Mily Balakirev - 3 Scherzi

00:00 No.1 - Presto - Joseph Banowetz
07:14 No.2 - Allegro Moderato - Ronald Smith
14:38 No.3 - Mikhail Kollontay

Mily Balakirev (1836-1910) was a Russian Composer. Balakirev's musical talents did not remain unnoticed, as he soon found a patron in Alexander Ulybyshev (Oulibicheff). Ulybyshev was considered the leading musical figure and patron in Nizhny Novgorod; he owned a vast musical library and was the author of a biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and other books on Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Glinka sparked a passion for Russian nationalism in Balakirev, until his death in 1857.
He had also started meeting other important figures who would abet him in this goal in 1856, including César Cui, Alexander Serov, the Stasov brothers and Alexander Dargomyzhsky.
He gathered around him composers with similar ideals, whom he promised to train according to his own principles. These included Modest Mussorgsky in 1858, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in November 1861 and Alexander Borodin in November or December 1862.

The formation of The Five paralleled the early years of Tsar Alexander II, a time of innovation and reform in the political and social climate in Russia.
The Russian Musical Society (RMS) and the musical conservatories in St. Petersburg and Moscow were all established at this time. While these institutions had powerful champions in Anton Rubinstein and Nikolai Rubinstein, others feared the influence of German instructors and musical precepts into Russian classical music.
Balakirev attacked Rubinstein for his conservative musical tastes, especially for his leaning on German masters such as Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and for his insistence on professional musical training. Moreover, Rubinstein was of German and Jewish descent, and Balakirev's comments were at times anti-Semitic and xenophobic.
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