Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov(1844-1908)

[relm1]

My favorite of his operas is the Golden Cockerel.  So evocative and you can really see how influential the French had become to the Russians at this time and how Stravinsky would almost immediately take the reigns from where Rimsky-Kosakov left off with The Firebird. 

This is the CD release I have of the complete opera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJnAkpqVDcc

But I also enjoy the very fine suite as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbW12kX6kEQ

[kyjo]

My favorite of his operas is the Golden Cockerel.  So evocative and you can really see how influential the French had become to the Russians at this time and how Stravinsky would almost immediately take the reigns from where Rimsky-Kosakov left off with The Firebird. 

This is the CD release I have of the complete opera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJnAkpqVDcc

But I also enjoy the very fine suite as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbW12kX6kEQ

I only know the suite, which is very evocative indeed and quite forward-looking. It definitely shows a more advanced approach to harmony than his more famous earlier works and you're quite right about it "paving the way" for The Firebird.

[tarkosale]

I did an edited version of the Third Symphony that takes out a lot of what I felt were "not so good" parts of movements 1-3.  I don't think you can tell where I made the edits.  The link is here if anyone is interested.
  https://youtu.be/O89CjYdiv5A

[W.A. Mozart]

What do you think about the Symphony No. 1?

[pjme]

While searching for some info on Paul Gilson, I found this:

...and this :



"Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Schéhérazade, op. 35 (arr. Paul Gilson - Brussels, 15 June 1865 – Brussels, 3 February 1942)
Réduction pour piano à deux mains.

Paul Gilson is without doubt one of the most remarkable composers in Belgian music history. Although he was largely self-taught, apart from a few composition lessons with François-Auguste Gevaert (1828-1908), he left behind a large, varied and high-quality oeuvre. In 1892 he made his breakthrough, internationally as well, with La mer (Esquisses symphoniques) – still considered the high point of his oeuvre – but it seems as if he could never match that early success. He practised just about all genres, but notable is his focus on music for wind instruments. He composed some three hundred works for wind orchestras, which earned him the nickname ,father of Belgian wind music'.
Remarkably, Gilson was also the first composer internationally to write a concerto for saxophone: in 1902, he composed two concertos for alto saxophone.
Outside of composing, Gilson was also a very busy man. He taught at the Brussels and Antwerp Conservatories, was inspector of music education, and during World War I he was acting principal of the Antwerp Conservatoire. After his official teaching assignments, he continued working as a private teacher, to the extent that just about the entire generation of Belgian composers of the interwar period had been apprenticed to him. Gilson published numerous works on music theory, and he was also active as a reviewer and musicographer.
A remarkable episode in his life is the intense contact he maintained with the Russian music scene. After attending an exclusive Russian concert of the Concerts Populaires in Brussels on 23 January 1887, he fell under the spell of Russian music and started a correspondence with the music publisher and patron Mitrofan Belaieff (1836-1903) and with Cesar Cui (1835-1918). He also had meetings with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov and Alexander Scriabin. Thanks to these contacts, Gilson was well informed about Russian musical life and also owned many Russian scores.
Gilson would later write piano reductions of several Russian scores for Belaieff. He arranged The Golden Cockerel, an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov – a composer he greatly admired – as well as the orchestral works Great Russian Easter Overture and Sheherazade.
From a letter Belaieff wrote to Gilson on 28 March 1898, we know that Gilson had made a reduction of Sheherazade three or four years earlier, but that Rimsky-Korsakov had not approved the reduction. In a letter of 24 November 1899 to Belaieff, Gilson wonders why Rimsky-Korsakov was not satisfied with the reduction which, he writes, he made with the help of a friend, 'a good pianist. (...) for the reduction is not so bad as that. No doubt it is not a Concert piece, nor a Sonatina by Clementi; but I think it is nevertheless very playable, since I myself can play it quite well. And that several friends to whom I have shown it have found it very accessible.'
Afterwards, he does admit that some passages need revisiting and that the fourth movement even needs a thorough revision. But it seems he sent him the same reduction asking Rimsky-Korsakov to revisit his manuscript. It would take until 4 March 1900 before Belaieff let it be known that Rimsky-Korsakov found Gilson's version 'accessible', except for the finale where he wanted to make some changes. Rimsky-Korsakov would want to discuss these personally with Gilson: in fact, he was ready to travel to Brussels, where he conducted his own orchestral works Sadko and Sheherazade on 18 March at the Monnaie Theatre in the Concerts Populaires series, alongside works by Glinka, Borodin, Taneiev and Glazunov. In his memoirs, Rimsky-Korsakov says, among other things, that the performance was excellent and that he could not meet Gevaert because he was ill, but he does not mention Gilson.
Nevertheless, we can assume that Rimsky-Korsakov and Gilson met and sorted out the problems in the transcription, because eventually the piano reduction was published anyway, by Belaieff in 1900.

