Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov
(18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908)
was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.
He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions - Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade - are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas.
Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy tales and folk subjects.
Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music, as did his fellow composer Mily Balakirev and the critic Vladimir Stasov.
This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods.
Rimsky-Korsakov appreciated Western musical techniques after he became a professor of musical composition, harmony, and orchestration at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1871.
He undertook a rigorous three-year program of self-education and became a master of Western methods, incorporating them alongside the influences of Mikhail Glinka and fellow members of The Five.
Rimsky-Korsakov's techniques of composition and orchestration were further enriched by his exposure to the works of Richard Wagner.
