Belyayev Circle - Comparison To The Five

Comparison To The Five

The composers who formed the Belyayev circle were nationalistic in their outlook, as were the Five before them. Like the Five, they believed in a uniquely Russian style of classical music that utilized folk music and exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements, as exemplified by the music of Balakirev, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Unlike the Five, these composers also believed in the necessity of an academic, Western-based background in composition. The necessity of Western compositional techniques was something that Rimsky-Korsakov had instilled in many of them in his years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Compared to the "revolutionary" composers in Balakirev's circle, Rimsky-Korsakov found those in the Belyayev circle to be "progressive ... attaching as it did great importance to technical perfection, but ... also broke new paths, though more securely, even if less speedily...."

Glazunov's attitude toward outside influences was typical of the Belyayev circle. He studied Tchaikovsky's works and "found much that was new ... that was instructive for us as young musicians. It struck me that Tchaikovsky, who was above all a lyrical and melodic composer, had introduced operatic elements into his symphonies. I admired the thematic material of his works less than the inspired unfolding of his thoughts, his temperament and the constructural perfection." Rimsky-Korsakov noted "a tendency toward eclecticism" among the composers in the Belyayev circle, as well as a "predilection ... for Italian-French music of the time of wig and farthingale, music introduced by Tchaikovsky in his Queen of Spades and Iolanthe".

Nevertheless, while the Belyayev circle was more tolerant of outside influence to a certain degree than their predecessors under Balakirev, they still followed the compositional practices of the Five closely. Maes writes, "The harmonies of Mussorgsky's coronation scene in Boris, the octotonicism of Mlada and Sadko, Balakirev's folk-song stylizations, Rimsky-Korsakov's colorful harmonization—all these served as a store of recipes for writing Russian national music. In the portrayal of the national character ... these techniques prevailed over the subjects portrayed".