Римский-Корсаков
Famous Russian born today:
18 марта [màrta] March 1844
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
(Николай Римский-Корсаков)
was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions - Capriccio Espagnol, Flight of the Bumblebee, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas.
Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy tale and folk subjects. Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical music. This style employed Russian folk song and lore along with exotic harmonic, melodic and rhythmic elements in a practice known as musical orientalism, and avoided traditional Western compositional methods.