{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