Gilson's manuscript with the transcription is kept in the Paul Gilson Fund in the library of the Brussels Conservatory.Jan Dewilde(translation: Jasmien Dewilde)This publication is a facsimile of a copy housed at the library of the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp (KVC 38424) and was made possible in collaboration with the Study Centre for Flemish Music (www.svm.be). "
https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/en/shop/

[Elgarian Redux]

After some weeks of activity exploring recordings of Antar in the 'Great Recordings' Section, and having done the same 10 years ago for Scheherazade, I thought it was time I found out a bit more about R-K.

My ordered copy of his autobiographical work My Musical Life landed today, and I was startled by its lovely cover and title page, so I thought I'd share them here. This is a translation of course - this copy published 1942 in the USA (first ed was published in the 1920s).

On a first skim, he seems to have quite a bit to say about Antar and Scheherazade, so I may report back after I've dipped more seriously.

[Brian]

Oh my goodness. What an extraordinary cover! The introduction by Carl van Vechten is also an interesting feature.

[Elgarian Redux]

Because there's been such a lot of discussion of recordings of Antar, I thought I might not be alone in being interested in what Rimsky-Korsakov himself said about the work, in his book My Musical Life (see above). There's quite a lot - I'll need to type it up in two or three separate chunks. Here, then, is:

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 1

[p.88] Having indefinitely postponed writing the Symphony in B minor, I turned to Syenkovsky's (Baron Brambeus's) beautiful tale Antar, at Balakirev's and Moussorgsky's suggestion: on this subject I had planned to compose a symphony or symphonic poem in four movements. The desert; the disillusioned Antar; the episode with the gazelle and the bird; the ruins of Palmyra; the vision of the Peri; the three joys of life – revenge, power and love – and finally Antar's death – all of this was tempting to a composer. I set to work in midwinter. ...

[p.89] Save for the principal theme of Antar himself, which I had composed under the indubitable influence of certain phrases of William Ratcliff, and the peri Gul Nazar's theme with its florid Oriental embellishments, all the other purely cantabile themes (the 6/8 melody in F-sharp major in the first movement, and the 4/4 A-major melody – the accessory subject of the third movement), I had borrowed from a French collection of Arab melodies of Algiers, which Borodin happened to possess. As for the principal subject of the fourth movement, it had been given to me, with his own harmonization, by Dargomyzhsky, who in turn had taken it from Khristianovich's collection of Arab melodies. For the beginning of the Adagio of this movement I retained Dargomyzhsky's original harmonization (English horn and two bassoons).

[p.90] The first and the fourth movements of Antar were finished by me during the winter of 1867-8 and won praise from my friends, except Balakirev, who approved them with reservations. The second movement, "Joy of Revenge," in B minor, which I had composed at the same time, proved a complete failure, and I left it unused. ...

