Symphony No. 1, Islamey, Tamara.

Abstract

Balakirev occupies an important if equivocal position in the history of Russian music of the later part of the nineteenth century. He was born in Nizhny-Novgorod in 1837 and had his first piano lessons from his mother, who later arranged some lessons for him with Alexander Dubuque, a pupil of John Field. Through a later teacher, the German Karl Eisrich, he was introduced to the circle of Alexander UlTbTshev, an enthusiastic amateur, author of books on Mozart and Beethoven and owner of a useful music library. At UlTbishev's house he was able to hear chamber music and occasionally orchestral works, the inspiration for his own early compositions. It was through the agency of this patron that Balakirev was able in 1855 to travel to St. Petersburg, where he met Glinka and other well known musicians and made his own debut as a pianist and composer. Supporting himself with difficulty by giving piano lessons and private performances, Balakirev managed to survive in St. Petersburg, where he met two young army officers, Cesar Cui and Modest Mussorgsky, both keen amateur composers, over whom he began to exercise some influence. He had, at the same time, formed a friendship with Dmitry and Vladimir Stasov, the latter an importantfigure in the intellectual support of Russian musical nationalism. In 1861 he met Rimsky-Korsakov and the following year Borodin, completing the group of five Russian nationalists described by Vladimir Stasov as the Mighty Handful, the Five who would follow Glinka's example in the creation of a distinctively Russian musical tradition. Atthe same time Balakirev had increasing involvement with the Free School of Music in St. Petersburg, set up in opposition to the 'German' Conservatory established by Anton Rubinstein, with the encouragement of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, who did her best to remove Balakirev from the conductorship of the Russian Music Society concerts, which were under her patronage. Balakirev's own character, obstinate and tactless, did much to increase the division between the Conservatory and his own followers, castigated by Anton Rubinstein as amateurs, a charge that could never have been levelled at him. Balakirev's later relationship with Nikolai Rubinstein and the Moscow Conservatory, where Tchaikovsky taught, was more satisfactory, and it was Nikolai Rubinstein who introduced the oriental fantasy for piano, Islamey, to the St. Petersburg public in 1869. Religious conversion led to a brief retirement from musical life and from familiar society between 1871 and 1874, but gradually thereafter Balakirev resumed something of his old activities, particularly, in 1881, the direction of the Free School, which he had surrendered to Rimsky-Korsakov in 1874. In 1883 his friends found for him a position as director of the Imperial Court Chapel, where he was assisted by Rimsky-Korsakov. A breach with the latter came in 1890, as Belyayev, an important patron and publisher of Russian music, gradually seemed to usurp his place as leader of the Russian nationalist composers. A measure of friendship was restored, to be destroyed completely and finally by Rimsky-Korsakov's behaviour atthe first performance of Balakirev's First Symphony at a Free School Concert in 1898. Balakirev had retired from the Imperial Chapel in 1895 and thereafter had devoted himself more fully to composition, to his continuing task of editing the music of Glinka and to the encouragement of a new group of young Russian composers, including his always loyal disciple Sergei Liapunov, who later orchestrated Islamey. Freedom from other activity allowed the completion of a symphony he had started many years before and the completion of a second in 1908. In this final period of his life he attracted little attention from the musical public and expressed some bitterness at the neglect of his work Russian music, nevertheless, owed him a considerable debt. Combative by temperament, he had fought for his own conception of truly Russian music, which found future expression in a synthesis of the technique of the Conservatories and the spirit that he had engendered and nurtured.