Centered on Balakirev and the critic Stasov, the Mighty Handful Group is one of the main forces in the creation of Russian folk music. They were engaged in collecting, organizing and adapting Russian folk songs, and their study of folk art had a direct impact on their subject matter, content, expressive techniques and stylistic features.
1. Balakirev (Mily Alexeyvich Balakirev, 1837-1910), a Russian composer, studied piano since childhood, met Glinka and Stasov in Petersburg in 1855, and was y influenced by them in his artistic thinking. 1857, he formed the famous "Powerful Five Group" (also known as the "Powerful Five Group"). In 1857, he formed the famous "Powerful Five" (also known as the "New Russian School"), and in 1862, he organized a compulsory music school, engaging in teaching and performance activities.
Major works include: Symphony in C Major, Symphony in D Minor, and the symphonic poem Tamara. Orchestral "Three Overtures on the Theme of Russian Folk Songs", Piano Fantasy "Isla Mae", "Piano Sonata in B-flat Minor", "Piano Concerto in E-flat Major" (unfinished, renewed by Riapunov) and so on. In addition, he composed two sets of romantic suites and solo songs such as "Song of the Robbers", "Song of Selim" and "Song of Georgia", and also adapted and organized a large number of folk songs.
2. Cesar Cui (1835-1918), a Russian composer, was born in Lithuania. Cesar Cui (1835-1918), a Russian composer, was born in Lithuania, and went to Poland to study music as a child; he graduated from the Military Technical University in 1857. Afterwards, he was mainly engaged in teaching military engineering, and in 1904 he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army. As an amateur composer, he was a member of the Russian "Power Five".
He wrote a large number of vocal compositions and composed operas based on the literary works of famous poets such as Heine and Victor Hugo. The representative work is the instrumental sketch "Oriental Style".
3. Borodin (Алекса?ндр Порфи?рьевич Бороди?н, 1833-1887)
Russian composer and chemist, born in St. Petersburg on Nov. 12, 1833, died on Feb. 27, 1887 in the same place. He was well educated in several languages, specialized in piano and flute, and began composing at the age of 14. He entered the St. Petersburg Medical School in 1850, and after graduation stayed there to teach, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1858, and founded the Women's Medical University and taught there from 1872 to 1887.
He began his musical activity in the 1850s, writing vocal romances, piano miniatures, and chamber music, etc. In 1862, he became acquainted with M.A. Balakirev, and became an important member of the New Russian School (Power Group). His masterpieces include the opera Prince Igor, which embodies the grand historical picture of ancient Russia and expresses the spirit of patriotism, Symphony No. 2 The Warrior, which lays down the genre of Russian epic symphony, the symphonic sound painting In the Steppes of Central Asia, which is rich in the Russian style and oriental colors, two string quartets, the vocal romances For the Shores of the Distant Motherland, The Sleeping Princess, Songs of the Dark Forest, The Sea King's Princess, The Sea, and Malice in My Song, among others.
In chemical research, he was the first to make benzoyl chloride and had explored aldehyde condensation reactions.
He was originally the illegitimate son of Prince Gaidinov, the Georgian Prince of the Caucasus, and a military doctor's wife, and for this reason he had to be treated as the son of the Prince's serf, Boris Borodin. He was brought up by his mother and was well educated from an early age. He was gifted with an excellent command of several languages, and soon showed a superhuman genius for science and music. He began his musical initiation at the age of nine, learning to play the flute and cello. He began composing at the age of fourteen and published a flute concerto and a string trio, and in 1850 he entered the Petersburg Medical Academy to study chemistry, from which he graduated in 1855 and stayed on as a teacher. Three years later, at the age of twenty-five, Borodin received his doctorate in chemistry. 1862, Borodin met the composer Balakirev, and greatly appreciated the composer's advocacy of the development of Russian national music, and from then on he used his spare time to actively engage in musical composition, and joined the five-member "Power Group" for the development of Russian national music.
Bowers was a member of the five-member "Powerful Group".
