Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Rimsky-Korsakov came to composition as a naval officer, his childhood passion for the sea fed by books and his brother's stories; that love may have seeded Sadko and Scheherazade. A member of The Five, he initially pursued a nationalistic Russian style rooted in folk song and orientalist color, rejecting Western methods. But in 1871, newly appointed professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, he undertook three years of rigorous self-teaching to master the techniques he'd once dismissed, fusing them with the influences of Glinka and later Wagner. As Inspector of Naval Bands he deepened his command of winds and brass, knowledge he passed to students and distilled in a posthumous orchestration textbook completed by his son-in-law. He prepared works by The Five for performance - controversially editing Mussorgsky - and became the main architect of what the world hears as the Russian style, teaching two generations and shaping composers from Ravel and Debussy to Respighi.