ) is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, his last opera he completed before his death in 1908. ...
''.
Of this range, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in 1902, "In every new work of mine I am trying to do something that is new for me. On the one hand, I am pushed on by the thought that in this way,
y music
Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some auth ...
will retain freshness and interest, but at the same time I am prompted by my pride to think that many facets, devices, moods and styles, if not all, should be within my reach."
American music critic and journalist
Harold C. Schonberg
Harold Charles Schonberg (29 November 1915 – 26 July 2003) was an American music critic and author. He is best known for his contributions in ''The New York Times'', where he was chief music critic from 1960 to 1980. In 1971, he became the fi ...
wrote that the operas "open up a delightful new world, the world of the Russian East, the world of supernaturalism and the exotic, the world of Slavic pantheism and vanished races. Genuine poetry suffuses them, and they are scored with brilliance and resource."
[Schonberg, p. 364.] According to some critics Rimsky-Korsakov's music in these works lacks dramatic power, a seemingly fatal flaw in an operatic composer. This may have been conscious, as he repeatedly stated in his writing that he felt operas were first and foremost musical works rather than mainly dramatic ones. Ironically, the operas succeed dramatically in most cases by being deliberately non-theatrical.
[Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:33.]
Orchestral works
The purely orchestral works fall into two categories. The best-known ones in the West, and perhaps the finest in overall quality, are mainly programmatic in nature — in other words, the musical content and how it is handled in the piece is determined by the plot or characters in a story, the action in a painting or events reported through another non-musical source.
The second category of works is more academic, such as his First and Third Symphonies and his Sinfonietta. In these, Rimsky-Korsakov still employed folk themes but subjected them to abstract rules of musical composition.
![RimskyScheherezadeThemes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/RimskyScheherezadeThemes.png)
Program music came naturally to Rimsky-Korsakov. To him, "even a folk theme has a program of sorts."
[Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:409.] He composed the majority of his orchestral works in this genre at two periods of his career—at the beginning, with ''Sadko'' and ''Antar'' (also known as his Second Symphony, Op. 9), and in the 1880s, with ''Scheherazade'', ''Capriccio Espagnol'' and the ''Russian Easter Overture''. Despite the gap between these two periods, the composer's overall approach and the way he used his musical themes remained consistent. Both ''Antar'' and ''Scheherazade'' use a robust "Russian" theme to portray the male protagonists (the title character in ''Antar''; the sultan in ''Scheherazade'') and a more sinuous "Eastern" theme for the female ones (the
peri Gul-Nazar in ''Antar'' and the title character in ''Scheherazade'').
Where Rimsky-Korsakov changed between these two sets of works was in orchestration. While his pieces were always celebrated for their imaginative use of instrumental forces, the sparser textures of ''Sadko'' and ''Antar'' pale compared to the luxuriance of the more popular works of the 1880s. While a principle of highlighting "primary hues" of instrumental color remained in place, it was augmented in the later works by a sophisticated cachet of orchestral effects, some gleaned from other composers including Wagner, but many invented by himself.
As a result, these works resemble brightly colored mosaics, striking in their own right and often scored with a juxtaposition of pure orchestral groups.
The final ''tutti'' of ''Scheherazade'' is a prime example of this scoring. The theme is assigned to trombones playing in unison, and is accompanied by a combination of
string patterns. Meanwhile, another pattern alternates with chromatic scales in the
woodwinds
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...
and a third pattern of rhythms is played by percussion.
Rimsky-Korsakov's non-program music, though well-crafted, does not rise to the same level of inspiration as his programmatic works; he needed fantasy to bring out the best in him.
The First Symphony follows the outlines of Schumann's Fourth extremely closely, and is slighter in its thematic material than his later compositions. The Third Symphony and Sinfonietta each contain a series of variations on less-than-the-best music that can lead to tedium.
Smaller-scale works
Rimsky-Korsakov composed dozens of
art songs, arrangements of folk songs, chamber and piano music. While the piano music is relatively unimportant, many of the art songs possess a delicate beauty. While they yield in overt lyricism to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, otherwise they reserve their place in the standard repertory of Russian singers.
Rimsky-Korsakov also wrote a body of choral works, both secular and for Russian Orthodox Church service. The latter include settings of portions of the ''Liturgy of St.
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ...
'' (despite his own
atheism).
[Abraham, ''The New Grove Russian Masters 2'', p. 27.]
Legacy
Transitional figure
The critic
Vladimir Stasov
Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (also Stassov; rus, Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ста́сов; 14 January Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_in_Eastern_Europe.html" ;"title="/nowiki> O.S._2_January.html" ;"title="Adoption of ...
