Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

by Georg Predota, Interlude While   Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov ’s (1844-1908) symphonic works remain extremely popular, his art songs, commonly termed “Romances,” are largely unknown and unfairly neglected. An integral part of Russian culture, the “Romance” indicated an intimate lyrical genre that was supposed to “touch the soul through both the text and music.” The beginning of the genre is attributed to   Mikhail Glinka   who “integrated the rhythmic and melodic characteristics of Russian primitive music into national art forms.” Repin: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Romances gradually evolved from the pastime of the rich and famous into an acknowledged musical genre. As Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in 1897, “I think that in their requests for melodiousness, sing- ability and expansiveness, singers and the public at large are right… short melodies, fragmentation, music departing from harmonies, and demand for dissonances – are things in themselves undesirable… There was a time (I remem...

Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate was engulfed in flames over the weekend.  Picture: Governor of the Pskov region Mikhail Vedernikov By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM @sophiassocials   Said to have been caused by careless builders, a fire at Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate has done untold damage, destroying thousands of artefacts belonging to the 19th-century Russian composer. This weekend, a fire broke out in the estate and memorial museum of 19th-century composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Over half of the exhibits have been destroyed in the blaze, which has devastated more than 1,000 artefacts. Born in the town of Tikhvin, 200km east of St Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov was a prolific composer, scoring a considerable body of nationalistic music including orchestral, choral, and operatic works. He is particularly notable for being one of ‘The Five’, a collection of five Russian composers including  Modest Mussorgsky , and  Alexander Borodin , who led the way i...

... at 325bpm – and Twitter went mad for it... By Maddy Shaw Roberts 6K A young Indian pianist appeared on The World’s Best, and impressed everyone with a prestissimo rendition of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’. Lydian Nadhaswaram, a 12-year-old  pianist  from Chennai, India played three versions of Nikolai  Rimsky-Korsakov ’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’, at increasingly fast metronome markings. He played the piece at its original marking (160bpm), before challenging himself to play it at 208bpm and 325bpm. His performance, broadcast on TV talent competition  The World’s Best,  impressed judges Drew Barrymore, RuPaul and Faith Hill, as well as host James Corden. Lydian Nadhaswaram is from Chennai, India.  Picture: The World's Best ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ is a notoriously difficult piece of music which the composer wrote as an orchestral interlude for his opera,  The Tale of Tsar Saltan . It is meant ...