Background

Balakirev was born at Nizhny Novgorod on January 2, 1837, into a poor clerk's family with Tatar roots.

Education

Mily received his first lessons in music from his mother and at the age of four was able to reproduce tunes on the piano. His non-musical education began at the Nizhny Novgorod Gymnasium. Taken to Moscow at the age of ten, he became a pupil of John Field, and later a protege of the wealthy music patron and biographer Alexander von Ulybyshev.

He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Kazan.

Career

His meeting with Mikhail Glinka, in St. Petersburg in 1855, was a turning point in his life. Glinka urged him to compose, and to espouse a new art music based on Russian folk and church music and Russian literary subjects. Between 1857 and 1862 the "Five" formed themselves in St. Petersburg, with Blakirev as mentor. Since he himself had an intuitive and penetrating knowledge of music, Balakirev disdained textbook instruction in harmony and counterpoint, believing instead in the analytical study of great works. The association of the "Five" was actually shortlived, but their influence was enormous. In 1862 Balakirev founded the Free Music School, a nationalist rival to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which was cosmopolitan and conservative. He conducted many concerts, introducing early works of the "Five. " He became conductor of the concerts of the Russian Musical Society in 1867, but resigned in 1869. In 1870 he suffered a mental breakdown, and remained inactive for five years. He began to compose again in 1876, but his powers of leadership in nationalist music circles had waned. In 1882 he resumed the directorship of the Free Music School, and in 1883 became director of the imperial court chapel, where he made valuable transcriptions and arrangements of ancient liturgical chants. Although he was an immense force in establishing Russia's nationalist music, Balakirev composed comparatively little himself. His orchestral works include two symphonies, several overtures, incidental music to King Lear (1858 - 1861), and the symphonic poems Tamara (1867 - 1882) and Russia (1884). For the piano he wrote the Sonata in B flat minor (1905), various short works, and the brilliant showpiece Islamey (1869). His vocal works include a number of fine songs, and a collection of Russian folk songs. Balakirev's musical style blends the Russian folk and church idioms with ideas taken from Liszt, Chopin, and Berlioz. He died in St. Petersburg on May 29, 1910.

Achievements

• It has been said that it was Balakirev, who set the course for Russian orchestral music and lyrical song during the second half of the 19th century. He developed an idiom and technique that he imposed on his disciples not only by example, but by constant autocratic supervision of their own earlier works.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Balakirev: Symphony No. 2; Piano Concerto, Op.1; Tamara

    (Although Balakirev is, along with César Cui, the least we...)

  • Spanish Serenade - Piano

    ( Digital Sheet Music of Spanish Serenade - Piano Compos...)

  • Piano Trio in G Minor, Opus 8 : For Piano, Violin and Cello: 0 (Kalmus Edition)

    (Composed by Frédréric Chopin, this trio is written for Vi...)

  • Mily Balakirev Piano Sheet Music Collection 1

    (Contents include Mily Balakirev's: Islamey An Oriental Fa...)

  • In Bohemia - For Piano 4 hands (Lyapunov)

    (Printed sheet music to the work In Bohemia by Mily Balaki...)

  • Mily Balakirev: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 3

    (CD)

  • Balakirev: Islamey Oriental Fantasy (Digitally Remastered)
  • Balakirev: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2
  • Balakirev: Symphony No. 1 / Islamey / Tamara
  • Balakirev: Piano Works, Vol.3 - Transcriptions

Religion

n his earlier days he was politically liberal, a freethinker and an atheist. Following his breakdown, Balakirev sought solace in the strictest sect of Russian Orthodoxy, dating his conversion to the anniversary of his mother's death in March 1871. The exact circumstances of that conversion are unknown, as no letters or diaries of his from this period have survived. Rimsky-Korsakov relates some of Balakirev's extremes in behavior at this point—how he had "given up eating meat, and ate fish, but . .. only those which had died, never the killed variety"; how he would remove his hat and quickly cross himself whenever he passed by a church; and how his compassion for animals reached the point that whenever an insect was found in a room, he would carefully catch it and release it from a window, saying, "Go thee, deary, in the Lord, go!" Balakirev lived as a recluse in a house filled with dogs, cats and religious icons. The exception to this reclusiveness was the musical Tuesday evenings he held after his return to music in the 1870s and 80s. He also became a political reactionary and "xenophobic Slavophile who wrote hymns in honor of the dowager empress and other members of the royal family. "

Views

He was an anti-Semite. His attacks on Anton Rubinstein in the 1860s were petty and anti-Semitic, and Jews were not admitted to the Free School during his earlier directorship. However, it was after his conversion that he suspected everyone he disliked to be of Jewish origin, and that he hated the Jews in general because they had crucified Christ. He became belligerent in his religious conversations with friends, insistent that they cross themselves and attend church with him.

Connections

Balakirev apparently never married nor had any children since none are mentioned in biographical sources.

colleague:

Alexander Borodin