Mily Balakirev
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Transcript of Mily Balakirev
{Mily Balakirev
Symphony No.1, III: Andante
Born Mily Alekseyevich Balakirev on January 2nd, 1837
Although, USSR “Old style”
dictates that he was born on December 21st, 1836
Mily’s mother gave him his first piano lessons by age 4. By the time he was 10,
she had introduced him to Alexander Dubuque, who gave him his 1st
professional-grade piano lessons.
Mily composed his first pieces
while in attendance at the
Alexandrovsky Institute, where he was promptly discovered by a
wealthy and connected music
enthusiast, Alexander Ulybyshev.
At 18, Balakirev ventured more than 1,000km with Ulybyshev, from Alexandrovsky to St. Petersburg,
to meet Mily’s idol…
MikhailIvanovich Glinka
Mily Balakirev studiedin great depth the worksof Frederik Chopin and
Mikhail Glinka. It was by the latter the he was
inspired to create Russian-
themed music, which he was has become famous
for.
Glinka immediately recognized Balakirev’stalent, unconventionalthought it was. It was then that Mikhail took Mily under his wing and shaped him into the musician he was meant to be.
The Balakirev CircleThe Five
The Mighty Handful
Cesar Cui
Modest Mussorgsky Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Alexander BorodinThe ever famous groupof Russian nationalist musicians,who received patronage fromtheir very own Tsar Nicholasin establishing the Free School ofMusic in opposition to the pro-Westernization of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, with Mily Balakirev as their leader.
The New School of Music
The Balakirev Circle cont.
By the time Balakirev was 25, The Five was in full force. They were not formally trained, every one of them a self-
taught musician. Their natural talents and support from theRussian community helped them thrive in the musical world.
They were dedicated to the nationalist cause and every memberlooked at Balakirev as their mentor, both musically
and philosophically.
♫ ♫♫♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Just before the formation of the Mighty Handful (so named by a fan and journalist, Vladimir Stasov), Balakirev suffered a pair of great lossesthat left him feeling more empty than he did after the death of his mother 10 years earlier – the deaths of both his mentor, Mikhail Glinka, and his friend,
Alexander Ulybyshev.
It was then that Mily’s mental health began to dwindle, as a horrible depression set in. He even suffered a minute case of brain fever not soon after their deaths, at the age of about 21.
Mily’s suffering lead to his infamous demeanor. His colleagues and studentsoften complained about how rude Mily was, saying that he was over-critical,
pompous and supremely autonomous. He shared in the obstinacy found in many Nationalists and wouldnot heed his peers, never changing his methods of
education or human interaction.
Balakirev had an innate and astounding memory. He hadthe ability to memorize a piece after hearing it only once or twice.
For this, he was egotistic. Also, he was too proud to work as a virtuoso, as so many famous composers and musicians have done in order to become
well-known and, especially, pay the bills.
His overbearing behavior caught up with him, however. The first of his peers to tire of him and leave to pursue his own path was Cesar Cui. The irony is not lost that Cui was the first of The Five that Balakirev met and thereforehad been dealing with him
for the longest. Most under Balakirev’s leadership followed Cui’s lead and left his company.
As Mily’s social life began to crumble beneath him, his
fathered died, leaving Mily responsible for the care of his 2 younger sisters. The pressure was too much for him, not to
mention how betrayed he had felt by his peers, so he took his leave of the musical world to work as railroad clerk and support his
family.
About 5 to 10 years later, Mily made his way back into music. He had undergone a “personal transformation” in the form of
Orthodox Christianity. Truthfully, the only thing that was different about Mily was
that he had added strict Christian values to his already
strict, close-minded ways. However, he did what he could to repair the damage he’d done
with The Five.
Balakirev’s Symphony No. 1in C Major
Mily began writing his first symphony in 1864. He wrote
two-thirds of it then was promptly distracted with an
overture of particular interest to him, his Overture on Czech
Themes.
30 years later, he picked it back up and
revamped nearly the entire piece, adding
purely Russian themes to the first movement
and writing an entirely new theme for the final
movement.
Symphony No.1 in C Major, III: Andante
The third movement was written for all strings,
including two harps; we then have timpani,
triangle, snare drum, and bass drum for a percussion
section; and finally the woodwinds and brass
consisting of three flutes (or two flutes and one
piccolo), three clarinets, two bassoons, an oboe, two
trumpets, four horns, an English horn, a tuba, and
three trombones.
The movement is started by the woodwinds, who also introduce
the main theme of the movement…
…The strings offer
homophonic texture in the background before taking over the theme and introducing the
first subject…. …The flutes take over the theme
once again before handing it
back to the violins… …This passing
along continues from the violins,
to oboe, to clarinet, to bassoon…
…About four minutes into the piece a second
subject is introduced by the violins, taking the
song to an almost lamenting tone…
By minute six, the woodwinds begin to take us back into the
first subject… …The bassoon takes over as the
song for just a second to return the orchestra to
the original theme…
…At minute seven and a half, the brass are finally featured as
they deepen the tone and broaden the
pitch, preparing the listener for a dramatic
change of pace…
…That pace change is
accentuated by the violins, and then
resolved by the full orchestra as they
return to the original theme…
Minute nine features the brass once again
building the piece up and crash!, the percussion
section allows a release into the height of the
movement…
…Once again, the woodwinds recover
the from the drop with the resounding first subject, only to be
taken back up to the height of the third
subject by the help of the violins and the
brass…
…The violins provide the theme while the
brass keep the energy up by playing the
beat…
The third subject is like the combination between the theme, and first and second subjects, daring the listener to feel apprehensive only to feel that apprehension lifted while a
touch of serenity…
…Minute thirteen then brings back
that apprehension by reintroducing
the original theme…
…Somehow the theme feels different, likely due
to the glissando of the harp and its sisters the
violins backing it up with quickly stroked dire sixteenth notes…
That glissando combination instills a
sense of beautiful fatalism, as if whatever
was about to happen would determine the
future of the world. And then as quickly and
suddenly as it started, the movement is over with a quiet goodbye from the woodwinds before the symphony
ventures onto the fourth and final movement.
When he returned into the world of music, Mily took up the position of Music Director of the Imperial Chapel in 1883,
choosing Rimsky-Korsakov as his assistant. At no surprise, Balakirev had a disagreement with their publisher not 3
years later and consequently he was removed from their roster. As years
when on, Mily became more and more bitter toward his colleagues (because
they remained a large part of the music community and offered him less and less
support as years went on) and left no bridge unscathed. He died alone at the
age of 73.
Works Citedhttp://www.allmusic.com/artist/mily-balakirev-mn0002129104/biography
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/49735/Mily-Balakirev
http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/music/miliy-balakirev/
https://sites.google.com/site/ibhistoryrussia/syllabus-overview---imperial-russia/a-background-and-nature-of-tsardom
http://www.52composers.com/balakirev.html
http://www.turgenevmusica.info/en/balakirev.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_%28composers%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mily_Balakirev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_%28Balakirev%29