Belyayev circle
Encyclopedia
The Belyayev circle was a society of Russian musicians who met in St. Petersburg
, Russia
between 1885 and 1908, and whose members included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
, Alexander Glazunov
, Vladimir Stasov, Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Ossovsky
, Witold Maliszewski
, Nikolai Tcherepnin
, Nikolay Sokolov among others. The circle was named after Mitrofan Belyayev
, a timber
merchant and amateur musician who became a music philanthropist and publisher after hearing the music of the teenage Glazunov.
The Belyayev circle believed in a national style of classical music, based on the achievements of the composer group the Five
which preceded it. One important difference between composers in the Belyayev circle and their counterparts in the Five was an acceptance in the necessity of Western-styled academic training; this was an attitude passed down by Rimsky-Korsakov, who taught many of the composers in the circle at the St. Petersburg Conservatory
. While these composers were more open to Western compositional practices and influences, especially through the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
, they closely followed many of the compositional practices of the Five to the point of mannerism, especially in their depiction of folkloric subject matter.
The Belyayev circle came to dominate musical life in St. Petersburg. Composers who desired patronage, publication or public performance of their works through Belyayev were compelled to write in a musical style accepted by Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. There was also peer pressure to compose in this style, as well as a distrust of composers who did not do so. Several composers who believed in the philosophy of the Belyayev circle became professors and heads of music conservatories in Russia, which extended the influence of the group past the physical confines of St. Petersburg and timewise well into the 20th century.
and textile manufacturer Pavel Tretyakov
. While Nadezhda von Meck insisted on anonymity in her patronage in the tradition of noblesse oblige
, Belyayev, Mamontov and Tretyakov "wanted to contribute conspicuously to public life". Because of their cultural and political orientation, they were more likely than the aristocracy to support native talent, and were more inclined to support nationalist artists over cosmopolitan ones. This was not due to any social or political agenda implicit in the art, but due to the Russianness of the art itself. This included the music of the composers Belyayev chose to support.
An amateur viola
player and chamber music
enthusiast, Belyayev hosted "quartet
Fridays" at his home in St. Petersburg. A frequent visitor to these gatherings was Rimsky-Korsakov. Belyayev became a music patron after he had heard the First Symphony
by the sixteen-year-old Glazunov, who had been discovered by Balakirev and tutored by Rimsky-Korsakov in musical composition, counterpoint
and orchestration. Not only did Glazunov become a fixture of the "quartet Fridays", but Belyayev also published Glazunov's work and took him on a tour of Western Europe. This tour included a visit to Weimar
, Germany
to present the young composer to famed Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt
.
Soon Belyayev became interested in other Russian composers. In 1884 he set up an annual Glinka prize, named after pioneer Russian composer Mikhail Glinka
(1804–1857). In 1885 he founded his own music publishing firm, based in Leipzig
, Germany, through which he published works by Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Lyadov and Borodin at his own expense. By publishing in Leipzig, Belyayev could offer the double benefit of higher quality music printing than was available in Russia at the time, plus the protection of international copyright
which Russia did not offer. At Rimsky-Korsakov's suggestion, Belyayev also founded his own concert series, the Russian Symphony Concerts, open exclusively to Russian composers. Among the works written especially for this series were the three by Rimsky-Korsakov by which he is currently best known in the West—Sheherazade
, the Russian Easter Festival Overture
and Capriccio espagnol
. To select which composers to assist with money, publication or performances from the many who now appealed for help, Belyayev set up an advisory council made up of Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. They would look through the compositions and appeals submitted and suggest which composers were deserving of patronage and public attention.
. The beter pupils from the St. Petersburg Conservatory received initiation by their invitation to the "quartet Fridays", and admission to the circle "guaranteed well renumerated publication by Edition Belieff, Leipzig, and performance in the Russian Symphony Concert programs". Thus, the Belyayev circle "set up an establilshment that governed all aspects of musical creation, education and performance".
