Mighty Handful: Five Individuals, One Target

Even though Russian music had a late start of the composed music, it was very rich with content and groups it formed within time. Mikhail Glinka was the ancestor of the composed music in Russia, but other people like Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin were predecessors who brought their perspectives to form new Russian composed music.

Those people formed group called the Mighty Handful or the Five. They collaborated from 1856 to 1870 in Saint Petersburg. In order to understand the mission of these composers, it is important to learn about each member separately because all of them had one common goal- incorporate “Russianness” into the composed music. The name of the Mighty Handful firstly showed up in May 1867 in a newspaper article after a concert that had been hold for at the "All-Russian Ethnographical Exhibition" in Moscow.

In fact, only two members were preforming at that concert: Mily Balakirev and Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov with two other composer Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dragomyzhsky. A close friend of Mily Balakirev Vladimir Stasov wrote: “God grant that our Slav guests may never forget today's concert; God grant that they may forever preserve the memory of how much poetry, feeling, talent, and intelligence are possessed by the small but already mighty handful of Russian musicians. This article demonstrated how powerful were the composers that they very able to depict all of their emotions into a single performance. This performance was a foundation of the Five.

The actual year when the Mighty Handful was established in 1856 when Balakirev and Cesar Cui met each other. Afterwards, Mussorgksy, Rimsky- Korsakov and Borodin joined those composers to form the circle in 1862. The group was mostly composed of young men from age 18 (Nikolay Rimsky- Korsakov) to 28 (Alexander Borodin). It infers that talent did not have any age barriers, everything depended on the attachment to the music. The age difference also reflected in their music pieces because older composers were more experienced and less futuristic than the younger ones. However, there was also a balance and a shared value among those composers, otherwise, this circle would not exist.

Besides being a composer each of the member of the Five had his own specialization. All of them were self-trained amateurs without a specific conservatory education like the Westerners. Mily Balakirev was a poor mathematician who has received his degree in the University of Kazan and he always struggled to get money, he even gave private lessons to have enough money to survive. The motives of poverty are included in his compositions because it was the way Balakirev expressed his emotions. Cesar Cui was not that famous as other members of the Five because he was an army officer who was born Vilnius, Lithuania. He was way too busy to devote his whole life to music; however, he rose into Engineer- General (full General nowadays). All of the members tried to incorporate their life motives and believes into their composed pieces.

That’s probably why he was able to demonstrate the idea of orientalism in his piece Scheherazade where he demonstrated the East culture through the lens of Russian music. He was a dreamer, therefore, he reflected it in his fairy-tail the Snow Maiden demonstrating the duality of losing the maiden. The world lost the Snow Maiden, but it brought the Spring season. He was a rationalist who believed that individual sacrifices should be made in order to help the society. At the same time, Alexander Borodin was a chemist who was not afraid to take a risk. He wrote an opera called Prince Igor to show the separation of the Russian culture. He used the lens of Russian and Polovtsian tribes to show the separation in the Russian Empire. He wanted to point out that Russian orientalism had a great influence of the formation of Russian culture.

Modest Mussorgsky was part of the prestigious Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard, he would have a successful career there if he did not encounter drinking issues. [footnoteRef:8] He was cooperating with famous Russian painter Viktor Hartaman. The collaboration of these artists created both visual and musical representation of Russianness in a piece called Pictures at an Exhibition. All of those authors had their own contribution to Russian music. Despite being self-educated they were able to accomplish the same goal depicting Russian culture in their music. Mussorgsky also was a composer who often referred to the Russian orthodox church to show the religious lens through the bell ringing. One of the examples of his religious attachment is the coronation scene in his opera Boris Godunov.

Alexander Pushkin was a reference for some of the member of the Five. Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgksy and Ruslan and Ludmila by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov would be considered as the most notable works by the Five. Even though, the Five faced an opposition from brother Rubenstein and conservatory music, they did not stop to produce brilliant music pieces which depicted both the orientalism and Russianness in music. This allowed the Five to set the Russian music apart from the German symphonism of Anton Rubenstein. [footnoteRef:9] The five was able to incorporate pentatonic scale which is a way to reproduce the folk music and define Eastern elements more clearly. The five was able to include heard song in villages, Cossack and Caucasian dances and even the church chants. The word “kuchka” reflects the mission of this group to collectively promote Russian music and create its own style. This group from different backgrounds were able to find a harmony and cooperate for around 14 years. They even inspired the group of six French composers to emulate them in the assembly called Les Six.