Borodin's compositions of heroic and epic nature are the main content of his works. His music is highly nationalistic, and some of his works have a charmingly exotic oriental flavor. In his own music, he endeavored to express and glorify the life and spirit of the Russian people and the bravery of the ancient Russian heroes. Through his music, one can deepen one's understanding of the Russian nation and its music.
Because Borodin's specialty was chemistry, he composed only in his spare time, calling himself a "Sunday composer.
4. Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich (1839-1881) was a Russian composer. Mussorgsky was born on March 21, 1839, in the village of Kalevo, Torobetsky County, to a father who was the owner of a manor house. from the age of six, he studied piano under the tutelage of his mother. His life in the countryside, nurtured by serf nannies, gave him a deep affection for peasant and Russian folk music, and in 1849 he entered the Petropavlov School in St. Petersburg, where he studied from 1852 to 1856 at the Konigskommando School, at the same time learning the piano from A.A. Gerke and trying his hand at composition, and in 1852 he published his first composition, the Polka "Army Brigade". --In 1852 he published his first work, Polka "Warrant Officer" (for piano). 1856 after graduation, he went to serve in the army, where he met U.A. Guey, A.C. Dargomeryzhsky, B.B. Stasov, and M.A. Balakirev, which had a decisive influence on his life's artistic path. 1858, he resigned from the army and specialized in composition under Balakirev's guidance. In 1858 he resigned from the army and specialized in composition under Balakirev's guidance, becoming the most radical member of the "New Russian School" (i.e., the "Powerful Group"), and in the late 1950s and early 1960s he wrote a number of orchestral, piano and song pieces, as well as the ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex (original work by Sophocles). （After the Tsarist government was forced to abolish serfdom in 1861, he returned to his hometown and distributed his ancestral land and family property to the peasants, and returned to St. Petersburg in 1863, where he came under the influence of the Russian Revolutionary Democratism, represented by H.r. Chernyshevsky, and underwent a profound ideological transformation that led him to form a progressive outlook on the world and on art. His democratic ideological tendency and realist creative principles are fully reflected in his works. The representative works of his life were all produced in this period. Mussorgsky spent the second half of his life in poverty, mentally battered by official and conservative forces, materially unprotected, and living on piano accompaniment, teaching, and working as a civil servant; he died on March 28, 1881, in St. Petersburg.
Opera was at the forefront of Mussorgsky's creative field. He wrote five operas in total***, but all of them were left unfinished and were continued by later generations. The first two operas, Salambau (based on a novel by G. Flaubert, 1863-1866) and The Marriage (based on a Gogol comedy, 1868), were immature but made useful explorations. In Sarambau the author emphasized the thematic idea of the liberation of the people, paying attention to the depiction of mass scenes, some fragments of which were later transposed to Boris Godunov. The Marriage made creative attempts at the relationship between music and language, at the individualization of roles. Mussorgsky's crowning achievement in operatic composition is reflected in two operas, Boris Godunov and Khovansky's Rebellious Party. Boris Godunov" (based on Pushkin's tragedy of the same name, premiered in 1874) is a new type of historical opera. The composer re-conceived the opera according to Pushkin's original work, so that the historical background of the opera is at the eve of the peasant revolution storm, and through the molding of historical portraits of the masses of the people and the portrayal of the inner contradictions of Czar Boris, the conflict between the people and the tyrant was pointedly reflected, and at the same time, the internal conflict of the aristocratic ruling class was profoundly exposed. exposes the struggle for power within the aristocratic ruling class. In order to adapt to the needs of the plot of the play, the author, on the one hand, uses multi-level and multi-line chorus to express the collective image of the people on different occasions (such as the scene of forcing the people to ask Boris to ascend the throne in the convent), and on the other hand, adopts the solo singing in recitative style to portray the character of typical characters (such as Tsar Boris, who is full of contradictions in his inner life, and the crazy monk, who symbolizes the suffering of the Russian people), and at the same time, pays attention to The typical environment of the drama (e.g. Boris's coronation in the Kremlin square, the scene in the small hotel on the Lithuanian border, the scene of the Polish aristocrats' court