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{rim'-skee-kohr'-suh-kawf}
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, b. Tikhvin, Novgorod
province, Russia, Mar. 18 (N.S.), 1844, d. June 21 (N.S.),
1908, is best known for his operas and orchestral works. Both
parents, cultured members of the nobility, were amateur musicians.
Nikolai started to play the piano at the age of six and soon
tried composing. Music remained his avocation when in 1856
he entered the Imperial Naval Academy. In 1861 he joined the
group of amateur composers taught by Balakirev, whom the critic
Stasov, their intellectual mentor, would dub "the mighty
handful"--Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky.
Sea duty (1862-65) interrupted his composition of a symphony,
but later he finished it with Balakirev's help. The FIVE (or
"mighty five") vaunted their amateurism and aggressively
launched their nationalist music against the professional
establishment (primarily Anton Rubinstein). Rimsky's general
strategy appeared in his symphonic sketch Sadko (1867), in
which folkloric elements are couched in coloristic harmony
and orchestration.
In 1871 he resigned his commission and accepted a teaching
post at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Already a recognized
composer, he had to teach himself the traditional musical
disciplines and techniques before he could teach his students.
An unfortunate academicism then tinctured his music, disappearing
only in the 1880s with the appearance of such works as the
opera The Snow Maiden (1882) and Scheherazade (1888), a symphonic
suite. He directed the Free Music School and conducted its
concerts (1874-81), assisted at the Imperial Chapel Choir
(1883-94), conducted Beliaev's "Russian Symphony Concerts"
(1886-1900), and undertook the controversial task of editing
the works of his deceased friends Mussorgsky and Borodin.
Eleven of Rimsky's 15 operas appeared between 1895 and 1907,
beginning with Christmas Eve (1895) and ending with The Golden
Cockerel (1907).
The folk music of Russia, including that of the Caucasus and
Trans-Caucasus peoples, permeates Rimsky's music. Striking
instances of asymmetrical rhythms are also derived from this
source, foreshadowing the radical experiments of Stravinsky,
his most famous student. Further, he discovered new possibilities
of timbre and resonance in the late-romantic orchestra. His
students also included Arensky, Nikolai Tcherepnin, Glazunov,
Grechaninov, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Liadov, Miaskovsky, and Prokofiev.
Malcolm Hamrick Brown
Bibliography: Abraham, Gerald E., Rimsky-Korsakov (1945; repr.
1990); Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai A., My Musical Life, trans.
by Judah A. Joffe, 5th ed. (1972); Schonberg, Harold C., Lives
of the Great Composers (1970); Zetlin, M., The Five: The Evolution
of the Russian School of Music, ed. and trans. by George Panin
(1959; repr. 1975).
Picture Caption[s]
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was a great Russian composer of the
late 19th century. He challenged the musical tastes of his
time by adopting elements of folk music in such works as The
Snow Maiden (1882), containing echoes of traditional Slavonic
melodies. Scheherazade (1888) evokes an Oriental atmosphere.
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