Belyayev Circle - Folklorism, Orientalism, "fantastic" Style

Folklorism, Orientalism, "fantastic" Style

Unlike their predecessors in the Five, composers in the Belyalev circle did not concern themselves greatly with folklorism—the invention or adaptation of folklore to newly-written stories or songs, or to folklore that is reworked and modified for modern tastes. They also did not travel to other parts of Russia to actively search for folk songs, as Balakirev had done. When the Belyalev composers produced folkloric works, "they simply imitated Balakirev's or Rimsky-Korsakov's styles".

One of the Belyayev composers, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, continued the Five's work in musical orientalism—the use of exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements to depict the middle- and far-eastern parts of the Russian Empire. He wrote three operas set in an oriental background and composed in Balakirev's style—Ruth, Azra and Izmena. The story for the last of these operas "deals with the struggle between Christians and Muslims during the sixteenth-century occupation of Georgia by the Persians". Ippolotov-Ivanov is best known in the West for his two sets of Caucasian Sketches "an orientalist orchestral work modeled on Balakirev and Borodin".

Lyadov wrote in a "fantastic" vein akin to Rimsky-Korsakov's, especially in his tone poems based on Russian fairy tales, Baba Yaga, Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake. This style of musical writing was based on extensive use of the whole tone scale and the octatonic scale to depict supernatural or magical characters and events, hence the term "fantastic". Though he would break from the Belyayev aesthetic in subsequent works, Igor Stravinsky wrote his ballet The Firebird in a similar musical style.