, who along with Balakirev had founded The Five, wrote in 1882, "Beginning with Glinka, all the best Russian musicians have been very skeptical of book learning and have never approached it with the servility and the superstitious reverence with which it is approached to this day in many parts of Europe." This statement was not true for Glinka, who studied Western music theory assiduously with
Siegfried Dehn
Siegfried Wilhelm (von) Dehn (24 or 25 February 1799 – 12 April 1858) was a German music theorist, editor, teacher and librarian.
Born in Altona, Dehn was the son of a banker and learned to play the cello as a boy. Intent on becoming a diplo ...
in Berlin before he composed his opera ''
A Life for the Tsar''. It was true for Balakirev, who "opposed academicism with tremendous vigor,"
and it was true initially for Rimsky-Korsakov, who had been imbued by Balakirev and Stasov with the same attitude.
![Rimsky-Korsakov](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Rimsky-Korsakov.jpg)
One point Stasov omitted purposely, which would have disproved his statement completely, was that at the time he wrote it, Rimsky-Korsakov had been pouring his "book learning" into students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory for over a decade.
[Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 29.] Beginning with his three years of self-imposed study, Rimsky-Korsakov had drawn closer to Tchaikovsky and further away from the rest of The Five, while the rest of The Five had drawn back from him and Stasov had branded him a "renegade".
Richard Taruskin
Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...
wrote, "The older he became, the greater was the irony with which Rimsky-Korsakov looked back on his kuchkist days." When the young Semyon Kruglikov was considering a future in composition, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the future critic,
About a talent for composition ... I can say nothing as yet. You have tried your powers too little ... Yes, one can study on one's own. Sometimes one needs advice, but one must study ... All of us, that is, I myself and Borodin, and Balakirev, and especially Cui and Mussorgsky, did disdain these things. I consider myself lucky that I bethought myself in time and forced myself to work. As for Balakirev, owing to his insufficient technique he writes little; Borodin, with difficulty; Cui, carelessly; and Mussorgsky, sloppily and often incoherently.
Taruskin points out this statement, which Rimsky-Korsakov wrote while Borodin and Mussorgsky were still alive, as proof of his estrangement from the rest of The Five and an indication of the kind of teacher he eventually became.
[Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 34.] By the time he instructed Liadov and Glazunov, "their training hardly differed from
chaikovsky's An ideal of the strictest professionalism was instilled in them from the beginning."
By the time Borodin died in 1887, the era of autodidactism for Russian composers had effectively ended. Every Russian who aspired to write classical music attended a conservatory and received the same formal education. "There was no more 'Moscow', no 'St. Petersburg'." Taruskin writes; "at last all Russia was one. Moreover, by century's end, the theory and composition faculties of Rubinstein's Conservatory were entirely in the hands of representatives of the New Russian School. Viewed against the background of Stasov's predictions, there could scarcely be any greater irony."
Students
Rimsky-Korsakov taught theory and composition to 250 students over his 35-year tenure at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, "enough to people a whole 'school' of composers". This does not include pupils at the two other schools where he taught, including Glazunov, or those he taught privately at his home, such as Igor Stravinsky. Apart from Glazunov and Stravinsky, students who later found fame included Anatoly Lyadov,
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov (russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Ипполи́тов-Ива́нов; 28 January 1935) was a Russian and Soviet composer, conductor and teacher. His music ranged from the late-Romantic era ...
,
Alexander Spendiaryan
Alexander Afanasyevich Spendiarov (Spendiaryan) (russian: Александр Афанасьевич Спендиаров, hy, Ալեքսանդր Ստեփանոսի Սպենդիարյան, November 1, 1871, Kakhovka, Russian Empire – May 7 ...
,
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, ...
,
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral su ...
,
Witold Maliszewski
Witold Maliszewski (russian: Витольд Осипович Малишевский, uk, Вітольд Йосифович Малішевський; 20 July 1873 – 18 July 1939) was a Polish composer, founder of Odessa Conservatory, and a profe ...
,
Mykola Lysenko
Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko ( uk, Мико́ла Віта́лійович Ли́сенко; 22 March 1842 – 6 November 1912) was a List of Ukrainian composers, Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist of the late Romantic mus ...
,
Artur Kapp
Artur Kapp (28 February 1878 – 14 January 1952) was an Estonian composer.
Born in Suure-Jaani, Estonia, then part of the Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire, he was the son of Joosep Kapp, who was also a classically trained musician. K ...
