Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai Andreevich 1844 - 1908
Author: Nohara, Yasuko
Last updated：July 1, 2007
Author: Nohara, Yasuko
Russian composer. Known as a 'master of orchestration,' his colorful and descriptive orchestration greatly influenced modern composers both within and outside Russia.
Born into a military family, he was exposed to music from an early age. While attending the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, he became the youngest member of 'The Mighty Handful' at the age of 17. Alongside his duties as a naval officer, he began to publish songs and orchestral works.
In 1871, he was invited to become a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he taught composition and orchestration (his students included many prominent composers such as Glazunov, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev). During his initial years at the Conservatory, he continued to write chamber music and piano pieces modeled after the Classical style, mastering traditional compositional techniques that he had previously neglected. In 1874, he retired from military service and became the inspector of naval bands, also commencing his conducting activities. Furthermore, his work in collecting and arranging Russian folk songs, and editing and publishing Glinka's operas, influenced his own compositions, such as the opera May Night and the String Quartet on Russian Themes (1879), which emulated Glinka's harmony and instrumentation.
After completing the opera The Snow Maiden (1881), he distanced himself from his own creative work and devoted himself to completing and editing the posthumous works of Mussorgsky and Borodin. Following this hiatus, masterpieces of orchestral music such as Capriccio Espagnol (1887), Scheherazade, and the Russian Easter Overture (both 1888) emerged.
Inspired by a performance of The Ring in 1889, he studied Wagner's orchestration. Thereafter, his compositions primarily focused on opera. With Tchaikovsky's death in 1893, an opportunity arose at the Imperial Theatres, and he began to premiere new operas almost every other year. In 1905, he was dismissed from his professorship for supporting students who participated in the 'Bloody Sunday' incident, which sparked the Russian Revolution. His final opera, The Golden Cockerel, was based on a Pushkin fairy tale that satirized the folly of autocratic rule. Conflicts with the censorship bureau arose over this libretto, and he died from angina, brought on by stress.
Works(36)
Concerto (1)
concerto (1)
Piano Solo (8)
pieces (4)
variation (3)
fuga (4)
character pieces (3)
Pesenka v doriyskom lade (Little Song in the Dorian mode)
Composed in: 1901 Playing time: 2 min 00 sec
Piano Ensemble (4)
Reduction/Arrangement (1)
Various works (6)
Lied (1)
etc (4)
opera (3)
Orchestral work (1)