The Best Russian Composers and Their Best Works

In 1972, my father graduated from the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory. During the pandemic, I decided to ask him about his opinions about the best Russian composers and their best works.

This article will provide an excellent guide to anyone who is interested in learning more about Russian classical music.

1. Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)

My father began with Glinka because he was the first of major Russian composer. His work set the tone for all Russian nationalist composers that followed him. Russian nationalists based their music on celebrating Russian history and the giants of Russian literature.

Glinka’s two best operas were Ruslan and Ludmilla (1842) and A Life for the Tsar (1836).

The opera of Ruslan and Ludmilla comes from a poem written by Alexander Pushkin in 1820. Ludmilla is the daughter of Prince Vladmir of Kiev. Ludmila is kidnapped and Ruslan must free his bride from an evil sorcerer Chernomor.

In Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar, we are told the story of Ivan Susanin who was a patriot and a martyr. When Polish troops tried to kill Czar Michael I, Ivan lied to the Polish troops by offering his services as guide. Michael I founded the Romanov Dynasty in 1613.

Susanin sacrificed his life by leading the Polish troops into the forests. He deliberately tried to get them lost in the forest as they would all die from the cold.

2. Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869)

My Dad recommended Rusalka and The Stone Guest. In 1830, Alexander Pushkin wrote a play The Stone Guest. Dargomyzhsky dies before the play is finished. Russian composer Cesar Cui finished it for him.

After Glinka and Dargomyzhsky, the next generation of Russian composers are able to receive a more formal education in classical music. In 1862, the St Petersburg Conservatory by Anton Rubenstein. Anton Rubenstein’s brother, Nikolai, co-founded the Moscow Conservatory in 1866 with Prince Nikolai Troubetzkoy.

As a new generation of Russian composers emerged, there is a group of five incredible composers in St. Petersburg that continued Glinka’s work of developing Russian classic music that was distinct from the rest of Europe.

3. Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

He was a lawyer, but then decided to become a musician. He was among the first who enrolled in the St. Petersburg Conservatory. His genius was recognized early by his teachers Anton Rubenstein and Nikolai Zaremba.

He was invited by Nikolai Rubinstein to become a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Today, the Moscow Conservatory is named after Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky best works were Eugene Onegin, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, his 1^st Piano concerto, Canzonetta 2^nd movement of his Violin concerto, and his 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th symphonies.

4. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Rimsky-Korsakov’s best works were Russian Easter Festival Overture, Flight of Bumble Bee, Scheherazade, Capriccio Espagnol, and The Maid of Pskov. The last was a fictional story based on the time of Ivan the Terrible. The St. Petersburg Conservatory was named after him. Rimsky-Korsakov’s best opera was May Night, which was based on Nikolai Gogol’s book.

5. Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

My father said Mussorgsky was the most talented of the Mighty Five composers. My Dad recommended Night of Bald Mountain, Boris Godunov, and Khovanshchina. Mussorgsky’s Night of the Bald Mountain was used in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia (1940).

Khovanshchina is about the Moscow uprising of 1682 led by Prince Kovansky, the Old Believers, and the Moscow Streltsy against the Regent Sofia Alekseyevna. This uprising was defeated.

Mussorgsky opera on Boris Godunov is based on the 1825 play by Alexander Pushkin. Boris Godunov served in the court of Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584). Before Ivan IV died, Tsar Fyodor I (1584-1598) married Boris Godunov’s sister.

When Fydor I took power, Godunov was the main powerbroker. After Fyodor I died, Boris Godunov ruled as Tsar of Russia from 1598 to 1604.

6. Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)

My father told me that he wrote very difficult pieces for piano. He was the organizer of the Mighty Five composers. From 1856-1870, this group worked with each other on their musical compositions. Balakirev also corresponded with Tchaikovsky and provided some suggestions to Tchakovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. By the time my father was a student at the Conservatory, Balakirev most influential piece was Islamey.

7. Cesar Cui (1835-1918)

He is extremely prolific and the least nationalistic of the group. His main contribution to Russian classical music was Prisoner of the Caucasus which was based on Pushkin’s 1822 poem.

8. Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)

My father thought that Borodin’s best works were Prince Igor (1890), based on a medieval Rurikid prince, and his Second Symphony. Borodin’s colleague Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Rimsky-Korsakov’s protégé Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) finished Prince Igor after Borodin died.

9. Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Rachmaninoff’s 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd symphonies are his best. My father also recommended Rachmaninoff’s opera Aleko (1892). This opera was written when Rachmaninoff was still completing his studies at the Moscow Conservatory. This opera was based on Puskhin’s 1827 poem The Gypsies. He left Russia in 1917. He was never able to return.

10. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

He started as a Russian composer. He was trained by Rimsky-Korsakov from 1902 to 1908. After he left Russia in 1914 and he would not return until 1962. He would spend the rest of his life in Switzerland (1914-1920), France (1920-1939) and the United States (1939-1971). Stravinsky worked Sergei Diaghilev to popularize Russian ballet and opera in Paris. From 1910 to 1913, Stravinsky produced his best works Firebird, and Petrushka, and Rite of Spring in Paris for international audiences.  My father also liked the opera The Nightingale and ballet Pulcinella.

11. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

He was my father’s favorite composer. He left Russia in 1917 and returned in 1936.

Prokofiev’s best works are Romeo Juliet and Peter and the Wolf. He followed the tradition of Glinka by celebrating Russian literature when he wrote operas on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Gambler and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Another favorite of my father’s was Prokofiev’s 1^st Symphony. He said that it was influenced by Haydn but modernized.

12. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

He was a child prodigy when he was accepted to conservatory. He wrote his first symphony when he was 19. My father said that his best symphonies were the 5th, 8th, and 10th. Shostakovich’s opera based on The Nose by Nikolai Gogol was very good as well as his opera Lady Macbeth of Mitensk, which was based on Russian author Nikolai Leskov’s book.

The later opera caused Shostakovich condemnation and his 4^th symphony was withdrawn at the beginning of the Great Terror. His 5^th symphony during 1937 was very depressing, but it was considered a great success.

After his 7^th “Leningrad” symphony, he became a hero for honoring the Soviet victims of the 900 Day Siege of Leningrad and World War II in general.

He wrote his 13^th symphony about Babi Yar, which was smuggled out of the Soviet Union by the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

In March 2022, the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra pulled Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture because of the war in Ukraine. I personally do not believe that 19^th century musicians should be punished and held responsible for a conflict in the 21^st century.

In World War I, Pittsburgh’s city council banned Beethoven’s music. This ban was outrageous, and it obviously had no impact on the battlefield.

When everything becomes political, it prevents people from building friendships with people who do not share the same politics. A democracy is more stable when a critical mass of people sustains strong friendships across the political divide.

When a diverse group of people are listening to music together, watching movies, and cheering for a professional sport team, it pushes back against cancel culture and political correctness.

Instead of seeing their political opponents as mortal enemies, we need people to come together and have fun again. Instead of talking through a screen, people need to go out and rebuild their friendships.

One good way to build a good friendship is enjoying Russian classical music. It simply wouldn’t be Christmas in America without listening to The Nutcracker.