, and
Konstanty Gorski. Other students included the music critic and
musicologist
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...
Alexander Ossovsky, and the composer
Lazare Saminsky
Lazare Saminsky, born Lazar Semyonovich Saminsky (russian: Лазарь (Элиэзер) Семенович Саминский; Valehotsulove (now Dolynske), near Odessa, 27 October 1882 O.S. / 8 November N.S. – Port Chester, New York, 30 June ...
.
[Schonberg, 365.]
Rimsky-Korsakov felt talented students needed little formal dictated instruction. His teaching method included distinct steps: show the students everything needed in harmony and counterpoint; direct them in understanding the forms of composition; give them a year or two of systematic study in the development of technique, exercises in free composition and orchestration; instill a good knowledge of the piano. Once these were properly completed, studies would be over. He carried this attitude into his conservatory classes. Conductor
Nikolai Malko
Nicolai Andreyevich Malko (russian: Никола́й Андре́евич Малько́, ua, Микола Андрійович Малько; 4 May 188323 June 1961) was a Russian-born American symphonic conductor.
Biography
Malko was born in ...
remembered that Rimsky-Korsakov began the first class of the term by saying, "I will speak, and you will listen. Then I will speak less, and you will start to work. And finally I will not speak at all, and you will work."
Malko added that his class followed exactly this pattern. "Rimsky-Korsakov explained everything so clearly and simply that all we had to do was to do our work well."
[Malko, 49.]
Editing the work of The Five
Rimsky-Korsakov's editing of works by The Five is significant. It was a practical extension of the collaborative atmosphere of The Five during the 1860s and 1870s, when they heard each other's compositions in progress and worked on them together, and was an effort to save works that would otherwise either have languished unheard or become lost entirely. This work included the completion of
Alexander Borodin's opera ''
Prince Igor
''Prince Igor'' ( rus, Князь Игорь, Knyáz Ígor ) is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the Ancient Russian epic '' The Lay of Igor's Host'', which re ...
'', which Rimsky-Korsakov undertook with the help of Glazunov after Borodin's death,
and the orchestration of passages from César Cui's ''
William Ratcliff'' for its first production in 1869.
He also completely orchestrated the opera ''
The Stone Guest by ''
Alexander Dargomyzhsky
Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky ( rus, link=no, Александр Сергеевич Даргомыжский, Aleksandr Sergeyevich Dargomyzhskiy., ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪdʑ dərɡɐˈmɨʂskʲɪj, Ru-Aleksandr-Sergeevich- ...
three times—in 1869–70, 1892 and 1902.
While not a member of The Five himself, Dargomyzhsky was closely associated with the group and shared their musical philosophy.
![Chaliapin Godunov 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Chaliapin_Godunov_1912.jpg)
Musicologist Francis Maes wrote that while Rimsky-Korsakov's efforts are laudable, they are also controversial. It was generally assumed that with ''Prince Igor'', Rimsky-Korsakov edited and orchestrated the existing fragments of the opera while Glazunov composed and added missing parts, including most of the third act and the overture. This was exactly what Rimsky-Korsakov stated in his memoirs. Both Maes and
Richard Taruskin
Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...
cite an analysis of Borodin's manuscripts by musicologist Pavel Lamm, which showed that Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov discarded nearly 20 percent of Borodin's score. According to Maes, the result is more a collaborative effort by all three composers than a true representation of Borodin's intent.
[Maes, 183.] Lamm stated that because of the extremely chaotic state of Borodin's manuscripts, a modern alternative to Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov's edition would be extremely difficult to complete.
More debatable, according to Maes, is Rimsky-Korsakov's editing of Mussorgsky's works. After Mussorgsky's death in 1881, Rimsky-Korsakov revised and completed several of Mussorgsky's works for publication and performance, helping to spread Mussorgsky's works throughout Russia and to the West. Maes, in reviewing Mussorgsky's scores, wrote that Rimsky-Korsakov allowed his "musical conscience" to dictate his editing, and he changed or removed what he considered musical over-experimentation or poor form.
Because of this, Rimsky-Korsakov has been accused of pedantry in "correcting", among other things, matters of harmony. Rimsky-Korsakov may have foreseen questions over his efforts when he wrote,
If Mussorgsky's compositions are destined to live unfaded for fifty years after their author's death (when all his works will become the property of any and every publisher), such an archeologically accurate edition will always be possible, as the manuscripts went to the Public Library on leaving me. For the present, though, there was need of an edition for performances, for practical artistic purposes, for making his colossal talent known, and not for the mere studying of his personality and artistic sins.
