Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music. His best-known orchestral compositions are Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade.
About Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in brief
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow-composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov. His best-known orchestral compositions are Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade. His influence on younger composers was especially important, as he served as a transitional figure between the autodidactism exemplified by Glinka and The Five, and professionally trained composers which would become the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century. He left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions, which brought them into the active classical repertoire. He also influenced non-Russian composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Ottorino Respighi. He is considered to be the main architect of what the classical-music public considers the \”Russian style of composition. He died in Saint Petersburg in 1908, and is buried at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he was a professor of musical composition, harmony, and orchestration. He was the father of the composer, Andrei Petrovich Rimskov, who was one of the six illegitimate sons of Avdotya Yakovlevna, daughter of a simple Orthodox priest from Pskov.
The composer’s mother, Sofya Vasilievna Rimsakova, was also born as an illegitimate daughter of a peasant serf. She was raised by her father in full comfort, yet under an improvised legal status with no surname and no social status. He had his own friendship with Aleksey Arakcheyev, who managed to grant them all the privileges of the noble family, including a grant from the Russian Ministry of the Interior, then the vice-governor of Novgorod, then in the Volhian Governorate and then in St. Petersburg. He 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. As Inspector of Naval Bands, he expanded his knowledge of woodwind and brass playing, which enhanced his abilities in orchestration, and he passed this knowledge to his students, and also posthumously through a textbook on orchestration that was completed by his son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg. His love of the sea may have influenced him to write two of his best- known Orchestral works, the musical tableau Sadko and ScheherAZade. He was famously a lover of Catherine the Great, Ivan Rimskiyev had his friendship with Aleksandr Alekseevich Alekseievich, who had grant from the ministry of the Russian Empire, and later went on to serve as the governor of St. Petersburg.
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