In some ways, the most
“Russian” of all Russian composers is Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (the name alone
would place him high on the list!), as he not only jumpstarted Russian
orchestral music and opera, but he was deeply connected to the wellsprings of
Russian folklore and literature. Rimsky-Korsakov’s work can be seen on some
level as an attempt to translate the Russian spirit into purely musical terms,
and his innovations have been followed by generations of Russian composers, not
to mention film composers in Hollywood. It’s hard to truly pin down Rimsky’s compositional
persona, as his greatest achievements—his 15 operas, on a range of fairy tale
and historical subjects—are almost completely unknown in the West, while his
memory lives on in a handful of orchestral gems which often disguise his
Russian heritage, such as Capriccio Espagnol, Scheherazde, and the
infamous Flight of the Bumblebee. Ultimately, what distinguishes
Rimsky-Korsakov’s art is his masterful orchestration and sense of musical
color: he believed strongly in the idea that notes represented colors, and
clothed his music in the most lavish tonal raiment. Rachmaninov once said that
with Rimsky-Korsakov’s music you could ‘hear’ the seasons, with the right
combination of notes and instruments creating snowflakes, driving winds,
budding trees, and falling leaves. He saved his greatest orchestral effects for
his operas, where sadly few listeners are able to find them, though a few
orchestral works betray this talent, even though his heart wasn’t always in
‘absolute’ music. However, even a lollipop of a piece like The Flight of the
Bumblebee (a little interlude in his opera, The Tale of Tsar Saltan)
is a masterful tone poem of sound and fury, suggesting how with the simplest of
means he could conjure up an entire world, large or small.