Maes stated that time proved Rimsky-Korsakov correct when it came to posterity's re-evaluation of Mussorgsky's work. Mussorgsky's musical style, once considered unpolished, is now admired for its originality. While Rimsky-Korsakov's arrangement of ''
Night on Bald Mountain
''Night on Bald Mountain'' (russian: Ночь на лысой горе, translit=Noch′ na lysoy gore, links=no), also known as ''Night on the Bare Mountain'', is a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). Inspired by Russian ...
'' is still the version generally performed, Rimsky-Korsakov's other revisions, like his version of ''
Boris Godunov'', have been replaced by Mussorgsky's original.
[Maes, 115.]
Folklore and pantheism
Rimsky-Korsakov may have saved the most personal side of his creativity for his approach to Russian folklore. Folklorism as practiced by Balakirev and the other members of The Five had been based largely on the ''protyazhnaya'' dance song.
''Protyazhnaya'' literally meant "drawn-out song", or
melisma
Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is refer ...
tically elaborated lyric song.
The characteristics of this song exhibit extreme rhythmic flexibility, an
asymmetrical
Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...
phrase structure and tonal ambiguity.
[Maes, p. 65.] After composing ''May Night'', Rimsky-Korsakov was increasingly drawn to "calendar songs", which were written for specific ritual occasions. The ties to folk culture was what interested him most in folk music, even in his days with The Five; these songs formed a part of rural customs, echoed old Slavic paganism and the
pantheistic
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...
world of folk rites.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that his interest in these songs was heightened by his study of them while compiling his folk song collections. He wrote that he "was captivated by the poetic side of the cult of sun-worship, and sought its survivals and echoes in both the tunes and the words of the songs. The pictures of the ancient pagan period and spirit loomed before me, as it then seemed, with great clarity, luring me on with the charm of antiquity. These occupations subsequently had a great influence in the direction of my own activity as a composer".
Rimsky-Korsakov's interest in pantheism was whetted by the folkloristic studies of
Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Afanasief, Afanasiev or Afanas'ev, russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) ( — ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk ta ...
.
That author's standard work, ''The Poetic Outlook on Nature by the Slavs'', became Rimsky-Korsakov's pantheistic bible. The composer first applied Afanasyev's ideas in ''May Night'', in which he helped fill out Gogol's story by using folk dances and calendar songs.
He went further down this path in ''The Snow Maiden'',
[Maes, p. 187.] where he made extensive use of seasonal calendar songs and ''khorovodi'' (ceremonial dances) in the folk tradition.
[Maes, p. 188.]
Musicologists
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
and
Slavicists have long recognized that Rimsky-Korsakov was an ecumenical artist whose folklore-inspired operas take up such issues as the relationship between
paganism and Christianity and the seventeenth-century schism in the Orthodox Church.
In film
* The Soviet 1953 film ''
Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...
'' presents the last twenty years of his life. He is played by
Grigori Belov
Grigori Akinfovich Belov (russian: Григорий Акинфович Белов; 18 December 1895 – 13 September 1965) was a Russian actor. He appeared in more than ten Film, films from 1940 to 1966.
Selected filmography
References
Ext ...
. His earlier years with ''
The Five'' were portrayed by
Andrei Popov in the 1950 film from the same studio titled ''
Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
''.
Publications
Rimsky-Korsakov's autobiography and his books on harmony and orchestration have been translated into English and published. Two books he started in 1892 but left unfinished were a comprehensive text on Russian music and a manuscript, now lost, on an unknown subject.
[Leonard, 150.]
* ''My Musical Life''.
'Летопись моей музыкальной жизни'' – literally, ''Chronicle of My Musical Life''.Trans. from the 5th rev. Russian ed. by Judah A. Joffe; ed. with an introduction by Carl Van Vechten. London:
Ernst Eulenburg Ltd, 1974.
* ''Practical Manual of Harmony''.
'Практический учебник гармонии''.First published, in Russian, in 1885. First English edition published by Carl Fischer in 1930, trans. from the 12th Russian ed. by Joseph Achron. Current English ed. by Nicholas Hopkins, New York, New York: C. Fischer, 2005.
* ''Principles of Orchestration''.
'Основы оркестровки''.Begun in 1873 and completed posthumously by Maximilian Steinberg in 1912, first published, in Russian, in 1922 ed. by Maximilian Steinberg. English trans. by Edward Agate; New York: Dover Publications, 1964 ("unabridged and corrected republication of the work first published by Edition russe de musique in 1922").
