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From ‘revolutionary’ to ‘progressive’:

Musical �ationalism in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture

© 2006 Helen. K. H. Wong

“Can Byelayev’s circle be looked upon as a continuation of Balakirev’s? Was there a certain

modicum of similarity between one and the other and what constituted the difference, apart from

the change in personnel in the course of time? The similarity indicating that Byelayev’s circle was

a continuation of Balakirev’s circle (in addition to the connecting links, consisted of the advanced

ideas, the progressivism, common to the both of them. But Balakirev’s circle corresponded to the

period of storm and stress in the evolution of Russian music; Byelayev’s circle represented the

period of calm and onward march. Balakirev’s circle was revolutionary; Byelayev’s, on the other

hand was progressive.” (Rimsky-Korsakov, My Musical Life, p. 286)

“Who had changed, who had advanced – Balakirev or we? We, I suppose. We had grown, had

learned, had been educated, had seen, and had heard; Balakirev, on the other hand, had stood

stock-still, if, indeed, he had not slid back a trifle.” (Rimsky-Korsakov, My Musical Life, p. 286)

By the time Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his “Russian Easter” Overture for Byelayev in 1888, the

kuchka group, a group of five St. Petersburg composers which was once considered as

“revolutionary” in its aesthetic ideal, was scattered. Musorgsky was no longer among the

living, Borodin’s creativity came to a halt with his Prince Igor left unfinished, Cesar Cui no

longer counted as a composer. Balakirev, although still a collaborator of Rimsky-Korsakov for

their joint duties in the Imperial Court Chapel, was not only socially diverged from his

younger colleague for his enmity towards Byelayev, but also had undergone some kind of

ideological transformation himself.1 Despite all these changing circumstances, this period

1 In his recently translated monograph A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskay to Babi Yar, Mae

provides vivid account on Balakirev ideological transformation during the 1880s: “When Balakirev resumed his

musical activities in the 1880s, he began by revising his earlier work. In 1884 he retouched the “symphonic

picture” 1,000 Years, which Besse & Co. published in 1890 as a “symphonic poem” under the title of Rus. The

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represented one of the most productive phases of Rimsky-Korsakov’s career as a composer of

romantic nationalism (as can be seen in the production of his three best-known orchestral

works: Sheherazade, Capriccio espagnol and the “Russian Easter” Overture.) While the

music of “Russian Easter” Overture shows a continuation of the kuchka ideal in its

arrangement of liturgical themes which follows the design and structural plan of Balakirev’s

Second Overture, Rimsky-Korsakov’s experience in the Byelayev’s circle, as he explicitly

expressed in his writings, offered himself creative impulses in the progressive direction.

This paper aims to identify both the ‘revolutionary’ and ‘progressive’ features in

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter” Overture. By comparing musical features that represent

a continuation of the kuchka ideal against the “progressive” ones that represent the

composer’s detachment from the past, it will provide a “new picture” of the stylistic

development of the composer’s musical language during this time period. This “new picture”

represents the current musicological thinking on Russian music history which rejects the old

assumption about the dichotomy of national music and its fixed ideological expression, but

considers “the personal development of composers against the complex background of their

times and to inconsistencies in their work that reflect those complexities.”2

In order to identify the “revolutionary” features in “Russian Easter” Overture that represents a

continuation of the kuchka ideal, it is necessary to both understand the meanings of the

description “revolutionary” and the kuchka ideal. To do so, it is necessary to first understand

the ideology behind the group’s formation, that is, the ideology of Balakirev, its initiator and

mentor. Ironically, historical accounts leading up to the group’s formation conclude that the

use of the Old Slavonic name for Russia was a clear sign of Balakirev’s ideological change of direction: from a

tribute to progress, the work had been turned into a Slavophile glorification of Russia’s idealized past … When

we consider that Balakirev’s Second Overture [the original title for Rus] in its original form had been composed

under the influence of Herzen’s radical populism, we gain some idea of the ideological distance Balakirev had

traversed.” (Francis Mae, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar, trans. Arnold J.

Pomerans and Erica Pomerans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), p. 168.) 2 Ibid, p.xii.

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basis of the kuchka ideal was not an ideological one (i.e. Russian nationalism versus

Westernism) but rather an aesthetic one (i.e. modernism versus conservatism).3 Precisely

speaking, the formation of the Five can be seen as Balakirev’s reaction against Anton

Rubenstein, the German trained Russian pianist of an international standing, who saw the

future of Russian music in terms of “professionalization under the sponsorship of the

aristocracy and the stewardship of imported teachers and virtuosos.”4 Balakirev, a largely

self-taught composer, was aesthetically influenced by Glinka when the two met in 1855.

