Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov

A Naval Officer Turned Composer

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (Tikhvin, 1844 – Lyubensk, near Luga, 1908) was one of the most influential Russian composers of the nineteenth century, and an equally important teacher. His name is closely tied to the consolidation of a distinctively Russian national style, though his career reaches well beyond that label: he was an opera composer, symphonist, orchestrator, editor and mentor to an entire generation.

Childhood and Education

He was born into a family of landless provincial nobility in the small town of Tikhvin. His upbringing was directed at least as much by his elder brother Voin, twenty-two years his senior, who decided that Nikolai should pursue a naval career. He received an excellent home education across nearly every subject. From a very young age he picked out tunes on the piano, copying by ear the popular melodies his father played, and by about ten he had written his first compositions. Yet he would later recall that literature then moved him far more than music did. In 1856 he entered the Naval College in St Petersburg, where opera, through works by Donizetti, Glinka and Meyerbeer, deepened his musical interest. His teacher Fyodor Kanille introduced him to Bach, Beethoven and Schumann, and instilled a fervent admiration for Glinka.

Balakirev and Life at Sea

The year 1861 proved decisive. Mily Balakirev offered to become his informal music tutor and drew him into the circle that became the nationalist group known as The Five, alongside the critic Vladimir Stasov and young composers such as Musorgsky and César Cui. Balakirev set him an ambitious exercise: to compose a complete symphony while learning the rudiments of the craft. That task was interrupted in 1862, when he was posted to the warship Almaz for a three-year voyage. Aboard ship he nonetheless continued: he completed the slow movement of the symphony, sketched two more, studied scores by Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn, and read Berlioz's treatise on orchestration. The voyage took him to London, Niagara Falls and Rio de Janeiro, but the lack of musical stimulus took its toll, and after two years he confessed to Balakirev that he had neglected his studies.

Early Works and the Circle

Back in St Petersburg in 1865, his shore duties were light, and he was able to finish the symphony, which was premiered that December under Balakirev's direction. The occasion was celebrated as the first public appearance of a genuinely Russian symphony. Around 1867 he wrote his Overture on Three Russian Themes and a Fantasia on Serbian Themes, and during these years he composed the orchestral Sadko and the Second Symphony, *Antar*, in which a chromatic, fantastic style took shape that would mark his operas. By the 1860s critics were already regarding him as the most gifted member of the group. This same period saw the origins of his first opera, *The Maid of Pskov*, whose composition ran alongside that of Musorgsky's *Boris Godunov*.

Conservatory Professor and Family Life

In 1871 he accepted a professorship at the St Petersburg Conservatory, a step at odds with The Five's hostility to academic training and one that estranged him from Balakirev. Borodin alone welcomed his move towards professionalism. That same year the Mariinsky Opera accepted *The Maid of Pskov*, and in 1872 he married Nadezhda Purgold, an accomplished amateur pianist who became his lifelong collaborator, preparing four-hand piano arrangements of his works and serving as a demanding critic. They had six children. As a teacher he had much to learn himself: at the Conservatory he conducted the student orchestra, which drew him into the practical study of conducting and orchestration. In 1873 he was appointed Inspector of Naval Bands, and there he learned to play all kinds of wind instruments. His Third Symphony reflects this hands-on experience.

Self-Education and Technical Rigour

Around 1874 he undertook a radical review of compositional technique. He designed a strict study programme covering counterpoint, fugues, chorales, unaccompanied choral writing and a cantata, which he completed over three years. Its immediate fruits were poorly received: his String Quartet in F major was judged a failure by his colleagues in The Five, and Tchaikovsky, while admiring his new professionalism, detected a dryness in the result. Rimsky-Korsakov concluded that his earlier works needed revision, and throughout his life he reorchestrated and corrected much of his early output, as he did with *The Maid of Pskov* and *Antar*. Between 1877 and 1878 he worked with Balakirev on editing Glinka's operas, and in 1879 he helped compile collections of folksongs, harmonising them according to the group's principles.

Maturity: From The Snow Maiden to Mlada

In 1880–81 he composed *May Night* and, above all, *The Snow Maiden*, whose premiere at the Mariinsky in 1882 brought him one of his greatest public successes. He regarded its creation as one of the happiest periods of his life. Afterwards he went through a creative crisis: by 1885 he was expressing unease about his direction, and he turned to revising his earlier works. After Musorgsky's death in 1881 he took charge of publishing his friend's music, completing and orchestrating *Khovanshchina*, and he did the same with Borodin's sketches for *Prince Igor*, which he had helped in Borodin's lifetime and which he finished after Borodin's death. In 1883 he became Balakirev's deputy at the Court Chapel, and his interest in Russian church music led him to arrange old znamenny chants. He also wrote a harmony textbook that became the basis of teaching in Russia.

Wagner, Mlada and the Revision of Boris

The St Petersburg staging of Wagner's *Ring* in the 1888–89 season made a deep impression on him and transformed his orchestration. He then produced *Mlada*, an opera-ballet on a Slavic subject that showed this Wagnerian influence in its scoring. The same period brought him fame with the orchestral works *Capriccio espagnol*, *Scheherazade* and the *Russian Easter Festival* overture, which have become his best-known international calling cards. His revision of *Boris Godunov*, completed in 1893, was highly controversial: Stasov rejected it and the Mariinsky would not accept it, although this version later helped introduce the opera to the West, notably in Paris in 1909.

Final Years and Stage Works

Between 1894 and 1908 he entered the most prolific phase of his career. He left the Court Chapel and composed a rapid succession of operas: *Christmas Eve*, after Gogol; *Sadko*; *Mozart and Salieri*; *The Tsar's Bride*; and then *Saltan*, *Kitezh*, *Kashchey the Immortal* and *The Golden Cockerel*. His association with the patron Savva Mamontov and his librettist Vladimir Belsky gave him encouragement and success. During the 1905 Revolution he openly supported the students, was dismissed from his professorship and later reinstated. In 1907 he travelled to Paris to conduct Diaghilev's concerts, where he heard the latest European music and acknowledged that he belonged to an earlier generation. He died in 1908 and was buried in the grounds of the Aleksandr Nevsky monastery, beside Glinka, Musorgsky, Borodin and Stasov.

Operas, Orchestral Music and Legacy

Rimsky-Korsakov was above all an opera composer: he wrote fifteen, most of them staged during his lifetime. They can be grouped into historical drama, operas after Gogol, epics such as *The Snow Maiden*, *Sadko* and *Kitezh*, fairy tales such as *Saltan* and *The Golden Cockerel*, and stylistic experiments such as *Mozart and Salieri*, *The Tsar's Bride* and *Serviliya*. His programmatic orchestral music drew on Balakirev and Liszt, and his command of orchestral colour influenced Debussy and Ravel. Today he is remembered as the chief architect of the Russian style, and his doctrine on musical nationalism, which he himself came to qualify, remains a subject of debate. His music is a fixed part of European musical culture.