Question by Lucy: Russian Nationalist Music?
Hi, I need to know about Russian Nationalist Music
I’m trying to look at composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky
So I just need to know some stuff about:
Tonality (did they use modes, if so which ones?)
Rhythm (What specific rhythms did they use? ie. Quavers? Crotchets?)
Time Signanture (What were the common Time Signatures? I heard they dont use 4/4 a lot…)
Please help!
(Please provide sources!)
Answers and Views:
Answer by Greg
You’ll find all your answers by sitting down and actually listening to their music.
Read all the answers in the comments.
Give your own answer to this question!
del_icious_manager says
You really should do your own homework, you know. You already have two very misleading answers above which you would be unwise to copy.
Tchaikovsky is NOT considered a nationalist composer. Rimsky-Korskov is; as are Balakirev, Borodin, Cui and Musorgsky.
I advise you very strongly to listen to the music of these composers (you simply canNOT write about music without hearing it) and then use your serach engine to look-up articles on nationalism in music.
FriedmanLibertarian says
Prokofiev and Shostakovich are Russian nationalistic composers; they wrote for the state. Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were more influences on the Russian style. I would focus on them.
Ris says
Even though Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov are both Russians, they don't belong to the same category of Russian nationalistic composers.
Tchaikovsky is more occidentalised where as Rimsky is one of The Mighty Five (Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin) of Russia. So, you might want to look up at other ones.
Tchaikovsky is definitely more tonal than Rimsky.
Rimsky uses 6/8 vs 2/4 is a lot of his pieces such as his 2nd Symphony.
Then again, they were not fixed to one particular rhythm nor time signature.
They often used wholetone scale and pentatonic scale.
Some of them used "bloc composition" which means that they composed repeated rhythms by grouping them into small groups.
The range of orchestration was very wide as well. From low low bass note to high piccolo notes.