. Mir iskusstva "identified with the artistic values of the [Russian] aristocracy" in its cosmopolitanism and belief of a universal culture. The composers of the Belyayev circle, like the Five before it, believed in a national, realist form of Russian classical music that should stand apart in its style and characteristics from Western European classical music. In this sense, the Belyayev composers shared similar goals with the Abramtsevo Colony
and Russian Revival
in the sphere of fine arts. Another way Mir iskusstva disagreed with the Belyayev circle was that they believed the composers under Belyayev were practicing art for art's sake, much like a social program. This practice ran counter to their belief in focusing on "art as the spiritual expression of the individual's creative genius", as they felt Alexander Pushkin had done in his poetry and Tchaikovsky in his music. Alfred Nurok commented in an 1899 review in Mir iskusstva:
Musicologist Richard Taruskin
writes, "Within the Belyayev circle a safe conformism became increasingly the rule". Concert programs needed to be filled with new Russian works, and new works had to be published to offer to the music public. It was therefore necessary "to dip rather deep into the pool of available Conservatory trained talent", and the circle became known for the number of less-than-first-rate talents harbored within it. Critic and composer César Cui
, who had been part of the Five along with Rimsky-Korsakov, derisively called these younger composers "clones". Though there was some snobbism involved in criticism of the Belyayev circle, there was also enough truth in the issue of conformism to cause the circle some embarrassment.
A contributing factor to this conformism was the gradual academization of composers in the nationalist circle, fueled by Rimsky-Korsakov's efforts in this regard with his students. An increasing number of these students joined the Belyayev circle; the result was "the emergence of production-line 'Russian style' pieces, polished and correct, but lacking originality".
Glazunov's attitude toward outside influences was typical of the Belyayev circle. He studied Tchaikovsky's works and "found much that was new ... that was instructive for us as young musicians. It struck me that Tchaikovsky, who was above all a lyrical and melodic composer, had introduced operatic elements into his symphonies. I admired the thematic material of his works less than the inspired unfolding of his thoughts, his temperament and the constructural perfection." Rimsky-Korsakov noted "a tendency toward eclecticism
" among the composers in the Belyayev circle, as well as a "predilection ... for Italian-French music of the time of wig and farthingale
[that is, the eighteenth century], music introduced by Tchaikovsky in his Queen of Spades
and Iolanthe".
Nevertheless, while the Belyayev circle was more tolerant of outside influence to a certain degree than their predecessors under Balakirev, they still followed the compositional practices of the Five closely. Maes writes, "The harmonies of Mussorgsky
's coronation scene in Boris
, the octotonicism of Mlada
and Sadko
, Balakirev's folk-song stylizations, Rimsky-Korsakov's colorful harmonization
—all these served as a store of recipes for writing Russian national music. In the portrayal of the national character ... these techniques prevailed over the subjects portrayed".
—the invention or adaptation of folklore
to newly-written stories or songs, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes. They also did not travel to other parts of Russia to actively search for folk songs, as Balakirev had done. When the Belyalev composers produced folkloric works, "they simply imitated Balakirev's or Rimsky-Korsakov's styles".
One of the Belyayev composers, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
, continued the Five's work in musical orientalism
—the use of exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements to depict the middle- and far-eastern parts of the Russian Empire
. He wrote three operas set in an oriental background and composed in Balakirev's style—Ruth, Azra and Izmena. The story for the last of these operas "deals with the struggle between Christians and Muslims during the sixteenth-century occupation of Georgia
by the Persians". Ippolotov-Ivanov is best known in the West for his two sets of Caucasian Sketches
"an orientalist orchestral work modeled on Balakirev and Borodin".
