Today the first part with César Cui’s works
This episode of De Wandeling (the stroll) is about the least famous member of ‘The Mighty Little Heap’ – a group of five important Russian composers dedicated to nationalist music in 1865-1870. The well-known names of this group are Nikolaj Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Moessorgski, and Alexander Borodin. Mili Balakirev, the initiator, is slightly less known, but the fifth member is downright obscure: César Cui.
César Antonovitsj Cui was born in Vilnius in 1835. He was the son of a French officer from Napoleon’s army, who, after returning from Moscow, remained in Lithuania and married a Lithuanian woman. In 1851, Cui moved to St. Petersburg where he studied engineering and was accepted in the military academy afterward. He became an expert in the science of fortifications. He tutored several members of The House of Romanov, including the later Czar Nicholas II. Besides his military occupations, he was very interested in music as well. When he was 14 he wrote short compositions and in 1856 he was tutored by the previously mentioned Mili Balakirev.
In his time, Cui was mostly known as a music critic. Between 1864 and 1918, he wrote about 800 articles about music for Russian and European newspapers and other publications. It was remarkable that initially, he seemed to be in favour of the Russian national music style of the other members of The Little Mighty Heap, even though he did not follow that approach. He explained this by saying that the blood flowing through his veins was not Rusian, but French and Lithuanian. Cui’s style is more like that of Robert Schumann or Charles Gounod.
As a composer, Cui was known best for his operas, he wrote 11 of them, and for his songs. Contemporaries, like Rimsky-Korsakov, did not find him very talented, especially not in pieces for many instruments. He was not a very good orchestral either. He was more successful with instrumental miniatures and songs.
Playlist:
- César Cui: Suite for piano, Op. 21. Christoph Deluze, piano
- César Cui: Violin Sonata, Op. 84. Elizaveta Gilels, violin; Emil Gilels, piano
- César Cui: Deux morceaux for cello and orchestra, Op. 36. Steven Isserlis, cello; The Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
- César Cui: three Pushkin Songs (‘If Lives Deceives You’, ‘The Burnt Letter’, and ‘The Joy of My Wild Years’). Nicolai Gedda, tenor; Eva Pataki, piano
- César Cui: two songs (‘You and Thou’ and ‘The FOuntain Statue at Tsarskoyre Selo’). Olga Borodina, mezzo-soprano; Larissa Gergieva, piano