[p.92] During the summer of 1868 I composed the second movement of Antar in C sharp (in place of the former failure in B minor) and the third movement ("Joy of Power"). Thus the work on Antar had been almost completed in score by the end of summer. I named this work (rather unfortunately, too) my Second Symphony; many years later I renamed it as a Symphonic Suite. The term "suite" was then unfamiliar to our circle in general, nor was it in vogue in the musical literature of western Europe. Still, I was wrong in calling Antar a symphony. My Antar was a poem, suite, fairy-tale, story, or anything you like, but not a symphony. Its structure in four separate movements was all that made it approach a symphony.

To be continued.

[Karl Henning]

Because there's been such a lot of discussion of recordings of Antar, I thought I might not be alone in being interested in what Rimsky-Korsakov himself said about the work, in his book My Musical Life (see above). There's quite a lot - I'll need to type it up in two or three separate chunks. Here, then, is:

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 1

[p.88] Having indefinitely postponed writing the Symphony in B minor, I turned to Syenkovsky's (Baron Brambeus's) beautiful tale Antar, at Balakirev's and Moussorgsky's suggestion: on this subject I had planned to compose a symphony or symphonic poem in four movements. The desert; the disillusioned Antar; the episode with the gazelle and the bird; the ruins of Palmyra; the vision of the Peri; the three joys of life – revenge, power and love – and finally Antar's death – all of this was tempting to a composer. I set to work in midwinter. ...

[p.89] Save for the principal theme of Antar himself, which I had composed under the indubitable influence of certain phrases of William Ratcliff, and the peri Gul Nazar's theme with its florid Oriental embellishments, all the other purely cantabile themes (the 6/8 melody in F-sharp major in the first movement, and the 4/4 A-major melody – the accessory subject of the third movement), I had borrowed from a French collection of Arab melodies of Algiers, which Borodin happened to possess. As for the principal subject of the fourth movement, it had been given to me, with his own harmonization, by Dargomyzhsky, who in turn had taken it from Khristianovich's collection of Arab melodies. For the beginning of the Adagio of this movement I retained Dargomyzhsky's original harmonization (English horn and two bassoons).

[p.90] The first and the fourth movements of Antar were finished by me during the winter of 1867-8 and won praise from my friends, except Balakirev, who approved them with reservations. The second movement, "Joy of Revenge," in B minor, which I had composed at the same time, proved a complete failure, and I left it unused. ...

[p.92] During the summer of 1868 I composed the second movement of Antar in C sharp (in place of the former failure in B minor) and the third movement ("Joy of Power"). Thus the work on Antar had been almost completed in score by the end of summer. I named this work (rather unfortunately, too) my Second Symphony; many years later I renamed it as a Symphonic Suite. The term "suite" was then unfamiliar to our circle in general, nor was it in vogue in the musical literature of western Europe. Still, I was wrong in calling Antar a symphony. My Antar was a poem, suite, fairy-tale, story, or anything you like, but not a symphony. Its structure in four separate movements was all that made it approach a symphony.

To be continued.

Most interesting. 

[Elgarian Redux]

Continuing from Part 1:

