Editing Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (section)

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The critic [[Vladimir Stasov]], who along with Balakirev had founded The Five, wrote in 1882, "Beginning with Glinka, all the best Russian musicians have been very skeptical of book learning and have never approached it with the servility and the superstitious reverence with which it is approached to this day in many parts of Europe."<ref>As quoted in Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 24.</ref> This statement was not true for Glinka, who studied Western music theory assiduously with [[Siegfried Dehn]] in Berlin before he composed his opera ''[[A Life for the Tsar]]''.<ref>Maes, 19.</ref> It was true for Balakirev, who "opposed academicism with tremendous vigor,"<ref name="Maes39"/> and it was true initially for Rimsky-Korsakov, who had been imbued by Balakirev and Stasov with the same attitude.<ref>Maes, 38–39.</ref>

[[File:Rimsky-Korsakov.jpg|thumb|upright|''Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov'' by [[Emil Wiesel]]]]
One point Stasov omitted purposely, which would have disproved his statement completely, was that at the time he wrote it, Rimsky-Korsakov had been pouring his "book learning" into students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory for over a decade.<ref name="taruskin_stravinsky29">Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 29.</ref> Beginning with his three years of self-imposed study, Rimsky-Korsakov had drawn closer to Tchaikovsky and further away from the rest of The Five, while the rest of The Five had drawn back from him and Stasov had branded him a "renegade".<ref name="taruskin_stravinsky29"/> [[Richard Taruskin]] wrote, "The older he became, the greater was the irony with which Rimsky-Korsakov looked back on his kuchkist days."<ref>Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 32.</ref> When the young Semyon Kruglikov was considering a future in composition, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the future critic,

<blockquote>About a talent for composition&nbsp;... I can say nothing as yet. You have tried your powers too little&nbsp;... Yes, one can study on one's own. Sometimes one needs advice, but one must study&nbsp;... All of us, that is, I myself and Borodin, and Balakirev, and especially Cui and Mussorgsky, did disdain these things. I consider myself lucky that I bethought myself in time and forced myself to work. As for Balakirev, owing to his insufficient technique he writes little; Borodin, with difficulty; Cui, carelessly; and Mussorgsky, sloppily and often incoherently.<ref>As quoted in Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 33.</ref></blockquote>

Taruskin points out this statement, which Rimsky-Korsakov wrote while Borodin and Mussorgsky were still alive, as proof of his estrangement from the rest of The Five and an indication of the kind of teacher he eventually became.<ref name="taruskin_stravinsky34">Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 34.</ref> By the time he instructed Liadov and Glazunov, "their training hardly differed from [Tchaikovsky's]. An ideal of the strictest professionalism was instilled in them from the beginning."<ref name="taruskin_stravinsky34"/> By the time Borodin died in 1887, the era of autodidactism for Russian composers had effectively ended. Every Russian who aspired to write classical music attended a conservatory and received the same formal education.<ref>Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 40–41.</ref> "There was no more 'Moscow', no 'St. Petersburg'." Taruskin writes; "at last all Russia was one. Moreover, by century's end, the theory and composition faculties of Rubinstein's Conservatory were entirely in the hands of representatives of the New Russian School. Viewed against the background of Stasov's predictions, there could scarcely be any greater irony."<ref>Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 41.</ref>