Rimsky-Korsakov The Maid of Pskov

 Day 81

Rimsky-Korsakov The Maid of Pskov

Soloists

Kirov Choir and Orchestra

Valery Gergiev

In the west we have a very narrow view of Rimsky Korsakov as the composer of Scherazade and a couple of short orchestral showpieces. Not that there is anything wrong with liking Scherazade. it is a wonderful piece to listen to and indeed to play. But there is more to Rimsky that this one piece. In particular he was one of the key figures, perhaps the key figure, in the development of Russian opera. He was not the first to write a Russian opera of course, but he more than anybody built a repertory and created a tradition. One of  the important things about him is that he actually finished works. The whole history of Russian opera is full of works which were left in an incomplete, sometimes chaotic state, by their composers and required the work of others, of whom Rimsky was one,  to bring them to the stage.

Rimsky also has a very important place in musical history because he was Stravinsky’s teacher. Indeed only very recently the rather impressive in memoriam piece which Stravinsky wrote on the death of his teacher has been rediscovered. Stravinsky tried to downplay his Russian heritage but the more you listen to Rimsky the more you realise just how much they are part of the same tradition. I’ve mentioned before Taruskin’s book on Stravinsky’s Russian period. Not surprisingly Rimsky features prominently there.

I’ve gradually been getting to know the Rimsky operas and this one, his first, was new to me. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to continuing my voyage of discovery. Right from the very first chord of the overture you are aware of Rimsky’s absolute mastery of the orchestra, and indeed the orchestral interludes are a real feature of the score.  As you would expect from a Russian opera the chorus has a prominent role and Rimsky’s use of the chorus is always inventive -with the final few bars producing a quite dramatic and highly distinctive effect. The opera is broadly contemporary with Boris Godunov and shares many of the same musical and dramatic language. Indeed at one point the effect of the bells and alternating chord was very reminiscent of the coronation scene in that opera, although ultimately both derive from the dramatic music near the end of Act 4 of Les Huguenots. 

Perhaps Rimsky is not one of the greatest melodists. The memorable themes here are largely folk-music based rather than distinctive operatic melodies, but the recit and arioso passages are highly distinctive. The opera was turned into a star vehicle for Chaliapin under the tile Ivan the Terrible and you easily see why - the part of the tsar here is very much in the same vein as the title role in Boris.

So a really good encounter. The Russian operatic tradition is still so little known in the west and there is so much to explore. I’ll be including Glinka and Mussorgsky later in this project.