OTD in Music History: Composer, conductor, pedagogue, and master orchestrator Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 - 1908) leads the world premiere of his newly-composed tone poem “Scheherazade” in 1888; it will prove to be his most enduring work. Rimsky-Korsakov first came to prominence as a member of "The Five" or "The Mighty Handful," a historically important group of self-taught Russian nationalist composers who studied and worked (and sometimes even lived) together from ~1856 - 1870. Rimsky-Korsakov was a discipline of Mily Balakirev (1837 - 1910), the leader of "The Five" and a powerful (and highly despotic) figure within the Russian nationalist "classical" music movement. In 1871, however, Rimsky-Korsakov accepted a position as Professor of Practical Composition and Instrumentation (orchestration) at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. (He still retained his position as a naval officer, and he actually taught his early classes in uniform as required by Russian law.) Balakirev was strongly opposed to any form of academic training, but he encouraged Rimsky-Korsakov to accept the post in order to help convince students to defect and come to Balakirev. When it became clear that Rimsky-Korsakov had instead "gone over to the enemy", however, relations with Balakirev soured. For his part, Rimsky-Korsakov soon realized how much formal training he lacked -- in his memoirs, he reported spending the first year struggling to remain "one lesson ahead" of his students. He eventually became a master teacher whose students included Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971). PICTURED: A photo postcard showing Rimsky-Korsakov, which he signed in the turbulent year of 1905 -- when the "Revolution of 1905" rocked Russia, and Rimsky-Korsakov publicly supported a student walkout at the Conservatory. He was fired, sparking an even greater of wave of student and faculty protests until his reinstatement in December. (He retired just a few months later.)
