Listen to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov. You will not notice how you are transported into the world of fairy tales, magic, fiction. “The Night Before Christmas”, “The Golden Cockerel”, “The Snow Maiden” ... These and many other works of Rimsky-Korsakov's “The Great Story-teller in Music” are imbued with a childhood dream of fairy-tale life, of good and justice. Heroes of epics, legends, myths come from the realm of music in your world of dreams. With each new chord, the boundaries of the fairy tale are moving apart more and more. And, here, you are no longer in the music room. The walls have dissolved, and you are a participant in the battle with the sorcerer. And only on your courage depends on how the fantastic battle with evil will end!
Victory of Good. This was the dream of the composer. He wanted every person on Earth, all of Mankind to become the pure, devoid of vices of the creation of the Great Cosmos. Rimsky-Korsakov believed that if Man learned to “look at the stars,” the world of people would become better, more perfect, kinder. He dreamed that sooner or later the Harmony of man and the infinite Cosmos would come, just as the harmonious sound of a “small” note in a huge symphony creates beautiful music. The composer dreamed that there would be neither fake notes nor bad people in the world.
Another element sounds in the music of the great musician - these are OCEAN melodies, rhythms of the underwater kingdom. The magic world of Poseidon will forever charm you, bewitch you. But your ears will not be captivated by the songs of the treacherous mythical Sirens. The beautiful pure music of the sea spaces, sung by Rimsky-Korsakov in the operas “Sadko”, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, suite “Scheherazade” will enchant you.
From where in the work of Rimsky - Korsakov did the theme of the Fairy Tale arise, why did he get carried away by the ideas of Cosmos and the Sea? How did it happen that these elements were destined to become the guiding stars of his work? What roads did he come to his muse? We will look for answers to these questions in his childhood and youth.
Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky - Korsakov was born on March 6, 1844. in the small town of Tikhvinsk Novgorod province. In the family of Nicholas (in the family circle his name was Nicky) there were many famous naval combat officers, as well as high-ranking state servants.
Nikolai's great-grandfather, Warrior Yakovlevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1702-1757), devoted himself to naval military service. After graduating from the Marine Academy, he guarded the water frontiers of Russia in the Baltic in the waters of St. Petersburg. He became vice-admiral, led the Kronstadt squadron.
Nika's grandfather, Peter Voinovich, chose a different path in life. He served the state in a civil field: he was the leader of the nobility. But it was not because of this that he became a legendary person in the family. He was famous for his desperate act: he kidnapped his beloved, not having received from her parents consent to marriage.
It is said that Nikolai, the future great composer, was given a name in honor of his uncle, Nikolai Petrovich Rimsky-Korsakov (1793-1848). He rose to the rank of vice-admiral. He made several heroic voyages, including participated in the voyage around the world. During the war of 1812, he fought on land against the French near Smolensk, as well as on the Borodino field and near Tarutino. Received many combat awards. In 1842 for services to the fatherland, he was appointed director of the Marine Corps of Peter the Great (Naval Institute).
The composer’s father, Andrei Petrovich (1778–1862), reached great heights in the state service. He became vice-governor of the Volyn province. However, for some reason, perhaps due to the fact that he did not show the required rigidity in relation to free-thinkers - opponents of royal power, he was dismissed in 1835. from a service with a very low pension. It happened nine years before Nika was born. Father went broke.
Andrei Petrovich did not take a serious part in raising his son. Friendship father with Nicholas prevented a huge difference in age. When Nika was born, Andrei Petrovich was already over 60 years old.
Mom of the future composer, Sofia Vasilievna, was the daughter of a rich landowner Skaryatin and a serf peasant. Mom loved her son, but she, too, had a very big age difference with Nicky - about 40 years. Sometimes there was some tension between them. The main reason for this was, perhaps, not even age problems. She was depressed by the lack of money in the family. She hoped that the son, perhaps even against his own will, would choose, when he became an adult, a well-paid profession of a naval officer. And she pushed Nicholas to this goal, fearing that he would turn away from the intended path.
So, in the family, Nika had no peers. Even his brother was 22 years older than Nicholas. And if you consider that the brother was distinguished for his tough temper (they named him in honor of his great-grandfather Warrior), they practically did not have a special intimacy. Nicky, however, was enthusiastic about his brother. After all, the Warrior chose the difficult and romantic profession of a sailor!
Life among adults, who have long forgotten their children's desires and thoughts, contributes to the development of practicality and realism in a child, often at the expense of reverie. Doesn't this explain the future composer's desire for fairytale scenes in his music? He tried to "live" in adulthood that wonderful fabulous life, which was almost deprived in childhood?