Lyadov wrote in a "fantastic" vein akin to Rimsky-Korsakov's, especially in his tone poems based on Russian fairy tales, Baba Yaga, Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake. This style of musical writing was based on extensive use of the whole tone scale
and the octatonic scale
to depict supernatural or magical characters and events, hence the term "fantastic". Though he would break from the Belyayev aesthetic in subsequent works, Igor Stravinsky
wrote his ballet The Firebird
in a similar musical style.
mentions that they and the Five shared a mutual suspicion of compositions that did not follow its canon. This proved especially true of the First Symphony
of Sergei Rachmaninov, a Moscow composer and protege of Tchaikovsky. Rimsky-Korsakov, whose own musical preferences in his later years were not overly progressive, may have sounded an advance warning on hearing the symphony in rehearsal when he told Rachmaninoff, "Forgive me, but I do not find this music at all agreeable". By the reports of many present, the rehearsal that Rimsky-Korsakov had heard, conducted by Glazunov, was both a disaster as a performance and a horrific travesty of the score. The premiere, held in St. Petersburg on March 28, 1897, went no better. Cui wrote in his review of the work, among other things, "If there were a conservatory in Hell
, and if one of its talented students were to compose a programme symphony based on the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt
, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell". The symphony was not performed again in Rachmaninoff's lifetime, and while Rachmaninoff did not destroy or disavow the score, he suffered a psychological collapse that led to a three-year creative hiatus.
. This, he asserts, is actually a false assumption which suggests that modernism was the result of a gradual process. The truth, Maes suggests, was that modernist music in Russia was a much more radical break from the Belyayev circle than many have claimed. Rimsky-Korsakov's extensive use of the octatonic scale
and other harmonic experiments "was a gold mine for those bent on a modernist revolution," Maes writes. "However, the renewing force had still to be liberated from the cliches and routines into which the Belyayev aesthetic had been pressed".
in charge of composition classes at the Conservatory through the 1920s. Dmitri Shostakovich
would complain about Steinberg's musical conservatism, typified by such phrases as "the inviolable foundations of the kuchka" and the "sacred traditions of Nikolai Andreyevich [Rimsky-Korsakov]". Nor was this traditionalism limited to St. Petersburg. Well into the Soviet era, many other music conservatories remained run by traditionalists such as Ippolitov-Ivanov in Moscow and Reinhold Glière
in Kiev. Because of these individuals, Maes writes, "the conservatories retained a direct link with the Belyayev aesthetic".
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
between 1885 and 1908, and whose members included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
, Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
, Vladimir Stasov, Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Ossovsky
Alexander Ossovsky
Alexander Vyacheslavovich Ossovsky , 1871 –July 31, 1957) was a renowned Russian musical writer, critic and musicologist, professor at Saint Petersburg Conservatory, pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Siloti and Nikolai...
, Witold Maliszewski
Witold Maliszewski
Witold Maliszewski , was a Polish composer, first Rector and founder of Odessa Conservatory and professor at Warsaw Conservatory, pupil of N. Rimsky-Korsakov.- Biography :...
, Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born in Saint Petersburg and studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory...
, Nikolay Sokolov among others. The circle was named after Mitrofan Belyayev
Mitrofan Belyayev
Mitrofan Petrovich Belyayev was a Russian music publisher, outstanding philanthropist, and the owner of a large wood dealership enterprise in Russia. He was also the founder of the Belyayev circle, a society of musicians in Russia whose members included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov...
, a timber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
merchant and amateur musician who became a music philanthropist and publisher after hearing the music of the teenage Glazunov.
The Belyayev circle believed in a national style of classical music, based on the achievements of the composer group the Five
The Five
The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie , refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin...
which preceded it. One important difference between composers in the Belyayev circle and their counterparts in the Five was an acceptance in the necessity of Western-styled academic training; this was an attitude passed down by Rimsky-Korsakov, who taught many of the composers in the circle at the St. Petersburg Conservatory
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory is a music school in Saint Petersburg. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students.-History:...
. While these composers were more open to Western compositional practices and influences, especially through the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, they closely followed many of the compositional practices of the Five to the point of mannerism, especially in their depiction of folkloric subject matter.
The Belyayev circle came to dominate musical life in St. Petersburg. Composers who desired patronage, publication or public performance of their works through Belyayev were compelled to write in a musical style accepted by Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. There was also peer pressure to compose in this style, as well as a distrust of composers who did not do so. Several composers who believed in the philosophy of the Belyayev circle became professors and heads of music conservatories in Russia, which extended the influence of the group past the physical confines of St. Petersburg and timewise well into the 20th century.
