Romantic fire from Russian golden age

The music of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, along with that of two of his most talented students, will be performed tonight in the National Concert Hall

IN 1888 NICOLAI Rimsky-Korsakov completed his great orchestral suite Scheherazade, Op 35, more of a symphonic poem, inspired by various episodes from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, including The Seaand Sinbad's Ship– except he never quite admitted his source. It is lavish and romantic and the work on which his reputation endures.

One of the Five, a school of 19th century Russian composers who looked to Russia the way Dostoyevsky did as a writer, Rimsky-Korsakov was a gifted orchestrator. He was also a superlative teacher, whose posthumously published Principles of Orchestration(1913) remains a standard text.

The oriental quality of Scheherazadeis not a surprise: Borodin and Mussorgsky were also attracted to eastern sounds and rhythms. It is a beautiful piece, with several graceful violin passages.

Scheherazadedominates tonight's magical programme, 'Russian Fables', at the National Concert Hall, with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alan Buribayev and featuring soloist Ilya Gringolts. The music of two of Rimsky-Korsakov's most gifted students, Alexander Glazunov and Sergei Prokofiev, will also be performed.

While the Germans and Austrians shaped the classical repertoire from the late baroque to the romantic periods, by the mid-19th century Russian music was beginning to assert itself. Igor Stravinsky would be to 20th century classical music what Picasso was to art of the same period. Yet it was Mikhail Glinka who spearheaded the surge towards a national sound.

In 1830, Glinka moved to Milan, where he lived for three years before moving on to Vienna then returning home to St Petersburg and beginning his first opera, A Life for the Tsar. Through him, Russian music was acquiring a wider vision.

Rimsky-Korsakov was born in 1844 into an aristocratic family and joined the navy at 12, inspired by the patriotism of Glinka’s music. On leaving the navy, he studied theory and, by the age of 27, was teaching composition and orchestration at the conservatory in St Petersburg. He was a diligent, self-critical individual and spent his spare time studying the subjects he was teaching.

It was Rimsky-Korsakov who began revising Mussorgsky's music and helped revive interest in the opera Boris Godunov, based on the Macbeth-like character who murdered his rival for the crown and then was tormented by guilt. Later Rimsky-Korsakov would collaborate with one of his students, Glazunov, in completing Borodin's opera, Prince Igor.

Glazunov, who was born in 1865, was greatly influenced by Tchaikovsky’s music. In common with Rimsky-Korsakov, he also taught at the St Petersburg conservatory, which he joined in 1899. Despite his difficult personality, he had a long career there, was appointed director in 1905 and held that post until his retirement in 1930, six years before his death.

He wrote eight symphonies and had two major problems to deal with: his drinking and his musical conservatism. Ironically, his conservative attitude helped him deal with the political authorities.

Like his hero Tchaikovsky, Glazunov composed ballet music. Throughout his violin concerto in A minor, Op 82 – which will be performed by the National Symphony Orchestra tonight for the first time since 1982 – the influence of Tchaikovsky prevails. Soloist Ilya Gringolts, who performed Shostakovich’s second violin concerto at the National Concert Hall last year, brings that indefinable Russian flair to the piece.

Glazunov was well respected in his day, and his music was celebrated – although Prokofiev and Shostakovich criticised his lack of innovation. His violin concerto was composed in 1904. It has a lyric grace and a sequence of complex melodies, and really bursts into life with the cadenza which he saves for the finale. Interestingly, this change of approach would cause a rethink among later Russian composers, including Shostakovich. Though not the most demanding of virtuoso pieces, it is harmonious and lush, and Gringolts is a stylish performer.

Tonight's concert begins with Prokofiev's six suites, which he adapted from his comic opera The Love for Three Oranges. The suites, particularly the lively march, are instantly recognisable. They have long since overshadowed the opera, which premiered in Chicago in 1921. It is based on an Italian fairy tale, and is dominated by three giant oranges, or rather, the contents of those oranges: three princesses.

Prokofiev was born in the Ukraine in 1891 and is far more of a traditional Russian composer than was initially thought. He loved his country but found it difficult to conform and travelled widely, leaving the new Soviet Union in 1918. However, unlike Stravinsky, he would return on visits, and finally came home permanently in 1936. He died in Moscow in 1953, the same year as Stalin.

Prokofiev was precocious: by the time he graduated from the St Petersburg conservatory in 1914, he had already published several works, including his emphatically romantic Piano concerto in D major. The sense of irony that shaped his personality also touched his music. In 1927, on his first visit home he recorded in his diary the arrival of an apparently under the weather Glazunov at a performance of The Love for Three Oranges: " . . . during one of the intervals Glazunov stumbled in. It seems he wasn't at the performance but just dropped in." Although he made fun of his erstwhile teacher, Prokofiev always referred to Glazunov as a gentleman.

At times there is an almost abstract quality to Prokofiev's music; yet there is also the theatrical fire of his Romeo and Juliet(1938). For a real insight into the soul of this very Russian artist it is well worth listening to the recording of Prokofiev playing a piano variation of Scheherazade which captures all the magic of the work.

Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and Prokofiev, like Stravinsky, always remained grateful for the unforgettable experience of having been taught by him.