Rimsky-Korsakov and His World

Marina Frolova-Walker

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780691182711, 9780691182704
• eBook ISBN: 9780691185514
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

A rare look at the life and music of renowned Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

During his lifetime, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) was a composer whose work had great influence not only in his native Russia but also internationally. While he remains well-known in Russia—where many of his fifteen operas and various orchestral pieces are still in the standard repertoire—very little of his work is performed in the West today beyond Scheherezade and arrangements of The Flight of the Bumblebee. In Western writings, he appears mainly in the context of the Mighty Handful, a group of five Russian composers to which he belonged at the outset of his career. Rimsky-Korsakov and His World finally gives the composer center stage and due attention.

In this collection, Rimsky-Korsakov's major operas, The Snow Maiden, Mozart and Salieri, and The Golden Cockerel, receive multifaceted exploration and are carefully contextualized within the wider Russian culture of the era. The discussion of these operas is accompanied and enriched by the composer's letters to Nadezhda Zabela, the distinguished soprano for whom he wrote several leading roles. Other essays look at more general aspects of Rimsky-Korsakov's work and examine his far-reaching legacy as a professor of composition and orchestration, including his impact on his most famous pupil Igor Stravinsky.

The contributors are Lidia Ader, Leon Botstein, Emily Frey, Marina Frolova-Walker, Adalyat Issiyeva, Simon Morrison, Anna Nisnevich, Olga Panteleeva, and Yaroslav Timofeev.


The Bard Music Festival

Bard Music Festival 2018
Rimsky-Korsakov and His World
Bard College
August 10–12 and August 17–19, 2018

Index

Note: page numbers followed by “n” indicate chapter endnotes; those in italics refer to figures and musical excerpts. Throughout the index, RK refers to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Index of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Works of Music

Antar, 145, 149–52, 151, 168–69, 171n6

Boyarinya Vera Sheloga, The, 6, 7, 8, 15–17, 22, 23, 25, 27, 293

Capriccio espagnol, 283, 323, 340

Christmas Eve, The, 7, 12–15, 18–19, 56, 92n36, 103, 105, 345

“Eastern Melody,” 159–62, 162

From Homer, 47, 322

Golden Cockerel, The: augmented triad in, 172n27; ballet versions of, 177, 188, 190–92, 191; Belsky libretto, 156–62, 168, 178, 180–85, 187, 192, 198, 204–8, 212; Bolshoi Theater production of, 185, 187; censorship of, 182–85, 197–98; Tsar character and trivialist image of RK, 88; death of RK and, 184; Diaghilev’s staging of, 188, 190; ending, disagreement between Belsky and RK on, 216–17; Guidon, Alfron, and Polkan, 206–7; Metropolitan Opera production of, 188; musical language of, 188–90; political context and subtext of, 178–80; popular music and, 187–88; Pushkin’s tale, 157, 177–78, 197–98, 204, 210, 218n4; Soviet era and, 293; three spheres of, 187; Zimin production of, 185–87

—oriental themes and, 145–69; Astrologer characterization, 162–63; Badmaev and, 163–68; Belsky and RK’s contention over, 180; Belsky’s Preface, interpretation of, 168; intention to offend, 155–56; musical language of, 155; Queen of Shemakha characterization, 152–53, 153, 158–62, 160–61, 180–82, 207–8; Russian attitudes toward the East and, 146–47, 155–58; Russo-Japanese War and, 155–56, 163; Tsar Dodon chara...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Permissions and Credits
• Correspondence
• Operas in Context
• Orientalism and The Golden Cockerel
• Colleagues and Disciples
• Afterword
• Index
• Notes on the Contributors