Piano Music - Mily Balakirev

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Balakirev Mili

📖 "The part he played in the development of Russian music is incomparably important, and after Glinka first place in the history of Russian music should be allotted to Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev."
S.M. Lyapunov (1910)

📖 "Balakirev made a great impression on me from the very beginning. He was an excellent pianist, and his capacity for playing at sight and extemporizing was boundless… He had a wide knowledge of music of all kinds and was able to call to mind, at any moment, every bar he had ever heard or read… We were completely bewitched by his talents, his authority, his magnetism…"
Rimsky-Korsakov Record of my Musical Life

📖 "Balakirev's personality is the strongest in the whole group… His talent is amazing, but various fatal draw-backs have helped to extinguish it… In spite of his wonderful gifts, he has done a lot of harm… He is the inventor of all the theories of this extraordinary circle, in which are to be found so many undeveloped, incorrectly developed, or prematurely decayed talents."
Tchaikovsky in a Letter to Madame von Meck (1877)

📖 "Balakireff. Musicien de premier ordre, juge inexorable pour ses propre compositions, connaissant à fond toute la littérature musicale, tant ancienne que moderne, Balakireff est surtout symphoniste.
César Cui La musique en Russie, 1880

📖 "I am of the opinion that he could have achieved much more than he did achieve. At one time he had all music in his hands. He could have been at the head of the Conservatoire and also at the head of the Imperial Opera. He conducted the symphony concerts and made much of the Free School of Music. The musical powers-that-be were ready to patronize him. But Mily Alexeyevich found it difficult to get on with people. He was a man of independent nature, not a good mizer, perhaps rather disobliging. He was not in the habit of paying compliments. Balakirev undertook much, but, thanks to his disposition, soon had to give up."
César Cui Recollections

📖 "Balakireff, Mily Alexejewitsch, already, as a boy, took part in concerts, but went to the Gymnasium, and attended the University at Kasan in order to study mathematics and physics; through friendly intercourse with A. v. Ulibischev, he resolved to devote himself to music. In 1855 he appeared at Petersburg as pianist with great success. In 1862, jointly with Lamakin, he founded the 'Free School of Music,' under the patronage of the Grand Prince, heir to the throne. In 1865 he went to Prague to the Czechish theatre, to put Glinka's Russian and Ludmilla into rehearsal. From 1867 he was sole director of the Free School, conducted the concerts of the Russian Society of Music from 1867 to 1870, but in 1872 retired altogether into private life. Balakirev pays homage to the Berlioz-Liszt tendencies. His principal works are: Ouvertures on Russian, Spanish, and Czechish themes, symphonic poem, 'Tamara,' music to King Lear, an Oriental fantasia for pianoforte ('Islamey'), piano pieces, piano arrangements of overtures by Glinka and Berlioz, etc., as well as a collection of Russian popular melodies."
Hugo Riemann Dictionary of Music (1896)

Mily Balakirev

1837 (Nizhny Novgorod) - 1910
Mili Balakirev was a Russian composer, conductor, teacher and pianist. Balakirev was the founder of the group now known as The Five (a.k.a., The Mighty Handful) which also included Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

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Find Piano Music by Balakirev

Books & Biographies about Mily Balakirev

Some Recordings of Balakirev's Piano and Other Music

Balakirev - Islamey, An Oriental Fantasy
Grigory Romanovich Ginzburg, piano

Balakirev - Complete Piano Works
Alexander Paley, piano

List of Piano Music by Mily Balakirev

Fantasia on themes from Glinka’s Zhizn′ za tsarya
1st version (1854–6)
2nd version (1899) as Réminiscences de l’opéra ‘La vie pour le czar’

Sonata no.1, b♭, op.5 (1855–6)

Nocturne no.1, b♭
1st version g♯ (1856)
2nd version b♭ (1898)

Fandango-étude (1856), revised as Ispanskaya serenada (1902)

Scherzo no.1, b (1856)

Polka, f♯ (1859)

Impromptu, f (1850–60)

Mazurka no.1, A♭
1st version (1861)
2nd version (1884–5)

Mazurka no.2
1st version, b (1861)
2nd version, c♯ (1884)

Na Volge [On the Volga], pf 4-hands (1863)

Zhavoronok [The Lark], based on Glinka’s song
1st version (1864)
2nd version (1900)

Islamey, oriental fantasy
1st version (1869)
2nd version (1902)

Au jardin, D♭ (1884)

Mazurka no.3, b (1886)

Mazurka no.4, G♭ (1886)

Pustïnya [The Wilderness] (1898)
arranged of no.2 of Balakirev’s 10 songs, 1895–6

30 russkikh narodnïkh pesen [30 Russian Folksongs], pf 4-hands (1898)
arranged of Balakirev’s 2nd collection, 1898

Dumka, e♭ (1900)

Mazurka no.5, D (1900)

Scherzo no.2, b♭ (1900)

Valse di bravura no.1, G (1900)

Valse mélancholique no.2, f (1900)

Sonata, b♭ (1900–05)

Berceuse, D♭ (1901)

Gondellied, a (1901)

Nocturne no.2, b (1901)

Scherzo no.3, F♯ (1901)

Valse-impromptu no.3, D (1901)

Tarantella, B (1901)

Capriccio, D (1902)

Mélodie espagnole (1902)

Sérénade espagnole (1902)

Mazurka no.6, A♭ (1902)

Nocturne no.3, d (1902)

Toccata, c♯ (1902)

Tyrolienne, F♯ (1902)

Waltz no.4, B♭ (1902)

Chant du pêcheur, b (1903)

Humoresque, D (1903)

Phantasiestück, D♭ (1903)

Rêverie, F (1903)

Waltz no.5, D♭ (1903)

Waltz no.6, f♯ (1903)

La fileuse, b♭ (1906)

Mazurka no.7, e♭ (1906)

Novelette, A (1906)

Waltz no.7, g♯ (1906)

Impromptu (1907)
based on Chopin’s Preludes, e♭ and B

Esquisses (Sonatina), G (1909)

Suite, pf 4-hands (1909): Polonaise, Chansonette sans paroles, Scherzo

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