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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Composer of the Week: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Episode 3: Reinventing a Past

A Mania for Revision

Episode 3

Episode 3: Reinventing a Past

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Reinventing a Past

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), Reinventing a Past

How Rimsky-Korsakov drew inspiration for his operas from a branch of Russian folklore.

Donald Macleod describes how Rimsky-Korsakov drew vital inspiration for his operas from an evocative branch of Russian folklore.

How much can you tell about the way someone walks? Today we find Rimsky-Korsakov adorning a jubilee concert with his music and adopting an unusually solemn gait, a suggestion perhaps that even in these final decades his was typically more fleet of foot?

His music is finding a new pace too, inspired by the wonderfully evocative 'bylinas' from Russian folklore. As Donald Macleod discovers, these were to prove vital ingredients for the composer's operas. 


A Toast
Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Igor Golovschin, conductor 

Bylina of Dobrynia Nikitich 
Russian Folk Song Chorus
Valentina Leonov, soloist 
A Sveshnikov, director 

Sadko - Tableau 1, excerpt 
Larissa Diadkova, mezzo-soprano (Nezhata 
Kirov Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, conductor 

By the Sea 
Mikhail Lanskoy, baritone 
Ilya Scheps, piano 

Christmas Eve (Tableau 3) 
Elena Zaremba, mezzo-soprano (Solokha)
Viatcheslav Vionarovski, tenor (Le Diable)
Viatcheslav Verestnikov, baritone (Le Maire)
Alexei Maslennikov, tenor (Le Sacristain)
Stanislav Souleimanov, bass (Tchoub)
Vladimir Bogatchov, tenor (Vakoula)
Yourlov Academic Chorus
Forum Theatre Orchestra
Mikhail Yurovski, conductor 

Producer: Michael Surcombe.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores Rimsky-Korsakov's final years through the lens of his biographer

Donald Macleod explores Rimsky-Korsakov's final years through the lens of his biographer, Vasily Vasilyevitch Yastrebtsev

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Composer of the Week

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Episode 3: Reinventing a Past

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