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A gopak, a string quartet, a clutch of operas and a trip to Asia find their way into Donald Macleod’s look at the life and music of Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

This week, Donald Macleod traverses the dramatic and vivid musical landscapes of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: a vital, fascinating, and perhaps under-appreciated figure in the evolution of the canon of western art music. His life alone was extraordinary: beginning as a cadet in the Tsar’s navy, it ended soon after the tumult of the 1905 revolution; the prospect of far greater upheaval, national and international, looming. The series celebrates many of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most popular favourites, including the Flight of the Bumblebee, the Russian Festival Overture and Capriccio Espagnol, and Scheherazade, which is heard in instalments across the week: there also are opportunities to hear some of the symphonic works and chamber music; and a focus on the operas, which perhaps deserve to be heard more often than they generally are.

Today, literature and the assimilation of folk music come in to focus.

Mussorgsky arr. Rimsky-Korsakov
Gopak from Sorochintsi Fair
National Orchestra of Ukraine
Theodore Kuchar, conductor

Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op 36
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, conductor

String Quartet in F major, Op 12 (3rd mvt)
Lyric Quartet

Mlada Suite
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Donald Johanos, conductor

The Snow Maiden: Prologue; Dance of the birds
Dzintars Women's Choir
Latvian National Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Vilumanis, conductor

Scheherazade, Op 35 (3rd mvt, The Young Prince and the Young Princess)
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko

Produced by Lyndon Jones for Â鶹Éç Audio Wales and West