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 2

[p.92 continued] Berlioz's Harold en Italie and Episode de la vie d'un artiste are incontestable symphonies, despite being programme music. The symphonic development of the themes and the sonata form of the first movements of these works remove all doubt as to incongruity between their content and the requirements of symphonic form. On the other hand, the first movement of Antar is a free musical delineation of the [p.93] consecutive episodes of the story, save that they are musically unified by the ever recurring theme of Antar himself. It has no thematic development whatever – only variations and paraphrases. In general the music of the introduction (the desert, Antar, and the episode of the gazelle), enfolding, as it were, the scherzo-like E-sharp-major part in 6/8 again, forming as it does the conclusion of the first movement – gives the latter a rounded structure, with suggestions of an incomplete tripartite form. The second movement ("Joy of Revenge"), in structure, brings more to mind the sonata form; yet it is built upon a single theme of Antar himself and upon the introductory phrase of threatening character. The first subject is in reality a development of these motives: Antar's theme and the introductory phrase. There is no subsidiary subject – its place is taken by the same theme of Antar in its original complete form (trombones in A minor). Then follows the development of the same material, omitting only the moment of the return to the first subject. This leads directly to Antar's complete theme (trombones in C-sharp-minor), which serves as a subsidiary subject. Then follows a coda on the introductory phrase and a soothing conclusion, again on Antar's principal theme. The third movement ("Joy of Power") is a species of triumphal march (B minor – D major), with a subsidiary Oriental cantabile melody and a conclusion on Antar's theme. Then follow a sort of middle part and light development of the two principal subjects; return to the principal subject of the march; transition to Antar's concluding theme, and coda built on the subsidiary Oriental subject. The conclusion is a diverging passage of chords on an ascending eight-step scale (tone, semitone, semitone, etc.), which I had once before used in Sadko.

The fourth movement ("Joy of Love"), after a brief introduction borrowed from the first movement (Antar reappears amid the ruins of Palmyra), is an Adagio. It is built in the main on the cantabile Arab subject (which Dargomyzhsky had given me) and its development, together with the phrase of the peri Gul Nazar and Antar's principal theme. In form it is a variety of simple rondo with one subject and subsidiary phrases (which are episodic and enter, now here, now there, into a passage-like working out), with a long [p.94] coda on Antar's and Gul Nazar's themes. Accordingly, in spite of its rounded forms and the constant use of symphonic development, Antar is, after all, no symphony; something different is associated in my mind with the conception of symphonic form. Then, also, the tonalities of the four movements of Antar present an unusual succession: F-sharp minor – F-sharp major; C-sharp minor – B minor – D major; and lastly D-flat major (as a dominant of F sharp).

To be continued ...

[Karl Henning]

Continuing from Part 1:

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 2

[p.92 continued] Berlioz's Harold en Italie and Episode de la vie d'un artiste are incontestable symphonies, despite being programme music. The symphonic development of the themes and the sonata form of the first movements of these works remove all doubt as to incongruity between their content and the requirements of symphonic form. On the other hand, the first movement of Antar is a free musical delineation of the [p.93] consecutive episodes of the story, save that they are musically unified by the ever recurring theme of Antar himself. It has no thematic development whatever – only variations and paraphrases. In general the music of the introduction (the desert, Antar, and the episode of the gazelle), enfolding, as it were, the scherzo-like E-sharp-major part in 6/8 again, forming as it does the conclusion of the first movement – gives the latter a rounded structure, with suggestions of an incomplete tripartite form. The second movement ("Joy of Revenge"), in structure, brings more to mind the sonata form; yet it is built upon a single theme of Antar himself and upon the introductory phrase of threatening character. The first subject is in reality a development of these motives: Antar's theme and the introductory phrase. There is no subsidiary subject – its place is taken by the same theme of Antar in its original complete form (trombones in A minor). Then follows the development of the same material, omitting only the moment of the return to the first subject. This leads directly to Antar's complete theme (trombones in C-sharp-minor), which serves as a subsidiary subject. Then follows a coda on the introductory phrase and a soothing conclusion, again on Antar's principal theme. The third movement ("Joy of Power") is a species of triumphal march (B minor – D major), with a subsidiary Oriental cantabile melody and a conclusion on Antar's theme. Then follow a sort of middle part and light development of the two principal subjects; return to the principal subject of the march; transition to Antar's concluding theme, and coda built on the subsidiary Oriental subject. The conclusion is a diverging passage of chords on an ascending eight-step scale (tone, semitone, semitone, etc.), which I had once before used in Sadko.

