(b St Petersburg, 26 Dec 1901; d there, 10 Oct 1965). Russian composer, nephew of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. He graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1927 and began teaching there the same year. In the 1920s he wrote quarter-tone pieces, some for electronic instruments.

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Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), composer, conductor, and pedagogue, was a member of the Russian "Mighty Five." He was largely responsible for establishing the rigor and uncompromising professionalism of the Russian school of the turn of the century.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was born in the town of Tikhvin near Novgorod on March 6, 1844. His father had served prominently in the provincial government, and, although the boy showed an early musical talent, he was duly entered in the St. Petersburg Naval Academy at the age of 12. While there he took violoncello lessons and later piano lessons from Feodor Kanille (Théodore Canillé), who encouraged his efforts at composition.

About 1861 Kanille introduced the young cadet to the circle of talented dilettantes who depended on Mili Balakirev for professional advice and guidance. This "Balakirev Circle" sought a Russian-based expression on the model of Mikhail Glinka. Its prominent members - Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Aleksandr Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, and César Cui, became what the critic Vladimir Stasov much later called the "Mighty Handful" or "Mighty Five."

From 1862 through 1865 Rimsky-Korsakov cruised around the world with the Russian navy. His First Symphony, composed during this trip, was performed upon his return by Balakirev, who conducted the orchestra of the Free Music School, which he had founded.

Rimsky-Korsakov now devoted less time to navy affairs. He composed the symphonic poem Sadko (1867), returning to the theme much later for an opera, and the Second (Antar) Symphony (1868). In 1871 he became a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and in 1873 he resigned his naval commission. From 1874 to 1881 he directed the Free School, and he served as director of navy bands until 1884. He became convinced of the need for professional training, professional mastery, and a professional attitude. He embarked on a thorough study of harmony, counterpoint, and especially orchestration and urged a similar course on his colleagues. He published a harmony text in 1884 and an orchestration text in 1896. He displayed his orchestral expertise in his Third Symphony (1874) and in the delightful tone poems Capriccio español (1887), Scheherazade (1888), and Dubinushka (1905). But most of his energy went into his operas, the most important of which are Snow Maiden (1882), Sadko (1898), The Invisible City of Kitezh (1907), and The Golden Cockerel (1909). The sources for these and other works were fairy stories, Eastern tales, and Russian folk epics.

During the political unrest of 1905 Rimsky-Korsakov vigorously protested police repression of the students. The conservatory was closed down and he was dismissed. Others, including Alexander Glazunov, resigned in protest. The conservatory eventually reopened on a more autonomous basis with Glazunov as director and Rimsky-Korsakov as head of the department of orchestration.

The orchestral color and the beguiling, if not authentic, "orientalisms" of Rimsky-Korsakov's work brought him considerable fame and popularity. He was by far the most prolific of the Five, with a long list of orchestral works, 15 operas, and a substantial amount of chamber and vocal music. Moreover, his major works were divisible with no great musical loss into small sections which could be put to utility concert and "background" use. Perhaps no less a contribution was his effort on the behalf of others' music: he finished, rewrote, and orchestrated many works of other Russian composers, including Alexander Dargomyzhsky's Stone Guest, Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov, and (with Glazunov) Borodin's Prince Igor.

Rimsky-Korsakov died on June 21, 1908. His establishment of professional mastery of technique as the exclusive route to musical legitimacy is a legacy still preserved in Russia.

Further Reading

Rimsky-Korsakov's own My Musical Life (1909; trans. 1924; new ed. 1942) is basic. M. D. Calvocoressi and Gerald Abraham devote a chapter to Rimsky-Korsakov in their Masters of Russian Music (1936). Essentially the same chapter was published by Abraham as Rimsky-Korsakov: A Short Biography (1945). Any music history, especially an account of the romantic era, will contain a section on Rimsky-Korsakov. The most recent reference is Mikhail Zetlin, The Five, translated and edited by George Panin (1959).

Additional Sources

Abraham, Gerald, Rimsky-Korsakov: a short biography, New York: AMS Press, 1976.

Reminiscences of Rimsky-Korsakov, New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Montagu-Nathan, M. (Montagu), Rimsky-Korsakof, New York: AMS Press, 1976.

My musical life, London: Ernst Eulenberg Ltd, 1974.

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nicolai (b Tikhvin, 18 Mar. 1844, d Lubensk, 21 June 1908). Russian composer. He wrote no ballet music but some of his scores have been used for dance, most famously Scheherazade (chor. Fokine, 1910).

Rimsky‐Korsakov, Nikolai Andreievich (1844–1908), Russian composer. As a young man with virtually no musical training, Rimsky‐Korsakov sought advice from Mili Balakirev, who welcomed him into the small group of Russian nationalist composers he had founded—the ‘Mighty Handful’, which also included Borodin and Mussorgsky. Family tradition pointed him toward the navy, however; not until returning from a three‐year cruise as an officer could he rejoin his musical friends and complete his first symphony (1865). In 1871 he was invited to become a professor of composition at the St Petersburg conservatory—somewhat to his dismay, as he still knew almost nothing of structure or theory. Prudently retaining his commission, he accepted, studying all night to keep ahead of his classes; eventually, he became an outstanding teacher, among his pupils being Igor Stravinsky.

