Russian Music

Russian music, in this classical sense, is the art-music tradition that emerged in the nineteenth century when *Mikhail Glinka* fused European technique with Russian folk melody and Orthodox chant. The nationalist Five, *Balakirev*, *Cui*, *Mussorgsky*, *Borodin* and *Rimsky-Korsakov*, built an idiom of folk-derived melody, modal colour and programme orchestration, while *Tchaikovsky* recast it in symphonic and balletic forms of international reach. Its line runs through *Rachmaninoff* and *Scriabin* to the Soviet masters *Stravinsky*, *Prokofiev* and *Shostakovich*, making Russianness itself a stylistic category.