life, etc.) is emphasized. The musical language of the whole opera, on the other hand, is characterized by a distinctive national style and the author's unique creative personality. Hovansky's Rebellion" (a libretto based on the historical data provided by Stasov, begun in 1872, continued by H.A. Rimsky-Korsakov after his death, premiered in 1886) is based on the historical facts of the rebellion launched by Hovansky, the commander of the shooting army during the period of Peter I at the end of the 17th century, and graphically reproduces the picture of Russian history. Compared with "Boris Godunov", its plot lines are more complicated, its characters are more diverse, and it involves a wide area of Russian social life full of sharp contradictions and conflicts. However, the thematic idea is not focused and clear enough, and the structure is loose. The characterization of the different characters is limited to independent and complete songs or arias. Nevertheless, its multifaceted mass scenes, rich in national characteristics, show the artistic power of realism. In addition, Sorochinsk Fair (based on an original work by Gogol, continued by Guy in 1916 and premiered in 1917) is a comedy opera by Mussorgsky, which synthesizes Ukrainian sung melodies and spoken tones, and recreates folk customs and life with a combination of lyricism and burlesque farce, and portrays comedic characterizations.
Vocal romances and songs were also an important area of Mussorgsky's creativity. He wrote a total of 67 songs, including a variety of subjects. Among them are "The Song of the Old Beggar" (1863) and "Kalistrat" (1864), which depict the image of the poor people; "Sleep, Farmer's Child" (1865), "Gopak" (1866), "Lullaby of Yelomushka" (1868) and "Orphan" (1868), which reflect the bitter life of the peasants in the old Russia; and "Seminary Student" (1869), "Seminary Student" (1869), and "Orphan" (1869), which are satirical songs that ridicule the bad social habits. (1869) and "Song of the Flea" (1879); the "Children's Songs" suite (7 pieces, 1868-1873), which meticulously depicts the innocence and psychology of young children; and the vocal suites "No Sunshine" (1874) and "Songs and Dances of Death" (1877), which express the loneliness and despair of the common people who have suffered from traumatic experiences. In these vocal works, the author not only truly and objectively reflected the social life at that time, vividly and vividly portrayed many characters, but also poured in his personal emotional experience, and sent infinite sympathy to the people's misery. In terms of artistic methods, the author inherited and developed A.C. Dargomyzhsky's tradition of focusing on the combination of music and language, and created a new kind of vocal recitation melody, whose tone and rhythm are closely related to the tone and emotional color of the lyrics. The author was adept at drawing on Russian folk music material, using musical genres and forms common to life (such as lullabies, marches, various folk dances, etc.), thus greatly enhancing the authenticity and vividness of the song's image.
Mussorgsky's legacy of instrumental compositions is small but original. Among the most representative works are "Night on the Barren Mountain" and "Pictures at an Exhibition". The symphonic sound painting "Night on the Deserted Mountain" (1867), which is based on folk myths and legends, is a masterpiece of Russian symphonic music, which is fascinating for its novelty of conception, realism of images and richness of colors. Piano Suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" (1874) was composed in response to the posthumous exhibition of the painter B.A. Hartmann, a deceased friend. It resurrects the visual image with distinctive musical language, and at the same time expresses the author's true feelings. There are new explorations in harmonic techniques, compositional structure and piano weaving. This unique work has attracted many composers to orchestrate it, with M. Ravel's adaptation gaining the widest circulation.
Mussorgsky was the founder of modern Russian musical realism and the most important composer of the "Power Group". His compositions have the tendency of critical realism to expose the darkness of the society and reflect the suffering of the people, and he has strong Russian national characteristics and unique personality in his artistic style, with bold innovations in musical language and artistic form. However, when he was alive, his artistic achievements were often criticized and criticized by a few visionaries, such as Stasov, in addition to his positive comments, which led to the tragedy of his later years. His artistic explorations have been increasingly recognized since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Many famous composers, such as C. Debussy, Ravel, L. Janá?ek, C. C. Prokofiev, Ⅱ. The first is the first of a series of composers to be recognized by the public. Shostakovich, r. B. Sviridov and other people's compositions, are to varying degrees by Mussorgsky's influence.
