Editing Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (section)

==Compositions==
{{see also|List of compositions by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov}}

[[File:Walentin Alexandrowitsch Serow 004.jpg|thumb|alt=A man with dark gray hair, glasses and a long beard seated at a desk, looking at a music manuscript|Portrait of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov by [[Valentin Serov]] (1898)]]
Rimsky-Korsakov followed the musical ideals espoused by The Five. He employed Orthodox liturgical themes in the ''[[Russian Easter Festival Overture]]'', folk song in ''[[Capriccio Espagnol]]'' and orientalism in ''[[Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Scheherazade]]'', possibly his best known work.<ref name="mfw21409"/><ref name="maes175">Maes, pp. 175–176.</ref> He proved a prolific composer but also a perpetually self-critical one. He revised every orchestral work up to and including his Third Symphony—some, like ''[[Antar (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Antar]]'' and ''[[Sadko (musical tableau)|Sadko]]'', more than once. These revisions range from minor changes of tempo, phrasing and instrumental detail to wholesale [[transposition (music)|transposition]] and complete recomposition.<ref>Abraham, ''Slavonic'', pp. 197–198.</ref>

Rimsky-Korsakov was open about the influences in his music, telling Vasily Yastrebtsev, "Study Liszt and Balakirev more closely, and you'll see that a great deal in me is not mine".<ref>Yastrebtsev, p. 37.</ref> He followed Balakirev in his use of the whole tone scale, treatment of folk songs and musical [[orientalism]] and Liszt for harmonic adventurousness. (The violin melody used to portray [[Scheherazade]] is very closely related to its counterpart in Balakirev's symphonic poem ''[[Tamara (Balakirev)|Tamara]]'', while the ''Russian Easter Overtures'' follows the design and plan of Balakirev's Second Overture on Russian Themes.)<ref name="mfw21409"/><ref name="maes175"/>

Nevertheless, while he took Glinka and Liszt as his harmonic models, his use of [[whole tone scale|whole tone]] and [[octatonic scale]]s do demonstrate his originality. He developed both these compositional devices for the "fantastic" sections of his operas, which depicted magical or supernatural characters and events.<ref name="maes180"/>

Rimsky-Korsakov maintained an interest in harmonic experiments and continued exploring new idioms throughout his career. He tempered this interest with an abhorrence of excess and kept his tendency to experiment under constant control.<ref name="maes180"/> The more radical his harmonies became, the more he attempted to control them with strict rules—applying his "musical conscience", as he called it. In this sense, he was both a progressive and a conservative composer.<ref name="maes180">Maes, p. 180.</ref> The whole tone and octatonic scales were both considered adventurous in the Western classical tradition, and Rimsky-Korsakov's use of them made his harmonies seem radical. Conversely, his care about how or when in a composition he used these scales made him seem conservative compared with later composers like [[Igor Stravinsky]], though they were often building on Rimsky-Korsakov's work.<ref>Maes, pp. 180, 195.</ref>

===Operas===
{{listen|type=music|header=Music samples
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|filename2=Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Bumblebee.ogg|title2=The Flight of the Bumblebee|description2=Arrangement for two pianos by Russel Warner, performed by Neal and Nancy O'Doan|format2=[[Ogg]]
|filename3=Rimsky-Korsakov - Vasa Prihoda (1929) Chant Hindou.ogg|title3=The Song of the Indian Guest|description3=1929 recording of transcription for violin and piano, featuring violinist [[Váša Příhoda]]|format3=[[Ogg]]
}}
While Rimsky-Korsakov is best known in the West for his orchestral works, his operas are more complex, offering a wider variety of orchestral effects than in his instrumental works and fine vocal writing.<ref name="abng1632"/> Excerpts and suites from them have proved as popular in the West as the purely orchestral works. The best-known of these excerpts is probably "[[Flight of the Bumblebee]]" from ''[[The Tale of Tsar Saltan (opera)|The Tale of Tsar Saltan]],'' which has often been heard by itself in orchestral programs, and in countless arrangements and transcriptions, most famously in a piano version made by Russian composer [[Sergei Rachmaninoff]]. Other selections familiar to listeners in the West are "Dance of the Tumblers" from ''The Snow Maiden'', "Procession of the Nobles" from ''[[Mlada (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Mlada]]'', and "Song of the Indian Guest" (or, less accurately, "Song of India") from ''[[Sadko (opera)|Sadko]]'', as well as suites from ''[[The Golden Cockerel]]'' and ''[[The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya]]''.<ref name="schonberg364"/>

The Operas fall into three categories:
* '''Historical drama:''' ''[[The Maid of Pskov]]'', and its prologue ''[[The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga]]'', ''[[Mozart and Salieri (opera)|Mozart and Salieri]]'', ''[[The Tsar's Bride (opera)|The Tsar's Bride]]'', ''[[Pan Voyevoda]]'', ''[[Servilia (opera)|Servilya]]''
* '''Folk operas:''' ''[[May Night]]'', ''[[Christmas Eve (opera)|Christmas Eve]]''
* '''Fairy tales and legends:''' ''[[The Snow Maiden]]'', ''[[Mlada (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Mlada]]'', ''[[Sadko (opera)|Sadko]]'', ''[[Kashchey the Deathless]]'', ''[[The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Rimsky-Korsakov)|The Tale of Tsar Saltan]]'', ''[[The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya]]'', and ''[[The Golden Cockerel]]''.

