Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (born 18 March 1844, died 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.
He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—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 and folk subjects.
Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov.
This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods.
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 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.
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, 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.
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), 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 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, Franz Liszt 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, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Ottorino Respighi.
Early life and naval career
Rimsky-Korsakov was the product of many influences. His father was a government official of liberal views, and his mother was well educated and could play the piano.
His uncle was an admiral in the Russian navy, and his elder brother was a marine officer.
When he was 12 years old the family moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered the naval academy.
At age 15 he began taking piano lessons and learned the rudiments of composition.
In 1861 he met the composer Mily Balakirev, a man of great musical culture, and under the older man’s guidance, he began to compose a symphony.
In 1862 he graduated from the naval academy. Soon afterward he sailed on the clipper ship Almaz on a long voyage, the vessel anchoring in New York City; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington, D.C., at the height of the American Civil War.
Since Russia was politically sympathetic toward the North, the sailors were cordially welcomed there.
Subsequent ports of call were Brazil (where he was promoted to the rank of midshipman), Spain, Italy, France, England, and Norway.
The ship returned to its home port of Kronstadt (Kronshtadt) in May 1865.
For young Rimsky-Korsakov, the voyage confirmed a fascination with the sea.
Aquatic scenes abound in his operas and symphonic works: the ocean in Scheherazade (1888), Sadko (1898), and The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), and the lake in The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia (1907).
On his return to St. Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov completed the symphony begun before his voyage, and it was performed with gratifying success in St. Petersburg on December 31, 1865, when the composer was only 21 years old.
His next important work was Fantasy on Serbian Themes for orchestra, first performed at a concert of Slavonic music conducted by Balakirev in St. Petersburg, on May 24, 1867.
The occasion was of historic significance, for, in reviewing the concert, the critic Vladimir Stasov proudly proclaimed that henceforth Russia, too, had its own “mighty little heap” (moguchaya kuchka) of native composers.
The name caught on quickly and found its way into music history books, with specific reference to Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin, César Cui, and Modest Mussorgsky.
The composers became known collectively as The Five, and their purpose was seen to be to assert the musical independence of Russia from the West.
Of the five, Rimsky-Korsakov was the most learned and the most productive; he composed works in all genres, but he most excelled in the field of opera.
Teacher, conductor, and editor
So high was Rimsky-Korsakov’s reputation that in 1871, when he was still a very young man, he was engaged to teach composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
In his autobiographical Chronicle of My Musical Life (1972, originally published in Russian, 1909) he frankly admitted his lack of qualifications for this important position; he himself had never taken a systematic academic course in musical theory, even though he had profited from Balakirev’s desultory instruction and by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s professional advice.
Eager to complete his own musical education, he undertook in 1873 an ambitious program of study, concentrating mainly on counterpoint and the fugue. He ended his studies in 1875 by sending 10 fugues to Tchaikovsky, who declared them impeccable.
In 1873 he left the naval service and assumed charge of military bands as inspector and conductor.
Although he lacked brilliance as an orchestral leader, he attained excellent results in training inexperienced instrumentalists.
His first professional appearance on the podium took place in St. Petersburg on March 2, 1874, when he conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 3.
In the same year he was appointed director of the Free Music School in St. Petersburg, a post that he held until 1881.
He served as conductor of concerts at the court chapel from 1883 to 1894 and was chief conductor of the Russian symphony concerts between 1886 and 1900.
In 1889 he led concerts of Russian music at the Paris World Exposition, and in the spring of 1907 he conducted in Paris two Russian historic concerts in connection with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.
Rimsky-Korsakov rendered an inestimable service to Russian music as the de facto editor and head of a unique publishing enterprise financed by the Russian industrialist M.P. Belyayev and dedicated exclusively to the publication of music by Russian composers.
After Mussorgsky’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov edited his scores for publication, making radical changes in what he considered Mussorgsky’s awkward melodic and harmonic progressions, and he practically rewrote Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina.
His edited and altered version of Boris Godunov evoked sharp criticism from modernists who venerated Mussorgsky’s originality, but Rimsky-Korsakov’s intervention vouchsafed the opera’s survival.
Mussorgsky’s score was later published in 1928 and had several performances in Russia and abroad, but ultimately the more effective Rimsky-Korsakov version prevailed in opera houses.
Rimsky-Korsakov also edited (with the composer Aleksandr Glazunov) the posthumous works of Borodin.
