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...

 wrote his Fantasia on Serbian Themes, Op. 6, in 1867. Mily Balakirev

Mily Balakirev

Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...

 conducted the first performed of this piece in May of that year. It is also known as the Serbian Fantasy.

The Fantasy was actually Balakirev's idea for the young Rimsky-Korsakov to compose. He requested the piece for a concert of pan-Slavonic music he had planned for May 24, 1867, programming his Czech Overture on the same billing. Balakirev also produced the Serbian themes for Rimsky-Korsakov to use in his composition. Rimsky-Korsakov confessed in his autobiography that it was not any feeling of nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 or pan-Slavism

Pan-Slavism

Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...

 that prompted him to write the Fantasy, but the beauty of the themes themselves. Nevertheless, Balakirev liked the piece, which Rimsky-Korsakov had written rapidly.

A March 1868 review of the Fantasy by 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"...

 in which he also mentioned Rimsky-Korsakov's First Symphony

Symphony No. 1 (Rimsky-Korsakov)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 1 , between 1861 and 1865 under the guidance of Mily Balakirev. Balakirev also premiered the work at a concert of the Free Music School in December 1865...

 found favour within the Balakirev circle. Tchaikovsky mentioned the symphony's "charming orchestration ... its structural novelty, and most of all by the freshness of its purely Russian harmonic turns ... immediately [showing] Mr. Rimsky-Korsakov to be a remarkable symphonic talent." Tchaikovsky was already acquainted with Balakirev and was working with him on his fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)

Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The...

The review opened the door for him to meet the other members of "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...

" face-to-face the following month.

In 1887 Rimsky-Korsakov revised the piece to prepare it for a new edition undertaken by 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...

's publishing firm.

Sources

• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840-1874 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978). ISBN 0-393-07535-2.
• Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, Letoppis Moyey Muzykalnoy Zhizni (St. Petersburg, 1909), published in English as My Musical Life (New York: Knopf, 1925, 3rd ed. 1942). ISBN n/a.