Editing The Five (composers) (section)

==History==
===Name===
[[Image:Vladimir Stasov.jpg|thumb|[[Vladimir Stasov]] <br> (1824&ndash;1906)]]
In May 1867 the critic [[Vladimir Stasov]] wrote an article, titled ''Mr. Balakirev's Slavic Concert'', covering a concert that had been performed for visiting Slav delegations at the "All-Russian Ethnographical Exhibition" in Moscow. The four Russian composers whose works were played at the concert were [[Mikhail Glinka]], [[Alexander Dargomyzhsky]], [[Mily Balakirev]], and [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]].<ref>Abraham, Gerald, ''Essays on Russian and East European Music: Vladimir Stasov, Man and Critic'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, pg. 112</ref> The article ended with the following statement:

{{quote|God grant that our Slav guests may never forget today's concert; God grant that they may forever preserve the memory of how much poetry, feeling, talent, and intelligence are possessed by the small handful of Russian musicians.<ref name="Calvocoressi, M.D. 1946, pg. 178">Calvocoressi, M.D., Abraham, G., ''Master Musicians Series: Mussorgsky'', London: J.M.Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1946, pg. 178</ref>|Vladimir Stasov|''[[Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti]]'', 1867}}

The expression "mighty handful" ({{langx|ru|Могучая кучка}}, ''Moguchaya kuchka'', "Mighty Bunch") was mocked by enemies of Balakirev and Stasov: [[Alexander Serov|Aleksandr Serov]], academic circles of the conservatory, the Russian Musical Society, and their press supporters. The group ignored critics and continued operating under the moniker.<ref name="Calvocoressi, M.D. 1946, pg. 178"/> This loose collection of composers gathered around Balakirev now included Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Borodin &mdash; the five who have come to be associated with the name "Mighty Handful", or sometimes "The Five". [[Gerald Abraham]] stated flatly in the ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' that "they never called themselves, nor were they ever called in Russia, 'The Five'"<ref>Abraham, Gerald, ''The New Grove: Russian Masters 1: Balakirev'', New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1986, pg. 86</ref> (although today the Russian equivalent "Пятёрка" ("Pyatyorka") is occasionally used to refer to this group).<ref>''Krugosvet'', "[http://www.krugosvet.ru/enc/kultura_i_obrazovanie/muzyka/BALAKIREV_MILI_ALEKSEEVICH.html Balakirev Mily Alekseevich]".</ref> In his memoirs, Rimsky-Korsakov routinely refers to the group as "Balakirev's circle", and occasionally uses "The Mighty Handful", usually with an ironic tone. He also makes the following reference to "The Five":

{{quote|If we leave out of account [[Nikolai Lodyzhensky|Lodyzhensky]], who accomplished nothing, and [[Anatoly Lyadov|Lyadov]], who appeared later, Balakirev's circle consisted of Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and me (the French have retained the denomination of "''Les Cinq''" for us to this day).<ref>Rimsky-Korsakov, N., ''Chronicle of My Musical Life'', New York: Knopf, 1923, pg. 286</ref>|Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov|''Chronicle of My Musical Life'', 1909}}

The Russian word ''kuchka'' also spawned the terms "kuchkism" and "kuchkist", which may be applied to artistic aims or works in tune with the sensibilities of the Mighty Handful.

===Formation===
The formation of the group began in 1856 with the first meeting of Balakirev and [[César Cui]]. [[Modest Mussorgsky]] joined them in 1857, [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]] in 1861, and [[Alexander Borodin]] in 1862. All the composers in The Five were young men in 1862. Balakirev was 25, Cui 27, Mussorgsky 23, Borodin the eldest at 28, and Rimsky-Korsakov just 18. They were all self-trained amateurs. Borodin combined composing with a career in [[chemistry]]. Cui was an army engineer who, starting in 1857 and throughout 1860s, taught fortification at military academies.  Rimsky-Korsakov was a [[Imperial Russian Navy|naval officer]] (he wrote his First Symphony on a three-year naval voyage circumnavigating the globe). Mussorgsky had been in the prestigious [[Preobrazhensky Regiment]] of the Imperial Guard, and then in the civil service before taking up music; even at the height of his career in the 1870s he was forced by the expense of his drinking habit to hold down a full-time job in the State Forestry Department.<ref>Figes, Orlando, ''Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia'' (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), 179.</ref>

In contrast to the élite status and court connections of Conservatory composers such as [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]], The Five were mainly from the minor gentry of the provinces. To some degree their ''[[esprit de corps]]'' depended on the myth, which they themselves created, of a movement that was more "authentically Russian," in the sense that it was closer to the native soil, than the classic academy.<ref>Figes, 179. Also see R. Tarushkin, ''Defining Russia Musically'', xiii ff, per Figes.</ref> Spurred on by Russian nationalist ideas, the Five “sought to capture elements of rural Russian life, to build national pride, and to prevent western ideals from seeping into their culture.”<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Doub|first=Austin|date=2019|title=Understanding the Cultural and Nationalistic Impacts of the moguchaya kuchka|url=https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/musicalofferings/vol10/iss2/1/|journal=Musical Offerings|volume=10|issue=2|pages=49–60|doi=10.15385/jmo.2019.10.2.1|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Before them, [[Mikhail Glinka]] and [[Alexander Dargomyzhsky]] had gone some way towards producing a distinctly Russian kind of music, writing operas on Russian subjects, but the Mighty Handful represented the first concentrated attempt to develop such a music, with Stasov as their artistic adviser and Dargomyzhsky as an elder statesman to the group, so to speak. The circle began to fall apart during the 1870s, no doubt partially due to the fact that Balakirev withdrew from musical life early in the decade for a period of time. All of "The Five" are buried in [[Tikhvin Cemetery]] in [[Saint Petersburg]].