Of this range, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in 1902, "In every new work of mine I am trying to do something that is new for me. On the one hand, I am pushed on by the thought that in this way, [my music] will retain freshness and interest, but at the same time I am prompted by my pride to think that many facets, devices, moods and styles, if not all, should be within my reach."<ref name="mfw21405"/> Among his operatic works, Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Snegurochka", also known as "The Snow-Maiden", sums up his compositional character. The Snow-maiden is a character who is the personification of love and passion, and yet she melts in the first rays of the sun. Rimsky-Korsakov’s works mirror the snow-maiden, as they are exquisite, but can quickly turn cold and pellucid and “dissolve at the touch of the living language of passion”.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sabaneev |first1=Leonid |last2=Pring |first2=S. W. |date=1928 |title=Rimsky-Korsakov |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/915953 |journal=The Musical Times |volume=69 |issue=1023 |pages=403–405 |doi=10.2307/915953 |jstor=915953 |issn=0027-4666|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

American music critic and journalist [[Harold C. Schonberg]] wrote that the operas "open up a delightful new world, the world of the Russian East, the world of supernaturalism and the exotic, the world of Slavic pantheism and vanished races. Genuine poetry suffuses them, and they are scored with brilliance and resource."<ref name="schonberg364">Schonberg, p. 364.</ref> According to some critics Rimsky-Korsakov's music in these works lacks dramatic power, a seemingly fatal flaw in an operatic composer. This may have been conscious, as he repeatedly stated in his writing that he felt operas were first and foremost musical works rather than mainly dramatic ones. Ironically, the operas succeed dramatically in most cases by being deliberately non-theatrical.<ref name="abng1633">Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:33.</ref>

===Orchestral works===
The purely orchestral works fall into two categories. The best-known ones in the West, and perhaps the finest in overall quality, are mainly programmatic in nature — in other words, the musical content and how it is handled in the piece is determined by the plot or characters in a story, the action in a painting or events reported through another non-musical source.<ref name="mfw21409"/> The second category of works is more academic, such as his First and Third Symphonies and his Sinfonietta. In these, Rimsky-Korsakov still employed folk themes but subjected them to abstract rules of musical composition.<ref name="mfw21409"/>
[[File:RimskyScheherezadeThemes.png|thumb|left|alt=Two staves of music, one with a loud, forceful theme and the second with a softer, more undulating theme|Opening themes of the Sultan and [[Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Scheherazade]]]]
Program music came naturally to Rimsky-Korsakov. To him, "even a folk theme has a program of sorts."<ref name="mfw21409">Frolova-Walker, ''New Grove (2001)'', 21:409.</ref> He composed the majority of his orchestral works in this genre at two periods of his career—at the beginning, with ''Sadko'' and ''Antar'' (also known as his Second Symphony, Op. 9), and in the 1880s, with ''Scheherazade'', ''Capriccio Espagnol'' and the ''Russian Easter Overture''. Despite the gap between these two periods, the composer's overall approach and the way he used his musical themes remained consistent. Both ''Antar'' and ''Scheherazade'' use a robust "Russian" theme to portray the male protagonists (the title character in ''Antar''; the sultan in ''Scheherazade'') and a more sinuous "Eastern" theme for the female ones (the [[peri]] Gul-Nazar in ''Antar'' and the title character in ''Scheherazade'').<ref>Maes, pp. 82, 175.</ref>

Where Rimsky-Korsakov changed between these two sets of works was in orchestration. While his pieces were always celebrated for their imaginative use of instrumental forces, the sparser textures of ''Sadko'' and ''Antar'' pale compared to the luxuriance of the more popular works of the 1880s. While a principle of highlighting "primary hues" of instrumental color remained in place, it was augmented in the later works by a sophisticated cachet of orchestral effects, some gleaned from other composers including Wagner, but many invented by himself.<ref name="mfw21409"/>

As a result, these works resemble brightly colored mosaics, striking in their own right and often scored with a juxtaposition of pure orchestral groups.<ref name="abng1632"/> The final ''tutti'' of ''Scheherazade'' is a prime example of this scoring. The theme is assigned to trombones playing in unison, and is accompanied by a combination of [[string instrument|string]] patterns. Meanwhile, another pattern alternates with chromatic scales in the [[woodwind instruments|woodwinds]] and a third pattern of rhythms is played by percussion.<ref>Abraham, ''New Grove (1980)'', 16:32–33.</ref>

Rimsky-Korsakov's non-program music, though well-crafted, does not rise to the same level of inspiration as his programmatic works; he needed fantasy to bring out the best in him.<ref name="mfw21409"/> The First Symphony follows the outlines of Schumann's Fourth extremely closely, and is slighter in its thematic material than his later compositions. The Third Symphony and Sinfonietta each contain a series of variations on less-than-the-best music that can lead to tedium.<ref name="mfw21409"/>

===Smaller-scale works===
Rimsky-Korsakov composed dozens of [[art song]]s, arrangements of folk songs, chamber and piano music. While the piano music is relatively unimportant, many of the art songs possess a delicate beauty. While they yield in overt lyricism to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, otherwise they reserve their place in the standard repertory of Russian singers.<ref name="mfw21409"/>

Rimsky-Korsakov also wrote a body of choral works, both secular and for Russian Orthodox Church service. The latter include settings of portions of the ''Liturgy of St. [[John Chrysostom]]'' (despite his own [[atheist|atheism]]).<ref name="abrarus27">Abraham, ''The New Grove Russian Masters 2'', p. 27.</ref><ref>Abraham, ''Studies in Russian Music'', 288</ref><ref>Morrison, pp. 116–117, 168–169.</ref>