The fourth movement ("Joy of Love"), after a brief introduction borrowed from the first movement (Antar reappears amid the ruins of Palmyra), is an Adagio. It is built in the main on the cantabile Arab subject (which Dargomyzhsky had given me) and its development, together with the phrase of the peri Gul Nazar and Antar's principal theme. In form it is a variety of simple rondo with one subject and subsidiary phrases (which are episodic and enter, now here, now there, into a passage-like working out), with a long [p.94] coda on Antar's and Gul Nazar's themes. Accordingly, in spite of its rounded forms and the constant use of symphonic development, Antar is, after all, no symphony; something different is associated in my mind with the conception of symphonic form. Then, also, the tonalities of the four movements of Antar present an unusual succession: F-sharp minor – F-sharp major; C-sharp minor – B minor – D major; and lastly D-flat major (as a dominant of F sharp).

To be continued ...

Sustainedly interesting!

[Elgarian Redux]

Sustainedly interesting!

And Part 3 (in which we discover what, in Antar, was done to please Moussorgsky) still to come! (Tomorrow, I hope.)

[Elgarian Redux]

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 3

When I examine the form of Antar now, after the lapse of many years, I can affirm that I did well with this form, exclusive of outside influences and hints. If the form of the first movement flows from the form of the very narrative, the tasks of depicting the joys of revenge, power, and love, on the contrary, are purely lyrical tasks, calling for no fixed form; they merely denote moods and their changes, and thus allow complete freedom of musical structure. Where I got, at the time, this coherence and logic of structure, this knack of inventing new formal devices, it is hard to explain; but now that I examine the form of Antar with an experienced eye, I cannot help feeling considerable satisfaction. Only a certain excessive brevity of form of movements one and two in Antar fails to satisfy me. The task called for broader forms, but in default of accessory subjects, the difficulty, even the impossibility, of giving the second movement a broader development is almost obvious. A certain incoherence is felt in the choice of C-sharp minor for movement two in connection with the key of F sharp in movement one and B minor in movement three. But, speaking generally, the play of tonalities and their interrelation – an understanding that served me well throughout my subsequent musical activity. Oh how many composers, including Dargomyzhsky and Wagner, too, if you like, are devoid of this understanding! To the same period also belongs the development in me of an ever keener sense of the absolute significance or shade of each key. Is this sense exclusively subjective or does it depend upon certain general laws? I think both views are true. You will not find many composers who do not [p.95] consider A major the key of youth, merriment, spring, and dawn; but they are inclined to use this key to express conceptions of deep thought or a dark starry night. In spite of my inevitable blunders, due to ignorance of elementary truths and methods, Antar, as compared with Sadko, was a long step forward in the matter of harmony, figuration, contrapuntal experiments, and orchestration. The combinations of certain motives, the intertwining of one with another, were happy thoughts; for instance, the accompaniment of the singing theme of the third movement by a rhythmico-melodic dance figuration; or the appearance of Antar's theme in flauto during the figuration of the violas; or the sustaining of the two-note motives as against the rhythm of the cantabile theme in D-flat major in movement four. One cannot help feeling the felicity of the introductory phrase of threatening character and the harmony it forms in movement two. The chord passages which depict the bird of prey in pursuit of the gazelle, are original and logical.

In the instrumentation there were new departures, and felicitous applications of familiar devices: the low registers of flutes and clarinets, the harp, etc.; Antar's principal theme, entrusted to the violas, as I recall it, in order to please Moussorgsky, who was especially fond of violas. Familiarity with the score of Ruslan and Lyudmila and Liszt's Symphonische Dichtungen made themselves evident. The three bassoons, subsequently reduced to two, pointed to the influence of the orchestration of Eine Faust Ouverture. Nor was the writing of Antar uninfluenced by the orchestrations of Balakirev's Czech Overture. Taken as a whole, the orchestration was full of colour and fancy; in the forte passages there came to my rescue my invariable instinctive striving to fill out the middle octaves – a device that even Berlioz had not always employed. The general musical influences perceptible in Antar emanated from Glinka's Persian Chorus (the E-major variation on the subsidiary subject in movement three) and his Chorus of Flowers, in Act IV of Ruslan and Lyudmila (introduction in F-sharp major in movement one and beginning of movement four); and from Liszt's Hunnenschlacht and Wagner's Eine Faust Ouverture (in movement [p.96] two of Antar). Moreover, certain methods of Balakirev's Czech Overture and Tamara and the influence of random phrases from William Ratcliff were constantly felt in the music of Antar. The triplet figuration which accompanies Antar's theme in the third movement was due to a similar figuration in the finale of Rognyeda; only mine is better and more subtle than Serov's. The abundant use of Oriental themes lent my composition an odd turn of its own, hardly in wide use until then, and the happily chosen program gave it additional interest. It seems to me that I had properly understood the possibility of expressing the joy of revenge and of love by external means - the former as a picture of a bloody battle, the latter as the gorgeous milieu of an Eastern potentate.