The combination of practicality and dreaminess, which is rare for a young man, is seen in the well-known phrase of Rimsky-Korsakov, sounded in his letter to his mother: "Look at the stars, but do not look and do not fall." Speaking of stars. Nicholas soon became interested in reading stories about the stars, became interested in astronomy.
The sea in the "fight" with the stars "did not want" to give up their positions. The adults brought up the very young Nikolai as the future commander, the captain of the ship. Much time was devoted to physical training. He was accustomed to gymnastics, strict adherence to the daily routine. Grew up a strong, hardy boy. Seniors sought to be independent, hardworking. Tried not to indulge. They taught the ability to obey, to be responsible. Perhaps that is why he seemed (especially with age) a closed, reserved, unsociable, and even austere man.
Thanks to such a tough Spartan upbringing, Nicholas gradually formed an iron will, as well as a very strict and demanding attitude towards himself.
And what about music? Does her place in the life of Nicky? I must admit that, starting to study music, the young Rimsky-Korsakov in his dreams still stood on the captain’s bridge of a warship and commanded: “Give off the moorings!”
And although he began to play the piano from the age of six, the love of music did not appear immediately, it did not soon become all-encompassing, all-consuming. In favor of the music, an excellent ear for music, discovered by Nika, was played, an excellent memory. His mother loved to sing, had a good ear, his father also studied vocals. Nikolay's uncle, Pavel Petrovich (1789-1832), about which Niki knew from the stories of native people, could play from memory any fragment from a heard musical work of any complexity. He did not know the notes. On the other hand, he had excellent hearing and a phenomenal memory.
From the age of eleven, Niki began to compose his first works. Although special academic knowledge in this area, he is armed, and then only partially, only after a quarter of a century.
When the time came for Nicholas’s vocational guidance, there was no doubt about the question of where to go to study, neither among adults nor a 12-year-old Nika. In 1856 He was assigned to the Naval Cadet Corps (St. Petersburg). Began studying. At first everything went fine. However, a couple of years later, he sharply increased his interest in music against the background of dry disciplines taught at the maritime school related to naval affairs. In his free time, Nicholas increasingly began to attend the Opera House of St. Petersburg. I listened with great interest to the operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Carl von Weber (the predecessor of Wagner). He was delighted with the works of M.I. Glinka: "Ruslan and Lyudmila", "Life for the Tsar" ("Ivan Susanin"). Fell in love with the opera "Robert - Devil" by Giacomo Meyerbeer. Grew interest in the music of Beethoven, Mozart.
A major role in the fate of Rimsky-Korsakov was played by the Russian pianist and teacher Fedor Andreevich Kanille. In 1859-1862. Nikolay took his lessons from him. Fedor Andreevich highly appreciated the ability of the young man. He advised to start composing music. He acquainted with an experienced composer M.A. Balakirev and musicians who were part of the music group "The Mighty Handful" organized by him.
In 1861-1862, that is, in the last two years of study in the Marine Corps, on the advice of Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov began, despite the lack of sufficient musical knowledge, to write his first symphony. Is it really possible: without proper preparation and immediately take up the symphony? Such was the style of work of the creator of the "Mighty Handful". Balakirev believed that the work on a work, even if it was too difficult for a student, was useful in that as the music was written the process of learning the art of composition took place. He set immensely difficult tasks ...
The role of music in the thoughts and fate of Rimsky-Korsakov began to dominate everything else. Nikolay had like-minded friends: Mussorgsky, Stasov, Cui.
Approaching the end of the study of marine business. Nikolay's mother and his elder brother, who considered themselves responsible for Nikolai’s career, saw in the increased passion for music a threat to the naval profession Nika. Began a tough opposition to the passion for art.
Mom, striving to “unwrap” her son to a marine career, wrote to her son: “Music is the identity of idle girls and the easy entertainment of a busy person.” In an ultimatum tone, she expressed: "I do not want your addiction to music to be at the expense of service." Such a position of a loved one led to a cooling for a long period of the son’s relationship with his mother.
Much more stringent measures against Niki took an older brother. The warrior stopped paying music lessons to FA Canille. To the credit of Fyodor Andreevich, he offered Nikolay to learn from him for free.
Mom and elder brother, guided by good intentions, as they believed, achieved the inclusion of Nikolai into the crew of the Almaz sailing clipper, which was preparing to sail for a long voyage around the Baltic, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. So, in 1862 Immediately after graduating with honors from the Marine Corps, the midshipman Rimsky-Korsakov at the age of eighteen set off for a three-year voyage.