Rimsky‐Korsakov's music is known for vitality and brilliant orchestration. Many of his melodies came directly from the folk songs he collected, and of his 15 operas, 14 were inspired by Russian folklore. His first opera, Sadko (1867; revised 1897), was based on the folk tale of ‘Sadko the Sailor’. The Snow Maiden (1882), The Tsar Saltan (1900), and The Invisible City of Kitezh (1906) also have folk‐tale origins. Tsar Saltan, from Pushkin's poetic version of the tale, contains Rimsky‐Korsakov's best‐known musical moment, ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’. In the story, Tsar Saltan, falsely informed that his wife has borne a monster, has them put in a barrel and thrown into the sea. The son grows up on a desert island, acquires magical powers, and transforms the island into a place of wonders. This is possibly the only opera in which a squirrel sings a Russian folk song while cracking golden nuts and extracting emeralds from them. Rimsky‐Korsakov's last opera, The Golden Cockerel (Le Coq d'Or, 1908), originated in the folk tale of the foolish Tsar Dadon, transformed by Pushkin into a biting satire on autocracy. Rimsky‐Korsakov created the musical equivalent of satire by parodying military marches and other popular tunes, while Ivan Bilibin parodied cheap popular prints in his set designs and costumes.

Reading The Arabian Nights inspired Rimsky‐Korsakov's most famous orchestral work, Scheherazade (1888). This symphonic poem consists of four movements tied together by passages for solo violin, representing the voice of Scheherazade as she tells her stories to the misogynistic sultan, whose loud and threatening theme is heard at the beginning of the piece. The first movement is titled ‘The Sea and Sindbad's Ship’; the second, ‘The Story of the Calender Prince’; the third, ‘The Young Prince and the Young Princess’; and the fourth, ‘The Festival of Bagdad; The Sea; The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior’. The piece ends serenely as Scheherazade concludes, having finally won the love of her lord. In 1910 Scheherazade became the musical setting for one of Diaghilev's most famous ballets, with a new plot superimposed on the music.

Bibliography

• Abraham, Gerald, Rimsky‐Korsakov (1945).
• Rimsky‐Korsakov, Nikolai, My Musical Life (1947).

— Suzanne Rahn

(1844 - 1908), prominent Russian composer who contributed to the formation of a Russian national music in the nineteenth century.

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, a naval officer by training, came to study professionally as a member of Mily Balakirev's amateur circle of composers ("Mighty Handful"). An active composer under Balakirev's guidance since 1861, he became a professor of composition and instrumentation at the St. Petersburg conservatory ten years later. Rimsky-Korsakov is regarded as one of the most significant composers and musicians of Russia in the nineteenth century.

Together with Balakirev and Alexander Borodin, who numbered among his closest creative partners in the 1860s, Rimsky-Korsakov developed a specific Russian idiom in orchestral music. As an opera composer, although he wrote a few historical operas, Rimsky-Korsakov especially stands for the Russian fairy and magic opera, the genre of which he brought to a culmination. Of high though not undisputed merit were the completions, revisions, and instrumentations of opera torsos of Borodin and Musorgsky, even if Rimsky-Korsakov partly neglected the composers' original intentions. Finally, he made significant contributions to musical education. Not only did his textbook of harmony become the widely acknowledged standard in Russia, but he also acted as a teacher and example for outstanding Russian composers. His support of students in the Revolution of 1905 (leading to his dismissal as professor) and his opera "The Golden Cockerel" (1907), which was condemed by censorship, because it could be interpreted as criticism of tsarist rule, conributed to his renown and reputation as an artist with political revolutionary leanings. Furthermore, as one of the masters of Russian national music in the nineteenth century, he achieved enormous importance and influence in the cultural history of the Soviet Union, particularly since the cultural changes toward Great Russian patriotism under Stalin.

Bibliography

Seaman, Gerald R. (1988). Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland.

—MATTHIAS STADELMANN

(nyĭkəlī əndrā'əvĭch rĭm'skē-kôr'səkôf) , 1844–1908, Russian composer; one of the group of nationalist composers called The Five. He prepared himself for a naval career, but after meeting Balakirev in 1861 he turned seriously to composing. In 1871 he became professor of composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, retiring from the navy two years later. In 1883 he became assistant to Balakirev, who was director of the Imperial Chapel. He conducted the St. Petersburg Symphony Concerts, 1886–1900. His Synphony No. 1 (1865) and his symphonic poem Sadko (1867) were the first works in these forms by a Russian. In his oeuvre operas, often based on Russian history and legend, are extremely important. Notable among them are The Snow Maiden (1881, rev. 1884), based on the play by Ostrovsky; The Maid of Pskov (1873, rev. 1892; also known as Ivan the Terrible); Sadko (1895); Le Coq d'Or (The Golden Cockerel, posthumously performed 1909); and The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitzeh (1904), a Wagneresque quasireligious work that situates heaven and hell on earth. The best known of Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral works is Scheherezade (1888), which was used by the Diaghilev ballet. It probably best exemplifies his romantic exoticism and mastery of orchestral color. Glazunov, Gretchaninov, and Stravinsky were among his many pupils. He also wrote a treatise on orchestration and an autobiography, My Musical Life (tr., 3d ed. 1942).

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