End of quote.

That seems to be that. Apologies for the overlong paragraphs - I've stuck with Rimsky's paragraphing, but in hindsight, one does feel the need for a bit more space and air onscreen, I think.

[Roasted Swan]

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 3

When I examine the form of Antar now, after the lapse of many years, I can affirm that I did well with this form, exclusive of outside influences and hints. If the form of the first movement flows from the form of the very narrative, the tasks of depicting the joys of revenge, power, and love, on the contrary, are purely lyrical tasks, calling for no fixed form; they merely denote moods and their changes, and thus allow complete freedom of musical structure. Where I got, at the time, this coherence and logic of structure, this knack of inventing new formal devices, it is hard to explain; but now that I examine the form of Antar with an experienced eye, I cannot help feeling considerable satisfaction. Only a certain excessive brevity of form of movements one and two in Antar fails to satisfy me. The task called for broader forms, but in default of accessory subjects, the difficulty, even the impossibility, of giving the second movement a broader development is almost obvious. A certain incoherence is felt in the choice of C-sharp minor for movement two in connection with the key of F sharp in movement one and B minor in movement three. But, speaking generally, the play of tonalities and their interrelation – an understanding that served me well throughout my subsequent musical activity. Oh how many composers, including Dargomyzhsky and Wagner, too, if you like, are devoid of this understanding! To the same period also belongs the development in me of an ever keener sense of the absolute significance or shade of each key. Is this sense exclusively subjective or does it depend upon certain general laws? I think both views are true. You will not find many composers who do not [p.95] consider A major the key of youth, merriment, spring, and dawn; but they are inclined to use this key to express conceptions of deep thought or a dark starry night. In spite of my inevitable blunders, due to ignorance of elementary truths and methods, Antar, as compared with Sadko, was a long step forward in the matter of harmony, figuration, contrapuntal experiments, and orchestration. The combinations of certain motives, the intertwining of one with another, were happy thoughts; for instance, the accompaniment of the singing theme of the third movement by a rhythmico-melodic dance figuration; or the appearance of Antar's theme in flauto during the figuration of the violas; or the sustaining of the two-note motives as against the rhythm of the cantabile theme in D-flat major in movement four. One cannot help feeling the felicity of the introductory phrase of threatening character and the harmony it forms in movement two. The chord passages which depict the bird of prey in pursuit of the gazelle, are original and logical.