Belayev
Belyayev was one of a growing number of Russian nouveau-riche industrialists who became patrons of the arts in mid- to late-19th century Russia; their number included Nadezhda von Meck, railway magnate Savva MamontovSavva Mamontov
Savva Ivanovich Mamontov was a famous Russian industrialist, merchant, entrepreneur, and patron of the arts.-Biography:He was a son of the wealthy merchant and industrialist Ivan Feodorovich Mamontov and Maria Tikhonovna . In 1841 the family moved to Moscow. From 1852 he studied in St...
and textile manufacturer Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother S.M. Tretyakov was also a famous patron of art and a philanthropist....
. While Nadezhda von Meck insisted on anonymity in her patronage in the tradition of noblesse oblige
Noblesse oblige
Noblesse oblige is a French phrase literally meaning "nobility obliges".The Dictionnaire de l’Académie française defines it thus:# Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly....
, Belyayev, Mamontov and Tretyakov "wanted to contribute conspicuously to public life". Because of their cultural and political orientation, they were more likely than the aristocracy to support native talent, and were more inclined to support nationalist artists over cosmopolitan ones. This was not due to any social or political agenda implicit in the art, but due to the Russianness of the art itself. This included the music of the composers Belyayev chose to support.
An amateur viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
player and chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
enthusiast, Belyayev hosted "quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
Fridays" at his home in St. Petersburg. A frequent visitor to these gatherings was Rimsky-Korsakov. Belyayev became a music patron after he had heard the First Symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Glazunov)
Alexander Glazunov wrote his Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 5, in 1881, when he was 16 years old. It was premiered the following year in St. Petersburg.-Structure:The symphony is written in four movements:# Allegro# Scherzo: Allegro# Adagio...
by the sixteen-year-old Glazunov, who had been discovered by Balakirev and tutored by Rimsky-Korsakov in musical composition, counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
and orchestration. Not only did Glazunov become a fixture of the "quartet Fridays", but Belyayev also published Glazunov's work and took him on a tour of Western Europe. This tour included a visit to Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to present the young composer to famed Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
.
Soon Belyayev became interested in other Russian composers. In 1884 he set up an annual Glinka prize, named after pioneer Russian composer Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka , was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music...
(1804–1857). In 1885 he founded his own music publishing firm, based in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany, through which he published works by Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Lyadov and Borodin at his own expense. By publishing in Leipzig, Belyayev could offer the double benefit of higher quality music printing than was available in Russia at the time, plus the protection of international copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
which Russia did not offer. At Rimsky-Korsakov's suggestion, Belyayev also founded his own concert series, the Russian Symphony Concerts, open exclusively to Russian composers. Among the works written especially for this series were the three by Rimsky-Korsakov by which he is currently best known in the West—Sheherazade
Shéhérazade
Shéhérazade is the title of two works by the French composer Maurice Ravel.Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, written in 1898 but unpublished, is a work for orchestra intended as the overture for an opera of the same name...
, the Russian Easter Festival Overture
Russian Easter Festival Overture
Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36 is a concert overture written by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov between August 1887 and April 1888, and dedicated to the memories of Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin, two members of the legendary "Mighty Handful." It is subtitled...
and Capriccio espagnol
Capriccio espagnol
Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34, is the common Western title for an orchestral work based on Spanish folk melodies and written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1887. Rimsky-Korsakov originally intended to write the work for a solo violin with orchestra, but later decided that a purely orchestral work...
. To select which composers to assist with money, publication or performances from the many who now appealed for help, Belyayev set up an advisory council made up of Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov. They would look through the compositions and appeals submitted and suggest which composers were deserving of patronage and public attention.
