On the centenary of his death this study day will trace the life and work of Rimsky–Korsakov, not only the most prolific of Russia’s major composers, but also an innovator whose ideas were taken up by modernists like Debussy and Stravinsky. The career of this consummate professional had unlikely beginnings, for the young Rimsky–Korsakov had a full–time profession to follow as an officer in the Imperial Navy, and he could only study composition in his spare moments. But he was later able to devote much more time to his music during that exciting period when he developed a “Russian style” in close collaboration with his friends, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Cui. Never satisfied and always striving for perfection, he went on to complete fifteen operas and a substantial body of symphonic works, and as if this were not enough, he also devoted much time to the revision and editing of his friends’ music, which had often been left in an incomplete form. Gradually, Rimsky–Korsakov became the face of Russian music, its grand old man and greatest influence. As we consider Rimsky–Korsakov and his achievement, we will at the same time have to address the burning issues of Russian music. What does it mean to write national music?

Marina Frolova–Walker is a Russian–born and Russian–trained musicologist who is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. She has published widely on Russian and Soviet music, including substantial entries in the revised New Grove Dictionary. Her first book–length study Russian Music and Nationalism, is forthcoming at the end of 2007 from Yale University Press.

Tickets: £25   (to include a light lunch, a glass of wine and tea)