5. Rimsky-Korsakov (Nikolai Andreivitch Rimsky-Korsakov, 1844-1908) was a Russian composer and music educator. He was born on March 18, 1844, in Zikhvin, Novgorod province, into a noble family; the beautiful nature of this small ancient city, its ancient folk rituals and beautiful folk songs left a deep impression on Rimsky-Korsakov in his childhood. From the age of six he began to learn to play the piano, and near the age of eleven he tried his hand at composing music; at the age of twelve, in 1856, he was admitted to the Petersburg Naval School, and at the same time continued his musical studies; at the end of 1861 he became acquainted with Balakirev and joined his "group"; his association with these progressive Russian musicians of the time opened up a new world of possibilities for him. The interaction with these progressive Russian musicians at that time opened up his artistic vision and strengthened his belief in musical composition, and his First Symphony was written under the direct guidance of Balakirev. Later, his position among the composers of the "Power Group" was, in the words of another Russian music critic, even "like a crane in a flock of chickens".
In 1862, Rimsky-Korsakov graduated from the cadet school and became a warrant officer in the navy, and for about three years he took part in the cruises of a clipper ship to England, North and South America, France, and Italy, during which time, although he was less exposed to music, the vivid impressions he gained from his seafaring life enriched his later musical compositions, and he has been recognized as the finest "After his return to Petersburg in 1865, as a naval officer, he was mainly active in musical circles, actively engaged in his "professional" compositions, and wrote some works that already show the author's stylistic features, such as Symphonic painting "Satyagraha", Symphony No. 2 "Antar" and opera "The Pskov Girl".
In 1871 Rimsky-Korsakov was employed by the Petersburg Conservatory of Music to teach courses in composition and orchestral law, and later to hold the posts of inspector of the military bands belonging to the Admiralty (1873-1884), and principal of the Free School of Music (1874-1881). His teaching was indeed a mixture of teaching and learning; he studied music theory assiduously to make up for the lack of his own specialized knowledge of music; he recorded folk songs himself and published them in a collection with harmonies, and revised Glinka's opera scores together with Balakirev and Riadov, all of which gave him "unexpected training"; close contact with the military bands also gave him "unexpected training"; and close contact with the military bands also gave him the opportunity to study music in the field of music. The close contact with the military bands also gave him the opportunity to familiarize himself with the construction and properties of various instruments, and he finally wrote some monographs on orchestral method and so on. Rimsky-Korsakov's multifaceted activities for the development of Russian musical culture were fruitful: his thirty-seven years of teaching at the Conservatory produced numerous talents, including such famous composers as Riadov, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Glazunov and Miaskevsky; and in a great spirit of self-sacrifice he undertook a great number of fine revisions, continuations, and orchestrations, which made it possible to finalize the unfinished works of some of his Russian contemporaries, such as Mussorgsky's operas Boris Godunov and Khovanhina, Borodin's Duke of Igor, and Dargomsky's opera The Stone Guest; he took part in the activities of Belayev's new group of musicians, and became "advisor" to some of the group's initiatives. He took part in the activities of Belayev's new group of musicians and became an "adviser" to some of its innovations - the "Russian Symphony Recitals" organized by the group and the publishing house of musical scores, which played a great role in the promotion, propaganda and development of Russian musical works.
During the first revolution in Russia in 1905, Rimsky-Korsakov was actively involved in the social and political struggle, he bravely rose to the defense of the young students of the revolution, as a result of which he was dismissed from the post of professor at the Conservatory, his works were banned, and he himself was subjected to secret surveillance. But his dismissal provoked a wave of national protest against the persecution. At last, thanks to an invitation from the new director of the Petersburg Conservatory, Glazunov, he was able to return to the Conservatory, and on June 21, 1908, Rimsky-Korsakov died of a heart attack.