According to his sister’s memoir, Glinka told her, “Balakirev is the first person in whom I

have found views so similar to my own in all things concerning music… and I tell you that in

time Balakirev will be a second Glinka.”5 Glinka’s most important legacy for Balakirev was

the method of “composing like a Russian:” rather than grafting Russian folk tunes on the

established forms of Western music in a superficial manner as many Russian composers did

in his time, Glinka attempted to create an original musical language by preserving the folk

material in its most authentic way, inventing themes that imitated the melodic, harmonic, and

rhythmic idiosyncrasies of Russian popular song. Glinka’s approach was unprecedented, as

Ridenour commented “[Glinka] pushed beyond the conventional boundaries of harmony and

form that the most advanced Western composers of his day were just beginning to expand and

created a personal style marked by daring harmonies, dynamic and flexible rhythms, and

bright, pure orchestral colors.”6 In this sense, Glinka provides an aesthetic basis on which

Balakirev’s “revolutionary” style was formed. According to Stasov, the vocal art critic of the

time as well as the aesthetic adviser of Balakirev, the New Russian School embodied the

following four characteristics: the absence of preconceptions and of blind faith; an oriental

3 Robert C. Ridenour, �ationalism, Modernism, and Personal Rivalry in �ineteenth-Century Russian Music

(Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), chapter 3. 4 Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1997), p. 123. 5 Ridenour, p.75.

6 Ibid., p.76.

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element; a pronounced preference for programmatic music; and the quest for a national

character.7 The first point implied that rejection of academicism and of fixed musical – that

is, Western – forms. The second sprang from contacts with eastern nations inside the Russian

empire. The third reflected an aesthetic approach that was considered “revolutionary” and

anti-academic at the time. The last point involved the incorporation of folk music. These four

principles defined the kuchka ideal that marked a split between a national camp (represented

by the Five) and a cosmopolitan camp (represented by Rubinstein and his successors) in

Russian music history.

The subject matter, or its program, of the Overture represents the kuchka ideal in its purest

sense. Apart from the musical arrangement of liturgical themes of obikhod, a collection of the

most important and most frequently used canticles of the Russian Orthodox Church, this old

religious subject matter is combined with the social traditions in creating the work’s

programmatic contents. In The Chronicle of My Musical Life, Rimsky-Korsakov provides the

program of the “Russian Easter” Overture:

“In this Overture were thus combined reminiscences of the ancient prophecy, of the Gospel

narrative and also a general picture of the Easter service with its “pagan merry-making.” The

capering and leaping of the Biblical King David before the ark, do they not give expression to a

mood of the same order as the mood of the idol-worshippers’ dance? Surely the Russian Orthodox

chime is instrumental dance-music of the church, is it not? And do not the waving beards of the

priests and sextons clad in white vestments and surplices, and intoning “Beautiful Easter” in the

tempo of Allegro vivo, etc., transpose the imagination to pagan times? And all these Easter loaves

and twists and the glowing tapers – how far a cry from the philosophic and socialistic teaching of

Christ! This legendary and heathen side of the holiday, this transition from the gloomy and

mysterious evening of Passion Saturday to the unbridled, pagan-religious merry-making on the

7 Mae, p.8.

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morn of Easter Sunday, is what I was eager to reproduce in my overture.”8

By combining Russian folklore, Christian and pagan practices in its programmatic content,

Rimsky-Korsakov provides a image of religious practice that is particularly unique to Russia:

“Folk religiosity in fact constitutes a syncretic religion, referred to as “double faith.” When

Russia was converted to Christianity, the Slavic rites, rather than disappearing, in many cases

were simply fitted into the new Christian rituals.9

The formal structure of the Overture reveals a close resemblance to Balakirev’s Second

Overture, with its unorthodox sonata-allegro form on two modal themes, framed by a slow

introduction and postlude on a third, and the entire structure based on a third-relation as tonal

axis. The development section employs what Taruskin termed “contrapuntal-collage

techniques,” combining two themes contrapuntally. Apart from the unorthodox formal scheme

which represents the kuchka ideal in its rejection of academicism and of fixed musical forms,

its harmonic language is also “revolutionary.” There is a conscious avoidance of the dominant

harmony both in a cadential as well as a structural way (i.e. dominant prolongations, a device

commonly used in Western symphonic works of the time.) For example, the E of the liturgical

theme (mm. 4-5) in Dorian mode is harmonized with minor V chord (with C#), and the final

cadence leads to the major IV (G major chord) (Ex. 1):

8 Rimsky-Korsakov, My Musical Life (London: Eulenburg Books, 1794), pp. 294-5.

9 Mae, p.188.

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Ex. 1, Rimsky-Korsakov: “Russian Easter” Overture, op. 36, Section A, mm. 4-5.