Legacy
A strict disciplinarian in artistic matters, Rimsky-Korsakov was also a severe critic of his own music.
He made constant revisions of his early compositions, in which he found technical imperfections.
As a result, double dates, indicating early and revised versions, frequently occur in his catalog of works.
He was at his best and most typical in his descriptive works. With two exceptions (Servilia [1902] and Mozart and Salieri [1898]), the subjects of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas are taken from Russian or other Slavic fairy tales, literature, and history.
These include Snow Maiden (1882), Sadko, The Tsar’s Bride (1899), The Tale of Tsar Saltan, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, and Le Coq d’or (1909).
Although these operas are part of the regular repertory in Russian opera houses, they are rarely heard abroad; only Le Coq d’Or enjoys occasional production in western Europe and the United States.
Of the composer’s orchestral works, the best known are Capriccio Espagnol (1887), the symphonic suite Scheherazade, and the Russian Easter Festival (1888) overture.
“The Flight of the Bumble Bee” from The Tale of Tsar Saltan and the “Song of India” from Sadko are perennial favourites in a variety of arrangements.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s songs are distinguished by simple elegance and fine Russian prosody; his chamber music is of less importance.
He also wrote a piano concerto.
As a professor of composition and orchestration at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1871 until the end of his life (with the exception of a brief period in 1905 when he was dismissed by the reactionary directorate for his defense of students on strike), he taught two generations of Russian composers, and his influence, therefore, was pervasive.
Igor Stravinsky studied privately with him for several years.
His Practical Manual of Harmony (1884) and Fundamentals of Orchestration (posthumous, 1913) are still used as basic musical textbooks in Russia.
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Scheherazade
The colorful suite ‘Scheherazade’ is inspired by the tales of One Thousand and One Nights.
The sections are:
0:39 The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship
10:38 The Legend of The Kalendar Prince
21:53 The Young Prince and The Young Princess
31:46 Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman
In the video, the suite is performed by the Karol Szymanowski Youth Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, Poland conducted by Maciej Tomasiewicz. The recording was made at the Silesian Philharmonic Concert Hall in Katowice, Poland, 6th June 2019.
This video shows a very fine performance of the suite by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claus Peter Flor.
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Symphony No. 1 in E-minor
The movements are:
Largo assai – Allegro: 0:04
Andante tranquillo: 7:25
Scherzo. Vivace 14:17
Allegro assai: 20:05
In the video, the symphony is performed by the JSOM – Jugend Sinfonie Orchester Mannheim conducted by Diethard Joachim Laxa. The concert took 18.May 2014 in Stiftskirche Neustadtplace.
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Symphony No. 2
The movements are:
1. Largo – Allegro giocoso – Adagio – Largo – (Tempo I) – Allegretto Vivace – Largo (Tempo I)
2. Allegro – Molto allegro – Meno mosso, allargando – Allegro (Tempo I)
3. Allegro risoluto alla marcia
4. Allegretto vivace – Andante amoroso – Animato assai – Tempo I
In the video, the symphony is performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi.
Here is a video showing a performance of the symphony by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Zinman.
Symphony No.3 in C-major, Op.32 (1873)
The movements are:
Mov.I: Moderato assai – Allegro 00:00
Mov. II: Scherzo: Vivo 12:30
Mov. III: Andante 18:42
Mov. IV: Allegro con spirito 27:28
In the video, the symphony is performed by the St. Peterburg State Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Anichanov.
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Capriccio Espagnol, Op 34
The video presents this extremely fine composition performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado.
The movements are:
0:05 – 1:18 1. Alborada
1:19 – 6:22 2. Variazioni
6:23 – 7:34 3. Alborada
7:35 – 12:16 4. Scena e canto gitano
12:17 – 15:24 5. Fandango asturiano
Here is another video presenting an older outdoor performance of this piece by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta.
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Piano Concerto in C-sharp Minor, Op.30
The movements are:
Moderato
Allegretto quasi polacca
Allegro
In the video, the concerto is performed by pianist Peter Pláňavský with the Symphony Orchestra of “Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava” conducted by Alexei Kornienko. The concerto took place in the Concert Hall of Slovak Philharmonic on 4.5.2016 in Bratislava.
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Russian Easter Overture, op. 36
In the video, the overture is performed by the Slavic Chorale Orchestra conducted by Pavel Kravchuk.
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