In the instrumentation there were new departures, and felicitous applications of familiar devices: the low registers of flutes and clarinets, the harp, etc.; Antar's principal theme, entrusted to the violas, as I recall it, in order to please Moussorgsky, who was especially fond of violas. Familiarity with the score of Ruslan and Lyudmila and Liszt's Symphonische Dichtungen made themselves evident. The three bassoons, subsequently reduced to two, pointed to the influence of the orchestration of Eine Faust Ouverture. Nor was the writing of Antar uninfluenced by the orchestrations of Balakirev's Czech Overture. Taken as a whole, the orchestration was full of colour and fancy; in the forte passages there came to my rescue my invariable instinctive striving to fill out the middle octaves – a device that even Berlioz had not always employed. The general musical influences perceptible in Antar emanated from Glinka's Persian Chorus (the E-major variation on the subsidiary subject in movement three) and his Chorus of Flowers, in Act IV of Ruslan and Lyudmila (introduction in F-sharp major in movement one and beginning of movement four); and from Liszt's Hunnenschlacht and Wagner's Eine Faust Ouverture (in movement [p.96] two of Antar). Moreover, certain methods of Balakirev's Czech Overture and Tamara and the influence of random phrases from William Ratcliff were constantly felt in the music of Antar. The triplet figuration which accompanies Antar's theme in the third movement was due to a similar figuration in the finale of Rognyeda; only mine is better and more subtle than Serov's. The abundant use of Oriental themes lent my composition an odd turn of its own, hardly in wide use until then, and the happily chosen program gave it additional interest. It seems to me that I had properly understood the possibility of expressing the joy of revenge and of love by external means - the former as a picture of a bloody battle, the latter as the gorgeous milieu of an Eastern potentate.

End of quote.

That seems to be that. Apologies for the overlong paragraphs - I've stuck with Rimsky's paragraphing, but in hindsight, one does feel the need for a bit more space and air onscreen, I think.

So interesting! thankyou for taking the time to type out.......

[Cato]

After some weeks of activity exploring recordings of Antar in the 'Great Recordings' Section, and having done the same 10 years ago for Scheherazade, I thought it was time I found out a bit more about R-K.

My ordered copy of his autobiographical work My Musical Life landed today, and I was startled by its lovely cover and title page, so I thought I'd share them here. This is a translation of course - this copy published 1942 in the USA (first ed was published in the 1920s).

On a first skim, he seems to have quite a bit to say about Antar and Scheherazade, so I may report back after I've dipped more seriously.

Is that a copy from 1942?  If so, it is in great shape!

I see the publisher was Alfred A. Knopf: that company had style!

[Karl Henning]

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 3

When I examine the form of Antar now, after the lapse of many years, I can affirm that I did well with this form, exclusive of outside influences and hints. If the form of the first movement flows from the form of the very narrative, the tasks of depicting the joys of revenge, power, and love, on the contrary, are purely lyrical tasks, calling for no fixed form; they merely denote moods and their changes, and thus allow complete freedom of musical structure. Where I got, at the time, this coherence and logic of structure, this knack of inventing new formal devices, it is hard to explain; but now that I examine the form of Antar with an experienced eye, I cannot help feeling considerable satisfaction. Only a certain excessive brevity of form of movements one and two in Antar fails to satisfy me. The task called for broader forms, but in default of accessory subjects, the difficulty, even the impossibility, of giving the second movement a broader development is almost obvious. A certain incoherence is felt in the choice of C-sharp minor for movement two in connection with the key of F sharp in movement one and B minor in movement three. But, speaking generally, the play of tonalities and their interrelation – an understanding that served me well throughout my subsequent musical activity. Oh how many composers, including Dargomyzhsky and Wagner, too, if you like, are devoid of this understanding! To the same period also belongs the development in me of an ever keener sense of the absolute significance or shade of each key. Is this sense exclusively subjective or does it depend upon certain general laws? I think both views are true. You will not find many composers who do not [p.95] consider A major the key of youth, merriment, spring, and dawn; but they are inclined to use this key to express conceptions of deep thought or a dark starry night. In spite of my inevitable blunders, due to ignorance of elementary truths and methods, Antar, as compared with Sadko, was a long step forward in the matter of harmony, figuration, contrapuntal experiments, and orchestration. The combinations of certain motives, the intertwining of one with another, were happy thoughts; for instance, the accompaniment of the singing theme of the third movement by a rhythmico-melodic dance figuration; or the appearance of Antar's theme in flauto during the figuration of the violas; or the sustaining of the two-note motives as against the rhythm of the cantabile theme in D-flat major in movement four. One cannot help feeling the felicity of the introductory phrase of threatening character and the harmony it forms in movement two. The chord passages which depict the bird of prey in pursuit of the gazelle, are original and logical.

