Mily Balakirev

The Russian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher Mily Balakirev is remembered almost as much for his influence as for his own intensely characterful music. Born in 1837, his piano playing brought him to the attention of Mikhail Glinka, the so-called “father of Russian music”. Inspired, Balakirev set out to create a distinctly Russian school of composition. In St Petersburg, he mentored a group of aspiring composers (including Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov) that would become known as the “Mighty Handful”, and championed advanced western composers such as Berlioz and Liszt. The sheer range of Bakakirev’s activities placed him under severe psychological strain, and in the 1870s he temporarily abandoned music to work as a railway clerk. He worked for over a decade on his symphonic poem Tamara (1882), and for 33 years on his stirring First Symphony (1897). His Second Piano Concerto remained unfinished at his death in 1910. But these works speak with a voice as Russian as their creator, while the dazzling piano fantasy Islamey (1869) still challenges even the greatest of virtuosos.