References
Footnotes
Citations
Sources
In English
* Abraham, Gerald, "Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolay Andreyevich". In ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (London:
Macmillan, 1980) 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie. .
* Abraham, Gerald, ''Studies in Russian Music'' (London: William Reeves/The New Temple Press, 1936). ISBN n/a.
* Abraham, Gerald. ''Rimsky-Korsakov: a Short Biography'' (London:
Duckworth Duckworth may refer to:
* Duckworth (surname), people with the surname ''Duckworth''
* Duckworth (''DuckTales''), fictional butler from the television series ''DuckTales''
* Duckworth Books, a British publishing house
* , a frigate
* Duckworth, W ...
, 1945; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1976. Later ed.: ''Rimsky-Korsakov''. London: Duckworth, 1949).
* Abraham, Gerald, ''Slavonic and Romantic Music: Essays and Studies'' (London: Faber & Faber, 1968). .
* Abraham, Gerald, "Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolay Andreyevich". In ''The New Grove Russian Masters 2'' (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1986). .
* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840–1874'' (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978). .
* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878'', (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). .
* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885–1893'', (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). .
* Calvocoressi, M.D. and Gerald Abraham, ''Masters of Russian Music'' (New York: Tudor Publishing Company, 1944). ISBN n/a.
* Figes, Orlando, ''Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia'' (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002). (hc.).
*
Frolova-Walker, Marina, "Rimsky-Korsakov. Russian family of musicians. (1) Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov". In ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition'' (London: Macmillan, 2001) 29 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie. .
* Holden, Anthony, ''Tchaikovsky: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1995). .
* Leonard, Richard Anthony, ''A History of Russian Music'' (New York: Macmillan, 1957). .
* McAllister, Rita and Iosef Genrikhovich Rayskin, "Rimsky-Korsakov. Russian family of musicians. (3) Andrey Nikolayevich Rimsky-Korsakov". In ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition'' (London: Macmillan, 2001) 29 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie. .
* Maes, Francis, tr.
Pomerans, Arnold J. and Erica Pomerans, ''A History of Russian Music: From ''Kamarinskaya ''to'' Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London:
University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...
, 2002). .
* Morrison, Simon, ''Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement'' (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002). .
* Neff, Lyle, "Rimsky-Korsakov. Russian family of musicians. (2) Nadezhda Nikolayevna Rimskaya Korsakova
ée Purgold. In ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition'' (London: Macmillan, 2001) 29 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie. .
* Poznansky, Alexander ''Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man'' (Lime Tree, 1993). .
* Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, ''Letoppis Moyey Muzykalnoy Zhizni'' (St. Petersburg, 1909), published in English as ''My Musical Life'' (New York: Knopf, 1925, 3rd ed. 1942). ISBN n/a.
* Schonberg, Harold C. ''Lives of the Great Composers'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997). .
* Taruskin, Richard, ''Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works Through'' Mavra, ''Volume 1'' (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). .
* Taruskin, Richard, ''On Russian Music'' (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009). .
* Yastrebtsev, Vasily Vasilievich, ''Reminiscences of Rimsky-Korsakov'' (New York:
Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...
, 1985), ed. and trans. Florence Jonas. .
* Zetlin, Mikhail, tr. and ed. George Panin, ''The Five'' (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1959, 1975). .
In Russian
* Malko, N. A., ''Vospominaniia. Stat'i. Pisma''
eminiscences. Articles. Letters(Leningrad, 1972)
Further reading
* Nelson, John: ''The Significance of Rimsky-Korsakov in the Development of a Russian National Identity.'' Diss. Studia musicologica Universitatis Helsingiensis, 25. University of Helsinki, 2013.
Abstract.* Seaman, Gerald :Nikolay Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov: A Research and Information Guide, Second Edition, Routledge, 2014.
External links
Films
* (2004)
* (Soviet biographical film from 1952)
*
Scores
*
*
Other
''The Rimsky-Korsakov Home Page''*
*
* – full, searchable text with music images, mp3 files, and MusicXML files
''Principles of Orchestration''full text with "interactive scores"
Rimsky-Korsakov's academic genealogy entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai
1844 births
1908 deaths
19th-century classical composers
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20th-century classical composers
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Burials at Tikhvin Cemetery
Imperial Russian Navy personnel
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People from Tikhvin
People from Tikhvinsky Uyezd
Russian atheists
Russian male classical composers
Russian music educators
Russian music theorists
Russian opera composers
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Saint Petersburg Conservatory academic personnel
The Five (composers)
Russian nobility
19th-century musicologists