Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

BORN: March 18, 1844, Tikhvin, Russia

DIED: June 21, 1908, Luga, Russia

BIOGRAPHY

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov came from a powerful family. He joined the Navy at 12 and came to love music while studying mathematics and navigation, when his older brother recommended he take piano lessons to help him overcome shyness. Mily Balakirev, an influential composer, encouraged Rimsky-Korsakov to perform his own works. Along with Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, and Mussorgsky, he was a member of a group of Russian composers known as “The Five” or “the Mighty Handful.”

FUN FACTS

• He is probably best known for his work “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” but he produced a lot of varied compositions and works during his life.

• He was a mentor and teacher to hundreds of musicians including composers Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev.

• Though he nearly gave up composing several times, he completed 11 operas in the last 15 years of his life.

Though he started with little formal knowledge of composition, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote by intuition between his voyages at sea. After he took on a position as a teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he stopped composing for three years—studying at night and lecturing during the day until he became renowned for his orchestrations. He later went back to his old music and re-wrote much of the orchestration.

Rimsky-Korsakov struggled to find acceptance among his peers and was constantly trying to balance his personal style with an “appropriate” musical structure. His obsession with counterpoint is an example of this, repeating specific phrases and layering them throughout the piece.