The Five (composers)

The Five or The Mighty Five was the loose collection of five Russian composers in St Petersburg, who met during 1856-1862, including: Mily Balakirev (the leader), Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Known in Russian as The mighty handful (Russian: Могучая кучка, Mogučaja kučka, literally Mighty [Little] Heap, and often translated as The Mighty Fist; also known as The Russian Five, or The New Russian School in English-speaking countries, and by comparable translations in other languages), the group label was applied in 1867 by the critic Vladimir Stasov to the loose collection of Russian composers brought together under the leadership of Mily Balakirev. The group had the aim of producing a specifically Russian kind of art music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European-style conservatory training. In a sense, they were a branch of the Romantic Nationalism movement in Russia, with the Abramtsevo Colony and Russian Revival striving to achieve similar goals in the sphere of fine arts.

The Russian version of the name spawned the term "kuchkist", which may be applied to artistic aims or works in tune with the sensibilities of The Five.

The formation of the group began in 1856, with the first meeting of Balakirev and César Cui; Modest Mussorgsky joined them in 1857, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1861, and Alexander Borodin in 1862. Before them, Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyzhsky had gone some way towards producing a distinctly Russian kind of music, writing operas on Russian subjects, but The Five represented the first concentrated attempt to develop such a music, with Stasov as their artistic advisor and Dargomyzhsky as an elder statesman to the group, so to speak.

As a group The Five began to fall apart during the 1870s, no doubt partially due to the fact that Balakirev withdrew from musical life early in the decade for a period of time. All of "The Five" are buried in Tikhvin Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Except perhaps for Cui, the members of this group influenced and/or taught many of the great Russian composers who were to follow, including Alexander Glazunov, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The name of Les Six, an even looser collection of French-speaking composers, emulates that of 'The Five'.