Nationalist Composers

    European musical composition up to the end of the eighteenth century had been largely cosmopolitan and international.  But racial and national characteristics had always been present in the folk dances and songs of the people; and, with the awakening of patriotic nationalisms in the nineteenth century, came a consciousness of the national idioms and characteristics in folk music which could be applied to other kinds of music.

    The German nationalistic spirit arose first, and showed in Weber's operas and in Schumann's interest in German literature.  Then Chopin began to write Polish national dances and Liszt his Hungarian dances.  

    But the first really strong growth of nationalistic musical feeling arose in Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century.  Round about 1860 a group of Russian composers, who called themselves "the five", met together with the aim of establishing a specifically Russian style of music, taking Glinka (who was mentioned on p. 150) as their forerunner and example.  Balakirev was the only one who was trained in youth as a professional musician, and he acted as adviser and mentor to the other four.  Cui was an army officer, Borodin a famous chemist, Moussorgsky a civil servant, and Rimsky-Korsakov a naval officer, though he began to study music seriously later in life, and then taught at the St Petersburg Conservatoire.  They did not want to be influenced by German and Italian traditions, but based their music on Russian folk tunes and legends, on Russian church music and oriental idioms.  They tended to despise academic training, and they freely helped each other, even to the extent of finishing or improving each other’s compositions.  

    Balakirev (1837-1910), though a fluent composer, was not a great one, and little of his music is played today.  The same applies to Cui (1835-1918).  But Borodin (1833-1887) wrote a number of works of great value, including a fine symphony, 2 string quartets, a tone poem 'In the Steppes of Central Asia', and, perhaps greatest of all, his opera 'Prince Igor'.  

    Moussorgsky (1839-1881) was the most original of the five, though his greatest work, the opera 'Boris Godounov', was almost completely rewritten after his death by Rimsky Korsakov, who did not understand his original idioms, and smoothed out what he thought were its crudities.  It was not until 1928 that Moussorgsky's original score was published and was seen to be far superior.  Rimsky-Korsakov also completed Moussorgsky's unfinished tone poem 'A Night on the Bare Mountain'.  Moussorgsky's fine songs were relatively unknown until some time after his death.  'The Song of the Flea' is now very popular.  His 'Pictures from an Exhibition' was written for the piano, but is best known today in an orchestrated version by the Frenchman Ravel.  

    Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was a skilful and colorful orchestrator, and his tone poem 'Scheherazade', the story of the Arabian Nights, is a very popular work.  'Ivan the Terrible' is a dramatic opera and 'Le Coq d'Or' is a fantastic, fairy-tale one, but both are full of barbaric oriental color.

    Tschaikowsky (1840-1993) is the best known of the Russian composers of this period, but, unlike the five, he studied at a Conservatoire and was influenced by the Germanic traditions of the Rubinstein brothers.  Consequently he was always rather suspected by the Russian Nationalists.  But his music reached Western Europe before theirs did.  Although he does not make use of Russian folk song and oriental idioms in the way that they do, he has many Russian qualities, such as his intense emotionalism and his love of contrasts of color.  Glazounov (1865-1936), Scriabin (1872-1915) and Rachmaninov (1873-1943), whose fine piano concerto in C minor and preludes for the piano are so popular, are other Russian composers who lived a generation later.  

    The cult of Nationalism spread rapidly from Russia to other countries.  Smetana (1824-1884) was a musician in Bohemia (or Czecho-Slovakia, as it is called today) at a time when it was ruled by Austria.  In 1862 the Czechs were given a greater measure of freedom and allowed to establish their own opera house in Prague.  Smetana was soon made its conductor, and he began to write operas in the Czech language, the best known of which is 'The Bartered Bride'.  He soon became the champion of Czech music, and it was said that "his works are the best medium for the Czech to become conscious of his national character".  He also wrote a set of 6 symphonic poems called 'My Fatherland'.  He prepared the way for Dvorak, who was very conscious of his Czech nationality and Slavonic race.  

    Grieg (1843-1907) was a Norwegian who received his musical training in Leipzig, but who began to make use of national folk music and legends, and consciously to develop Norwegian national music.  

    By the turn of the century nationalism in music had spread to Finland, Spain, Hungary and Britain, but that is a matter for the next chapter.