Influence
The musical scene in St. Petersburg came to be dominated by the Belyayev circle since Rimsky-Korsakov had taught many of its members at the Conservatory there. Since Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov acted in an advisory capacity to the Belyayev enterprises, and thus became chanellers of Belyayev's largesse, composers who wished to be part of this circle and who desired Belyayev's patronage had to write in a musical style approved by these three men. Because of this stricture, Rimsky-Korsakov's style became the preferred academic style—one that young composers had to follow if they hoped to have any sort of career. In this sense, the Belyayev circle acted as a compositional guildGuild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
. The beter pupils from the St. Petersburg Conservatory received initiation by their invitation to the "quartet Fridays", and admission to the circle "guaranteed well renumerated publication by Edition Belieff, Leipzig, and performance in the Russian Symphony Concert programs". Thus, the Belyayev circle "set up an establilshment that governed all aspects of musical creation, education and performance".
Philosophy
The Belyayev circle ran counter in its philosophy to the artistic movement and magazine Mir iskusstvaMir iskusstva
Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century. From 1909, many of the miriskusniki also contributed to the Ballets Russes...
. Mir iskusstva "identified with the artistic values of the [Russian] aristocracy" in its cosmopolitanism and belief of a universal culture. The composers of the Belyayev circle, like the Five before it, believed in a national, realist form of Russian classical music that should stand apart in its style and characteristics from Western European classical music. In this sense, the Belyayev composers shared similar goals with the Abramtsevo Colony
Abramtsevo Colony
Abramtsevo is an estate located north of Moscow, in the proximity of Khotkovo, that became a center for the Slavophile movement and artistic activity in the 19th century.-History:...
and Russian Revival
Russian Revival
The Russian Revival style is the generic term for a number of different movements within Russian architecture that arose in second quarter of the 19th century and was an eclectic melding of pre-Peterine Russian architecture and elements of Byzantine architecture.The Russian Revival style arose...
in the sphere of fine arts. Another way Mir iskusstva disagreed with the Belyayev circle was that they believed the composers under Belyayev were practicing art for art's sake, much like a social program. This practice ran counter to their belief in focusing on "art as the spiritual expression of the individual's creative genius", as they felt Alexander Pushkin had done in his poetry and Tchaikovsky in his music. Alfred Nurok commented in an 1899 review in Mir iskusstva:
Mr. Belyayev's MaecenasGaius MaecenasGaius Cilnius Maecenas was a confidant and political advisor to Octavian as well as an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets...
activities bear a very special imprint. His undeniably lavish patronage of Russian music of the newest variety does not, unfortunately, so much facilitate the development of the talents of gifted but as yet unrecognized composers, as it encourages young people who have successfully completed their conservatory course to cultivate productivity come what may, touching little upon the question of their creative abilities. Mr. Belyayev encourages industry above all, and under his aegis musical composition has assumed the character of a workers' collective (artel), or even a crafts industry.
Musicologist Richard Taruskin
Richard Taruskin
Richard Taruskin is an American-Russian musicologist, music historian, and critic who has written about the theory of performance, Russian music, fifteenth-century music, twentieth-century music, nationalism, the theory of modernism, and analysis. As a choral conductor he directed the Columbia...
writes, "Within the Belyayev circle a safe conformism became increasingly the rule". Concert programs needed to be filled with new Russian works, and new works had to be published to offer to the music public. It was therefore necessary "to dip rather deep into the pool of available Conservatory trained talent", and the circle became known for the number of less-than-first-rate talents harbored within it. Critic and composer César Cui
César Cui
César Antonovich Cui was a Russian of French and Lithuanian descent. His profession was as an army officer and a teacher of fortifications; his avocational life has particular significance in the history of music, in that he was a composer and music critic; in this sideline he is known as a...
, who had been part of the Five along with Rimsky-Korsakov, derisively called these younger composers "clones". Though there was some snobbism involved in criticism of the Belyayev circle, there was also enough truth in the issue of conformism to cause the circle some embarrassment.
A contributing factor to this conformism was the gradual academization of composers in the nationalist circle, fueled by Rimsky-Korsakov's efforts in this regard with his students. An increasing number of these students joined the Belyayev circle; the result was "the emergence of production-line 'Russian style' pieces, polished and correct, but lacking originality".
