93 Facts About Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five.

Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov.

Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony, and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

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.

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Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov passed this knowledge to his students, and posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg.

Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions.

Rimsky-Korsakov prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire, 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".

Rimsky-Korsakov was born in Tikhvin, 200 kilometers east of Saint Petersburg, into a Russian noble family.

Father of the composer, Andrei Petrovich Rimsky-Korsakov, was one of the six illegitimate sons of Avdotya Yakovlevna, daughter of an Orthodox priest from Pskov, and lieutenant general 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov's father raised her in full comfort, yet under an improvised surname, Vasilieva, and with no legal status.

Rimsky-Korsakov family had a long line of military and naval service.

Rimsky-Korsakov later recalled that his mother played the piano a little, and his father could play a few songs on the piano by ear.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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".

Rimsky-Korsakov studied at the School for Mathematical and Navigational Sciences in Saint Petersburg and at 18 took his final examination in April 1862.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that, while "indifferent" to lessons, he developed a love for music, fostered by visits to the opera and, later, orchestral concerts.

Kanille told Rimsky-Korsakov to continue coming to him every Sunday, not for formal lessons but to play duets and discuss music.

Balakirev encouraged Rimsky-Korsakov to compose and taught him the rudiments when he was not at sea.

Rimsky-Korsakov composed the slow movement during a stop in England and mailed the score to Balakirev before going back to sea.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov found time to read the works of Homer, William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; he saw London, Niagara Falls, and Rio de Janeiro during his stops in port.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote to Balakirev that after two years at sea he had neglected his musical lessons for months.

Rimsky-Korsakov began a symphony in B minor, but felt it too closely followed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and abandoned it.

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Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov composed the initial versions of Sadko and Antar, 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov became friends with Alexander Borodin, whose music "astonished" him.

Rimsky-Korsakov "listened to these opinions with avidity and absorbed the tastes of Balakirev, Cui and Mussorgsky without reasoning or examination".

Rimsky-Korsakov became especially appreciated within The Five, and among those who visited the circle, for his talents as an orchestrator.

Rimsky-Korsakov was asked by Balakirev to orchestrate a Schubert march for a concert in May 1868, by Cui to orchestrate the opening chorus of his opera William Ratcliff and by Alexander Dargomyzhsky, 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.

In 1871, the 27-year-old Rimsky-Korsakov became Professor of Practical Composition and Instrumentation at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, as well as leader of the Orchestra Class.

Rimsky-Korsakov retained his position in active naval service, and taught his classes in uniform.

Rimsky-Korsakov explained in his memoirs that Mikhail Azanchevsky had taken over that year as director of the Conservatory, and wanting new blood to freshen up teaching in those subjects, had offered to pay generously for Rimsky-Korsakov's services.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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, with whom he and the others in The Five had been in occasional contact.

Rimsky-Korsakov taught himself from textbooks, 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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 and music theory with Nikolai Zaremba, who taught Tchaikovsky.

Rimsky-Korsakov visited naval bands throughout Russia, supervised the bandmasters and their appointments, reviewed the bands' repertoire, and inspected the quality of their instruments.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov indulged in a long-standing desire to familiarize himself with the construction and playing technique of orchestral instruments.

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Rimsky-Korsakov used the privileges of rank to exercise and expand upon his knowledge.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov worked under Balakirev in the Court Chapel as a deputy until 1894, which allowed him to study Russian Orthodox church music.

Rimsky-Korsakov taught classes at the chapel, and wrote his textbook on harmony for use there and at the Conservatory.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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, 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 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 transcribed 40 Russian songs for voice and piano from performances by folk singer Tvorty Filippov, who approached him at Balakirev's suggestion.

Rimsky-Korsakov later credited this work as a great influence on him as a composer; it 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.

In mid-1877, Rimsky-Korsakov thought increasingly about the short story May Night by Nikolai Gogol.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the opera in a folk-like melodic idiom, and scored it in a transparent manner much in the style of Glinka.

Rimsky-Korsakov kept busy during this time by editing Mussorgsky's works and completing Borodin's Prince Igor.

Rimsky-Korsakov finished his revision of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and conducted it at the opening concert.

Rimsky-Korsakov was asked for advice and guidance not just on the Russian Symphony Concerts, but on projects through which Belyayev aided Russian composers.

Group of composers who now congregated with Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov became known as the Belyayev circle, named after their financial benefactor.

Unlike The Five, these composers 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov observed, not without annoyance, how Tchaikovsky became increasingly popular among Rimsky-Korsakov's followers.

The Five had ignored Wagner's music, but The Ring impressed Rimsky-Korsakov: he was astonished with Wagner's mastery of orchestration.

Rimsky-Korsakov attended the rehearsals with Glazunov, and followed the score.

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Wagner's use of the orchestra influenced Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration, beginning with the arrangement of the polonaise from Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov that he made for concert use in 1889.

In 1892 Rimsky-Korsakov suffered a second creative drought, brought on by bouts of depression and alarming physical symptoms.

Rimsky-Korsakov resigned from the Russian Symphony Concerts and the Court Chapel and considered giving up composition permanently.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

In 1905, demonstrations took place in the St Petersburg Conservatory as part of the 1905 Revolution; these, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote, were triggered by similar disturbances at St Petersburg State University, in which students demanded political reforms and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Russia.

Lifelong liberal politically, 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.

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.

Rimsky-Korsakov had the opportunity to hear more recent music by European composers.

Rimsky-Korsakov admitted that he was a "convinced kuchkist" and that his works belonged to an era that musical trends had left behind.

Rimsky-Korsakov employed Orthodox liturgical themes in the Russian Easter Festival Overture, folk song in Capriccio Espagnol and orientalism in Scheherazade, possibly his best known work.

Rimsky-Korsakov proved a prolific composer but a perpetually self-critical one.

Rimsky-Korsakov revised every orchestral work up to and including his Third Symphony—some, like Antar and Sadko, more than once.

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".

Rimsky-Korsakov followed Balakirev in his use of the whole tone scale, treatment of folk songs and musical orientalism and Liszt for harmonic adventurousness.

Rimsky-Korsakov 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.

Rimsky-Korsakov tempered this interest with an abhorrence of excess and kept his tendency to experiment under constant control.

Where Rimsky-Korsakov changed between these two sets of works was in orchestration.

Rimsky-Korsakov composed dozens of art songs, arrangements of folk songs, chamber and piano music.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a body of choral works, both secular and for Russian Orthodox Church service.

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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 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.

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".

Rimsky-Korsakov's 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.

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.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that his interest in these songs was heightened by his study of them while compiling his folk song collections.

Rimsky-Korsakov went further down this path in The Snow Maiden, where he made extensive use of seasonal calendar songs and khorovodi in the folk tradition.

Musicologists 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.