Belyayev circle
Several composers who believed in the philosophy of the Belyayev circle became professors and heads of music conservatories in Russia, which extended the influence of the group past the physical confines of St. Petersburg and timewise well into the 20th century.
[1] While Nadezhda von Meck insisted on anonymity in her patronage in the tradition of noblesse oblige, Belyayev, Mamontov and Tretyakov "wanted to contribute conspicuously to public life".
To select which composers to assist with money, publication or performances from the many who now appealed for help, Belyayev set up an advisory council made up of Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov.
[7] The better pupils from the St. Petersburg Conservatory received initiation by their invitation to the "quartet Fridays", and admission to the circle "guaranteed well remunerated publication by Edition Belieff, Leipzig, and performance in the Russian Symphony Concert programs".
[7] The Belyayev circle ran counter in its philosophy to the artistic movement and magazine Mir iskusstva (Russian: «Мир иску́сства», World of Art).
In this sense, the Belyayev composers shared similar goals with the Abramtsevo Colony and Russian Revival in the sphere of fine arts.
This practice ran counter to their belief in focusing on "art as the spiritual expression of the individual's creative genius", as they felt Alexander Pushkin had done in his poetry and Tchaikovsky in his music.
His undeniably lavish patronage of Russian music of the newest variety does not, unfortunately, so much facilitate the development of the talents of gifted but as yet unrecognized composers, as it encourages young people who have successfully completed their conservatory course to cultivate productivity come what may, touching little upon the question of their creative abilities.
[11] A contributing factor to this conformism was the gradual academization of composers in the nationalist circle, fueled by Rimsky-Korsakov's efforts in this regard with his students.
[12] An increasing number of these students joined the Belyayev circle; the result was "the emergence of production-line 'Russian style' pieces, polished and correct, but lacking originality".
[17] One of the Belyayev composers, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, continued the Five's work in musical orientalism—the use of exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements to depict the middle- and far-eastern parts of the Russian Empire.
[19] Lyadov wrote in a "fantastic" vein akin to Rimsky-Korsakov's, especially in his tone poems based on Russian fairy tales, Baba Yaga, Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake.
[20] Though he would break from the Belyayev aesthetic in subsequent works, Igor Stravinsky wrote his ballet The Firebird in a similar musical style.
[21] Despite Rimsky-Korsakov's denial of bias among composers of the Belyayev circle,[13] musicologist Solomon Volkov mentions that they and the Five shared a mutual suspicion of compositions that did not follow its canon.
[24] By the reports of many present, the rehearsal that Rimsky-Korsakov had heard, conducted by Glazunov, was both a disaster as a performance and a horrific travesty of the score.
[29] Rimsky-Korsakov's extensive use of the octatonic scale and other harmonic experiments "was a gold mine for those bent on a modernist revolution," Maes writes.
[31] Dmitri Shostakovich would complain about Steinberg's musical conservatism, typified by such phrases as "the inviolable foundations of the kuchka" and the "sacred traditions of Nikolai Andreyevich [Rimsky-Korsakov]".