Comparison to the Five
The composers who formed the Belyayev circle were nationalistic in their outlook, as had the Five before them. Like the Five, they believed in a uniquely Russian style of classical music that utilized folk music and exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements, as exemplified by the music of Balakirev, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Unlike the Five, these composers also believed in the necessity of an academic, Western-based background in composition. The necessity of Western compositional techniques was something that Rimsky-Korsakov had instilled in many of them in his years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Compared to the "revolutionary" composers in Balakirev's circle, Rimsky-Korsakov found those in the Belyayev circle to be "progressive ... attaching as it did great importance to technical perfection, but ... also broke new paths, though more securely, even if less speedily...."Glazunov's attitude toward outside influences was typical of the Belyayev circle. He studied Tchaikovsky's works and "found much that was new ... that was instructive for us as young musicians. It struck me that Tchaikovsky, who was above all a lyrical and melodic composer, had introduced operatic elements into his symphonies. I admired the thematic material of his works less than the inspired unfolding of his thoughts, his temperament and the constructural perfection." Rimsky-Korsakov noted "a tendency toward eclecticism
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
" among the composers in the Belyayev circle, as well as a "predilection ... for Italian-French music of the time of wig and farthingale
Farthingale
Farthingale is a term applied to any of several structures used under Western European women's clothing in the late 15th and 16th centuries to support the skirts into the desired shape. It originated in Spain.- Spanish farthingale :...
[that is, the eighteenth century], music introduced by Tchaikovsky in his Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (opera)
The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St...
and Iolanthe".
Nevertheless, while the Belyayev circle was more tolerant of outside influence to a certain degree than their predecessors under Balakirev, they still followed the compositional practices of the Five closely. Maes writes, "The harmonies of Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
's coronation scene in Boris
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
, the octotonicism of Mlada
Mlada (Rimsky-Korsakov)
Mlada is an opera-ballet in four acts, composed between 1889 and 1890 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to a libretto by Viktor Krylov that was originally employed for an aborted project of the same name from 1872.-Performance history:...
and Sadko
Sadko (opera)
Sadko is an opera in seven scenes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto was written by the composer, with assistance from Vladimir Belsky, Vladimir Stasov, and others. Rimsky-Korsakov was first inspired by the bylina of Sadko in 1867, when he completed a tone poem on the subject, his Op. 5...
, Balakirev's folk-song stylizations, Rimsky-Korsakov's colorful harmonization
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
—all these served as a store of recipes for writing Russian national music. In the portrayal of the national character ... these techniques prevailed over the subjects portrayed".
Folklorism, orientalism, "fantastic" style
Unlike their predecessors in the Five, composers in the Belyalev circle did not concern themselves greatly with folklorismFakelore
Fakelore or Pseudo-folklore is inauthentic, manufactured folklore presented as if it were genuinely traditional. The term can refer to new stories or songs made up, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes...
—the invention or adaptation of folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
to newly-written stories or songs, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes. They also did not travel to other parts of Russia to actively search for folk songs, as Balakirev had done. When the Belyalev composers produced folkloric works, "they simply imitated Balakirev's or Rimsky-Korsakov's styles".
One of the Belyayev composers, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov was a Russian composer, conductor and teacher.- Biography :...
, continued the Five's work in musical orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
—the use of exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements to depict the middle- and far-eastern parts of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. He wrote three operas set in an oriental background and composed in Balakirev's style—Ruth, Azra and Izmena. The story for the last of these operas "deals with the struggle between Christians and Muslims during the sixteenth-century occupation of Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
by the Persians". Ippolotov-Ivanov is best known in the West for his two sets of Caucasian Sketches
Caucasian Sketches
Caucasian Sketches is a pair of orchestral suites written in 1894 and 1896 by the Russian composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. The Caucasian Sketches is the most often performed of his compositions and can be heard frequently on classical radio stations. The final movement of the Caucasian Sketches,...
"an orientalist orchestral work modeled on Balakirev and Borodin".