For almost a thousand days, he was cut off from the musical environment of friends. Soon he became this swimming among, as he put it, "sergeant" (one of the lowest officer ranks, which has become synonymous with rudeness, arbitrariness, low education and low culture of behavior). This time he considered lost for creativity, musical education. And, indeed, for the "marine" period of his life, Nikolai managed to compose very little: only the second part (Andante) of the First Symphony. Of course, swimming in a certain sense had a negative impact on Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical education. He was unable to obtain full-fledged classical knowledge in the field of music. He worried about that. And only when in 1871, already at a mature age, he was invited to the Conservatory to teach practical (non-theoretical) composition, instrumentation and orchestration, he finally, first of all, took up his studies. He asked the teachers of the conservatory to help him master the necessary knowledge.
Despite all the hardships and hardships, isolation from the native element of music that had become his thousandth day’s swimming, there was still no time lost. Rimsky - Korsakov could acquire (perhaps unknowingly at that time) an invaluable experience, without which his work probably would not have become so vivid.
Thousands of nights spent under the stars, reflections on the cosmos, the high designation of the role of man in this world, philosophical insights, huge-scale ideas pierced the heart of the composer, like falling meteorites.
The theme of the sea element with its infinite beauty, storms and storms added colors to the fabulous, enchanting musical palette of Rimsky-Korsakov. Having been in the world of Cosmos, Fantasy and the Sea, the composer, as if plunging into three fabulous cauldrons, was transformed, rejuvenated, flourished for creativity.
In 1865 Nikolay forever, irrevocably descended from the ship to the ground. He returned to the world of music not by an exhausted person, not offended by the whole world, but by a composer full of creative powers and plans.
And you, young people, should remember that the “black”, unfavorable band in a person’s life, if treated without undue distress, pessimism, may contain nuggets of something good that may be useful to you in the future. Patience, my friend. Exposure and composure.
In the year of the return from the sea, Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov completed the writing of his First Symphony. It was first performed on December 19, 1865. Nikolai Andreevich considered this date the beginning of his career as a composer. He was then twenty-one years old. Can someone say whether the first major work has appeared late? Rimsky - Korsakov believed that it was possible to study music at any age: at six, ten, twenty, and even very grown-up people. You will probably be very surprised to learn that an intelligent, inquisitive person learns all his life, to a very old age.
Imagine that an elderly academic wanted to learn one of the main secrets of the human brain: how memory is stored in it. How to write to disk, and when necessary, “read” all the information, emotions, ability to speak and even create in the brain? Imagine that your friend a year ago flew into space on the double star Alpha Centauri (one of the stars closest to us, located at a distance of four light years). There is practically no connection with him, but you need to communicate with him, urgently consult on one very important issue, known only to him. You get the coveted disc, connect to the memory of a friend and in a second you get the answer! In order to solve the problem of decoding information hidden in a person’s head, an academician must study the latest scientific developments in the field of cerebral hypernano scanning of specific brain cells responsible for the conservation and storage of incoming impulses. So, again, we must learn.
The need for more and new knowledge, regardless of age, understood Rimsky-Korsakov, understand many other great people. The famous Spanish artist Francisco Goya painted a picture on this topic and called it "I'm still learning."
Nikolai Andreevich in his work continued the traditions of the European program symphony. In this he was greatly influenced by Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz. And, of course, a deep trace in his works was left by MI. Glinka.
Rimsky - Korsakov wrote fifteen operas. In addition to those mentioned in our story, these are “The Maid of Pskov”, “May Night”, “Tsar's Bride”, “Kaschey the Immortal”, “The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” and others. They are characterized by a bright, deep pithiness, nationality.
Nikolai Andreevich composed eight symphonic works, including three symphonies, "Overture on the themes of three Russian songs", "Spanish Capriccio", and "Bright Holiday". His music is striking in its melody, academicism, realism and at the same time fabulous, enchanting. They were invented a symmetrical mode, the so-called "Gamma of Rimsky - Korsakov", which he used to describe the world of fiction.
Many of his romances received great popularity: "On the hills of Georgia", "What is my name in you", "The quiet blue sea", "Southern night", "My days are sluggishly drawn" In total, he composed over sixty romances.
Rimsky - Korsakov wrote three books on the history and theory of music. Since 1874 engaged in conducting.
This recognition as a composer came to him not immediately and not all. Some, paying tribute to his unique melody, argued that he had not fully mastered operatic dramaturgy.
In the late 90s of the XIX century, the situation changed. Nikolai Andreevich with his titanic work achieved universal recognition. He himself said: "Do not call me great. Just call Rome - Korsakov."
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