Why do we pounce on Wagner’s anti-Semitism, and ignore that of the Russian composers?

Before ‘nationalism’ became a dirty word, it was the inspiration for all sorts of idealistic and reform-minded people. This was never more true than in the history of music. Clearly, subsequent events have discredited some of those 19th-century ideals. It is striking, however, that we have become uncomfortable with Wagner’s German nationalism while continuing to regard Smetana’s Czech nationalism as an admirable, even inspiring quality. At times one feels that some musical nationalists are given too easy a ride — as if what happened in the opera house couldn’t conceivably affect anything outside it.

A notable instance is the case of the remarkable group of composers which gathered in 1850s Russia around Mily Balakirev and were forever afterwards referred to as ‘the Five’, or ‘the Mighty Handful’. Though there had been some interest in Russian folk music previously (Glinka had already written a couple of heroic operas, A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Ludmila), Balakirev’s circle was the first to create a sort of music specifically and exclusively Russian.

Of this group of five, César Cui has the least to be said for him, being a composer of four-square salon music of no great polish. But the other four are fascinating. Balakirev himself was chronically unable to write anything down, so his influence was largely confined to a few marvellous songs, solo piano pieces and performances on the piano of forthcoming orchestral works. Then there was Alexander Borodin, a chemistry professor with a demanding, insomniac wife. His was a beautiful natural talent though he was unable ever to finish anything. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov astonished his audience by appearing at his first symphony in full uniform — he was a naval officer — and his belief in discipline and accuracy ultimately separated him from the rest of the group. Soon he had taken on a professorship of composition and was writing deadly dull fugues.