Lyadov wrote in a "fantastic" vein akin to Rimsky-Korsakov's, especially in his tone poems based on Russian fairy tales, Baba Yaga, Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake. This style of musical writing was based on extensive use of the whole tone scale
Whole tone scale
In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole step. There are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales:...
and the octatonic scale
Octatonic scale
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. Among the most famous of these is a scale in which the notes ascend in alternating intervals of a whole step and a half step, creating a symmetric scale...
to depict supernatural or magical characters and events, hence the term "fantastic". Though he would break from the Belyayev aesthetic in subsequent works, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
wrote his ballet The Firebird
The Firebird
The Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
in a similar musical style.
Intolerance of non-compliant composers
Despite Rimsky-Korsakov's denial of bias among composers of the Belyayev circle, musicologist Solomon VolkovSolomon Volkov
Solomon Moiseyevich Volkov is a Russian journalist and musicologist. He is best known for Testimony, which was published in 1979 following his emigration from the Soviet Union in 1976...
mentions that they and the Five shared a mutual suspicion of compositions that did not follow its canon. This proved especially true of the First Symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Rachmaninoff)
Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13, is a music piece by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, written at Ivanovka, an estate near Tambov, Russia, between January and October 1895...
of Sergei Rachmaninov, a Moscow composer and protege of Tchaikovsky. Rimsky-Korsakov, whose own musical preferences in his later years were not overly progressive, may have sounded an advance warning on hearing the symphony in rehearsal when he told Rachmaninoff, "Forgive me, but I do not find this music at all agreeable". By the reports of many present, the rehearsal that Rimsky-Korsakov had heard, conducted by Glazunov, was both a disaster as a performance and a horrific travesty of the score. The premiere, held in St. Petersburg on March 28, 1897, went no better. Cui wrote in his review of the work, among other things, "If there were a conservatory in Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, and if one of its talented students were to compose a programme symphony based on the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt
Plagues of Egypt
The Plagues of Egypt , also called the Ten Plagues or the Biblical Plagues, were ten calamities that, according to the biblical Book of Exodus, Israel's God, Yahweh, inflicted upon Egypt to persuade Pharaoh to release the ill-treated Israelites from slavery. Pharaoh capitulated after the tenth...
, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell". The symphony was not performed again in Rachmaninoff's lifetime, and while Rachmaninoff did not destroy or disavow the score, he suffered a psychological collapse that led to a three-year creative hiatus.
Belyayev circle and modernism
Maes writes that the composers who formed the Belyayev circle have often been described as "important links to, and pathbreakers for" modernist Russian composers such as Stravinsky and Sergei ProkofievSergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
. This, he asserts, is actually a false assumption which suggests that modernism was the result of a gradual process. The truth, Maes suggests, was that modernist music in Russia was a much more radical break from the Belyayev circle than many have claimed. Rimsky-Korsakov's extensive use of the octatonic scale
Octatonic scale
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. Among the most famous of these is a scale in which the notes ascend in alternating intervals of a whole step and a half step, creating a symmetric scale...
and other harmonic experiments "was a gold mine for those bent on a modernist revolution," Maes writes. "However, the renewing force had still to be liberated from the cliches and routines into which the Belyayev aesthetic had been pressed".
Legacy
Bias toward the musical aesthetics practiced by the Belyayev circle would continue at the St. Petersburg Conservatory after Rimsky-Korsakov's retirement in 1906, with his son-in-law Maximilian SteinbergMaximilian Steinberg
Maximilian Osseyevich Steinberg was a Russian composer of classical music born in what is now Lithuania.-Life:...
in charge of composition classes at the Conservatory through the 1920s. Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
would complain about Steinberg's musical conservatism, typified by such phrases as "the inviolable foundations of the kuchka" and the "sacred traditions of Nikolai Andreyevich [Rimsky-Korsakov]". Nor was this traditionalism limited to St. Petersburg. Well into the Soviet era, many other music conservatories remained run by traditionalists such as Ippolitov-Ivanov in Moscow and Reinhold Glière
Reinhold Glière
Reinhold Moritzevich Glière was a Russian and Soviet composer of German–Polish descent.- Biography :Glière was born in Kiev, Ukraine...
in Kiev. Because of these individuals, Maes writes, "the conservatories retained a direct link with the Belyayev aesthetic".