Another revolutionary feature is what Taruskin termed “tonal mutability”, whereby a tune

seemed to oscillate between two equally stable points of rest, as it were two “tonics.” While

Western composers of the time interpret this concept as the common-practice relationship of

tonic to relative minor or major, Rimsky-Korsakov explore the tonal region of the lower

neighbour to the tonic in the minor mode, the flat seventh. This can be seen in the Allegro

theme of the Overture where the harmonies progress from D Dorian to C:

7

Ex. 2 Rimsky-Korsakov: “Russian Easter” Overture, op. 36, Section H.

So far many “revolutionary” features have been identified, it is to this end that I now turn to

the “progressive” ones of the Overture.

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Mitrofan Belyayev, the patron of the group to which Rimsky-Korsakov belonged in the 1880s,

was a timber merchant and capitalist entrepreneur who became interested in promoting

musical arts after being deeply impressed with the achievements of the sixteen-year-old

Glazunov. An amateur viola player and a chamber-music enthusiast, his patronage activities

include Friday chamber music evenings at his home, two Russian Symphony Concert series, a

publishing enterprise and several annual prizes for the purpose of supporting Russian art

music. The major difference between Belyayev and Balakirev’s groups lie in the their

hierarchical structures, as Rimsky-Korsakov pointed out: “The relations of the [Balakirev’s]

circle to its head were those of pupils to a teacher and elder brother, relations that had grown

weaker as each of the lesser ones grew older … Byelayev, on the other hand, was not the head,

but rather the center of his circle.”10 Moreover, the group was also variegated in its make-up:

“It contained prominent composers of talent, and men of lesser gifts, and men who were not

composers at all, but conductors, like Dutsch, for instance, or solo performers, like N. S.

Lavrov.”11 It is under this democratic environment that Rimsky-Korsakov explored

compositional techniques that departed from the kuchka ideal.

The first hint of the “progressive” feature can be found in its programmatic content: “This

legendary and heathen side of the holiday, this transition from the gloomy and mysterious

evening of Passion Saturday, is what I was eager to reproduce in my Overture … Of course in

that program I did not explain my views and my conception of the “Bright Holiday,” leaving

it to tones to speak for me.”12 Having undergone an intense self-educating program of

harmony and orchestration after his acceptance of the teaching post at the St. Petersburg

10 Rimsky-Korsakov, My Musical Life, p. 287.

11 Ibid., p. 286.

12 Ibid., p. 295.

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conservatory in 1872, Rimsky-Korsakov became increasingly interested in exploring the

timbral qualities of orchestral sound. Instrumental timbre in the introduction of the Overture

shows the influence of the works of Debussy and Wagner, whose works he studied in the

Byelayev circle (Ex. 3):

Ex. 3 Rimsky-Korsakov: “Russian Easter” Overture, op. 36, Section A, mm. 8-13.

Apart from expressive instrumental colors, melodic designs are chosen carefully so as to

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match each kind of instrument idiomatically without losing the music’s national flavor (Ex.

4):

Ex. 4. Rimsky-Korsakov: “Russian Easter” Overture, op. 36, Section M (excerpt).

While the kuchka group aims to preserve harmonies in its most Russian and “authentic”

manner, Rimsky-Korsakov uses them as a vehicle for expressing mood. Rather than providing

a sense of harmonic progression for the surface melodic line, “unusual harmonies”, such as

augmented triads, diminished chords and chromatic passage are reserved for musical passages

depicting the gloomy and mysterious evening of Passion Saturday (Ex. 5a), while simple

chords and major triads are used for depicting bright mood of the Easter holiday (see Ex. 2

again):

11

Ex. 5. Rimsky-Korsakov: “Russian Easter” Overture, op. 36, Section E (excerpt).

To conclude, while the Overture presents both “revolutionary” and “progressive” elements

that simultaneously represent Rimsky-Korsakov’s continuation of the kuchka idea and his

detachment from the past, it is difficult to define a clear style that implies a new way of

musical thinking. What lies behind this mature work is a deepen knowledge of musical

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vocabularies which the composer obtained over many trials and errors, or, more precisely,

experimentations; as Taruskin observed: “Rimsky-Korsakov, who reviled Debussy and

Richard Strauss, and who never tired of exhorting his pupils to avoid the sort of anarchic

decadence those names represented, never gave up his sense of himself as a “progressive”

musician. He enjoyed experimenting with unusual harmonies – and the word “experimenting”

is especially well chosen in his case, since his attitude toward musical innovation (“progress”)

was naively scientific in the sense that it was obsessively rigorous and fatally systematic.”13

Revolutionary or progressive, Rimsky-Korsakov’s music do changes in some way, he does

not.

13 Taruskin, p.83.

13

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