Nikolaï Rimski-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was born on 18 March 1844 in Tikhvin, a small town north-east of St Petersburg, into a noble family with several naval officers. As a child he showed remarkable musical talent and took piano lessons, but above all he dreamed of the sea, inspired by his elder brother Voin, a naval officer. In 1856, aged twelve, he entered the Naval College in St Petersburg. During his studies he went to the opera and discovered Glinka, the father of Russian music.

In 1861 his piano teacher introduced him to the composer Mily Balakirev, who became his mentor and brought him into his circle of young composers, the future “Five”, with César Cui, Mussorgsky and later Borodin. Balakirev encouraged him to write a symphony. But in 1862 Rimsky-Korsakov had to embark as an officer on the clipper Almaz for a cruise of nearly three years: England, the United States, Brazil, the Mediterranean. He kept composing during his stopovers. When he returned in 1865, his Symphony No. 1 was premiered under Balakirev.

He remained a naval officer but composed more and more: the symphonic picture Sadko (1867), the symphony Antar (1868), inspired by an Arabian tale, and the opera The Maid of Pskov (1873). In 1871, to his great surprise, he was appointed professor of composition and orchestration at the St Petersburg Conservatory, though he admitted he had not mastered classical harmony. He then studied relentlessly, learning as he taught, and became a master of technique.

In 1872 he married Nadezhda Purgold, a pianist and composer who helped him in his work. From 1873 to 1884 he was inspector of the Russian Navy bands, a post that gave him a thorough knowledge of wind instruments. He taught at the Conservatory for nearly forty years and trained more than two hundred pupils, including Glazunov, Lyadov, Respighi, Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, whom he taught privately.

Rimsky-Korsakov was a master of the orchestra, renowned for his dazzling colours. In 1887–88 he composed three orchestral works that are among his most famous: Capriccio espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture and above all Scheherazade, inspired by the Thousand and One Nights. The solo violin represents the storyteller Scheherazade, who tells the sultan marvellous tales to escape death: the sea and Sinbad’s ship, the Kalender prince, the young prince and princess, the festival at Baghdad.

After the deaths of Mussorgsky and Borodin he spent many years completing and revising their works, notably Prince Igor and Boris Godunov, to make them known. He composed mainly operas based on Russian tales and legends: The Snow Maiden (1882), Sadko (1898), The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), from which comes the famous Flight of the Bumblebee, in which the prince, turned into an insect, buzzes around his enemies. He also wrote a major treatise, Principles of Orchestration.

In 1905, during the first Russian revolution, he defended his striking students and criticised the Conservatory’s management: he was dismissed, causing a scandal and the resignation of several professors. He was reinstated soon after. His last opera, The Golden Cockerel (1907), a satire on a ridiculous tsar, was banned by the censors. He never saw it staged: he died on 21 June 1908 at his estate at Lyubensk near Luga. Rimsky-Korsakov had coloured hearing: for him each key evoked a colour.