Nationalism in music started to emerge in Russia in the nineteenth Century. The national musical style of Russia had an emphasis on Russian folk songs and tunes. Nationalism was taking part in other regions such as Bohemia, Scandinavia, Poland, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Portugal and also in North America. It was a rebellion from the Italian, French and German tradition of music who were the dominant forces in music.
There was a composer in Russia, Verstovsky, with his imitation of Italian and French music was a forerunner but the real founder of National Russian music was Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857). He composed two operas “A Life for the Tsar” (1836) and “Russlan and Ludmilla” (1842). “Both operas have the quality of folk song and are at the same time modern” (Alfred Einstein, 1947, p.305). His operas showed his nationalism and they both had very pro Russian stories. They also had the Russian features which were simple folk-idioms in the melody and rhythm. His first opera “A Life for the Tsar” became a popular opera which was put on to open every opera season. His second opera “Russlan and Ludmilla” did not really get noticed much. He is said to have been too far ahead of his time in terms of his music. In his second opera he used whole tone scales which was a new harmonic idea. He also composed overtures and songs. He watched what was happening in Europe in terms of musical matters but he didn’t imitate it. He didn’t want to lose the national identity.
A man who was called Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomijsky (1813-1869) played a big role in the history of Russian music. He was the main man who stood between Glinka and the generation to come after. He met with Glinka in 1833 and got some of Glinkas notes...
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... and melodies. He is especially known for his vivid portrayal of Russian life through his works. Borodin wrote songs, string quartets and symphonies. His most famous work is the opera "Prince Igor" which was left unfinished when he died in 1887. The said opera was completed by Aleksandr Glazunov and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Cui is perhaps the least known member, but he was also one of the staunch supporters of Russian nationalist music. He was a music critic and professor of fortifications at a military academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. Cui is especially known for his songs and piano pieces.
Works Cited
Alfred Einstein (1947). Music in the Romantic Era: A History of musical thought in the 19th century. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Leon Plantinga (1984). Romantic Music: a history of musical style in nineteenth-century Europe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev is considered one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. Not only was Sergeyevich an accomplished pianist, but he was an outstanding and famous conductor as well. He was infinitely skilled at a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti, operas, program pieces, film music, and ballets. His works were considered both ultra-modern and innovative for their time. Ironically, Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin - 05 March 1953.
Stolba, M. K. (1998) The Development of Western Music, A History, Third Edition. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1980)9: 708-709
Howard, John Tasker, and George Kent Bellows. A Short History of Music in America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1957. 342-3. Print.
Schwartz, Boris. Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1981. 2nd edition. Indiana University Press, 1983.
Antonin Dvorak was one of the leading composers of the late Romantic period and one of many composers that utilized portions of music from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds in his compositions. The idea of Music Nationalism can be found in many of his works, especially in his Symphony no. 9 in E minor “from the New World”, which incorporates ideas from the American culture.
Sergei Rachmaninoff is considered to be the final, magnificent composer of the Romantic era in Russian classical music, ushering forward its traditions into the twentieth century. His four concertos are a reflection of his development as a composer and pianist, with regard to maturity and compositional style. The evolution of music during the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century had no significant effect on Rachmaninoff; rather he continued to produce ingenious works reflective of his Russian upbringing and the Romantic era.
Sadie, Stanley. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The. Vol. II New York: The MacMillan Company, 1928
Kamien, Roger. "Part VI: The Romantic Period." Music: An Appreciation. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. 257-350. Print.
Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A history of western music. 8th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.
Taruskin, R., & Taruskin, R. (2010). Music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The term romantic first appeared at sometime during the latter half of the 18th Century, meaning in quite literal English, "romance-like", usually referring to the character of mythical medieval romances. The first significant jump was in literature, where writing became far more reliant on imagination and the freedom of thought and expression, in around 1750. Subsequent movements then began to follow in Music and Art, where the same kind of imagination and expression began to appear. In this essay I shall be discussing the effect that this movement had on music, the way it developed, and the impact that it had on the future development of western music.
Heritage of Music: Volume II The Romantic Era (Heritage of Music). New York: Oxford UP, USA, 1992. Print.
Sergei Prokofiev was an innovative composer born on the 23rd of April, 1891 in Sontsocka. His mother taught him piano and his father taught him to play chess when he was young. Both activities were major hobbies of his and allowed him to improve his intelligence. His studies were led by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and he graduated with some of the highest remarks of his class at St. Petersburg Conservatory (1914), and received a grand piano because of them. After the Russian revolution, he went on concert tours across Europe and the US. While in New York in 1918, he met a Spanish vocalist named Carolina Codina. They were married in 1923 and had two boys.
Roughly from 1815 to 1910, this period of time is called the romantic period. At this period, all arts are transforming from classic arts by having greater emphasis on the qualities of remoteness and strangeness in essence. The influence of romanticism in music particularly, has shown that romantic composers value the freedom of expression, movement, passion, and endless pursuit of the unattainable fantasy and imagination. The composers of the romantic period are in search of new subject matters, more emotional and are more expressive of their feelings as they are not bounded by structural rules in classical music where order, equilibrium, control and perfection are deemed important (Dorak, 2000).