Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration is legendary — brilliant, transparent, and endlessly inventive in its combinations of instrumental color. His music draws heavily on Russian folk melody and exotic Eastern scales (the 'Rimsky-Korsakov scale' — the octatonic scale — bears his name). His harmony alternates between warm diatonic folk-influenced passages and shimmering, chromatic 'magic' music. His formal approach favors colorful tableaux and pictorial scenes over German-style developmental logic.

A member of the Mighty Handful under Balakirev, he was largely self-taught before becoming a Professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory — at which point he secretly studied harmony textbooks to stay ahead of his students. He absorbed influences from Glinka, Berlioz, and Liszt, and his teaching shaped Glazunov, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev. His posthumous 're-orchestrations' of Mussorgsky's works remain both celebrated and controversial.

His early works (the First Symphony, Sadko tone poem) show a gifted amateur finding his voice. His years of self-study in the 1870s transformed his technique, leading to the brilliant orchestral works and operas of his maturity. His fifteen operas, composed primarily between the 1880s and 1900s, represent the crown of his achievement. His final years saw him mentoring the young Stravinsky and composing The Golden Cockerel, his most biting and harmonically adventurous opera.

When Rimsky-Korsakov was appointed professor of composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1871, he was only 27 and largely self-taught — he knew less about formal music theory than some of his students. He secretly studied harmony and counterpoint textbooks at night to keep ahead of his classes. The experience transformed him from a talented amateur into one of the most technically accomplished composers in Russia.

Rimsky-Korsakov composed fifteen operas — a vast body of theatrical work that remains almost entirely unknown outside Russia. Works like The Snow Maiden, Sadko, The Tsar's Bride, and The Tale of Tsar Saltan contain music equal to Scheherazade in color and invention, and they're ripe for international rediscovery.

Scheherazade is one of the most performed orchestral works worldwide — a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. The Capriccio espagnol and Russian Easter Overture appear regularly. His operas are rarely staged outside Russia, representing an enormous untapped repertoire of extraordinary quality. The Flight of the Bumblebee is universally known as a virtuosic showpiece. He's evergreen in the orchestral world but with vast operatic treasures still awaiting international discovery.