In the instrumentation there were new departures, and felicitous applications of familiar devices: the low registers of flutes and clarinets, the harp, etc.; Antar's principal theme, entrusted to the violas, as I recall it, in order to please Moussorgsky, who was especially fond of violas. Familiarity with the score of Ruslan and Lyudmila and Liszt's Symphonische Dichtungen made themselves evident. The three bassoons, subsequently reduced to two, pointed to the influence of the orchestration of Eine Faust Ouverture. Nor was the writing of Antar uninfluenced by the orchestrations of Balakirev's Czech Overture. Taken as a whole, the orchestration was full of colour and fancy; in the forte passages there came to my rescue my invariable instinctive striving to fill out the middle octaves – a device that even Berlioz had not always employed. The general musical influences perceptible in Antar emanated from Glinka's Persian Chorus (the E-major variation on the subsidiary subject in movement three) and his Chorus of Flowers, in Act IV of Ruslan and Lyudmila (introduction in F-sharp major in movement one and beginning of movement four); and from Liszt's Hunnenschlacht and Wagner's Eine Faust Ouverture (in movement [p.96] two of Antar). Moreover, certain methods of Balakirev's Czech Overture and Tamara and the influence of random phrases from William Ratcliff were constantly felt in the music of Antar. The triplet figuration which accompanies Antar's theme in the third movement was due to a similar figuration in the finale of Rognyeda; only mine is better and more subtle than Serov's. The abundant use of Oriental themes lent my composition an odd turn of its own, hardly in wide use until then, and the happily chosen program gave it additional interest. It seems to me that I had properly understood the possibility of expressing the joy of revenge and of love by external means - the former as a picture of a bloody battle, the latter as the gorgeous milieu of an Eastern potentate.

End of quote.

That seems to be that. Apologies for the overlong paragraphs - I've stuck with Rimsky's paragraphing, but in hindsight, one does feel the need for a bit more space and air onscreen, I think.

Most interesting! (Oh! I said that before.) One of the things which has been brought home to me by making a better acquaintance with Antar is, how much Stravinsky (who, rather like Wagner, was vain about wishing to seem thoroughly original) owed to R-K in terms of musical dramatization, particularly in his first "smash hit," the ballet dialogué, L'oiseau de feu.

[Cato]

Concerning Antar. From Rimsky Korsakov's My Musical Life, (New York: Knopf, 1942) pp.88-96.
Part 3

 Moreover, certain methods of Balakirev's Czech Overture and Tamara and the influence of random phrases from William Ratcliff were constantly felt in the music of Antar.

Okay: who or what was William Ratcliff

It turns out to be the name of an opera by Cesar Cui!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ratcliff_(Cui)


The best I can find is a MIDI "performance" of the opening: the piano score is part of the video!

[Elgarian Redux]

So interesting! thankyou for taking the time to type out.......

My pleasure, truly. I thought he offered such a lot of insight into Antar (even though I don't fully understand all he says), and you folks will get even more from it than I, so it needs to be readily available 'out there', rather than merely hidden away in the book.

[Elgarian Redux]

Is that a copy from 1942?  If so, it is in great shape!

I see the publisher was Alfred A. Knopf: that company had style!

It is indeed a 1942 copy, and it's a delight to handle as well as look at.

[Elgarian Redux]

Most interesting! (Oh! I said that before.) One of the things which has been brought home to me by making a better acquaintance with Antar is, how much Stravinsky (who, rather like Wagner, was vain about wishing to seem thoroughly original) owed to R-K in terms of musical dramatization, particularly in his first "smash hit," the ballet dialogué, L'oiseau de feu.

Indeed. And by comparison, I was rather struck by how keen R-K was to acknowledge all his borrowings and influences.