César Cui

Cesarius-Benjaminus Cui was born in Wilno, Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Vilnius, Lithuania) into a Catholic family of French and Polish–Lithuanian descent, the youngest of five children.

"[4] His French father, Antoine (Anton Leonardovich) Cui, entered Russia with Napoleon's army; in 1812, he was injured during the battle near Smolensk and (following the defeat) would settle in Vilnius.

As a boy in Vilnius, he received piano lessons, studied Chopin's works, and began composing little pieces at fourteen years of age.

[16] In 1869, the first public performance of an opera by Cui took place, William Ratcliff (based on the tragedy by Heinrich Heine); it did not ultimately have success, partially because of the harshness of his own writings in the music press.

[17][18] All but one of his operas were composed to Russian texts; the one exception, Le flibustier (based on a play by Jean Richepin), premiered in 1894 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris (twenty-five years after Ratcliff), but it did not succeed either.

In addition, Liszt valued the music of Russian composers quite highly; for Cui's opera William Ratcliff, he expressed some of the highest praise.

Shortly after the staging of Le flibustier in Paris, Cui was elected as a correspondent member of the Académie Française and was awarded the cross of the Légion d'honneur.

Lidiya, an amateur singer, married and had a son named Yuri Borisovich Amoretti; in the period before the October Revolution, Aleksandr was a member of the Russian Senate.

[citation needed] Cui's primary goal as a critic was to promote the music of contemporary Russian composers, especially the works of his now better-known co-members of The Five.

[37] Later in life, Cui championed the music of this late colleague of his to the point of making the first completion of Mussorgsky's unfinished opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi.

For instance, Cui lambasted Tchaikovsky's second performed opera, The Oprichnik,[39] and his stinging remarks about Rachmaninoff's Symphony No.1[40] are often cited; fortunately, both works have survived their unfavorable premieres for posterity.

[42] Late in life, Cui's presumed progressiveness (as espoused in the 1860s and '70s) faded, and he showed firm hostility towards the younger "modernists" such as Richard Strauss and Vincent d'Indy.

[43] Cui's last published articles (from 1917) constituted merciless parodies, including the little song "Hymn to Futurism" and "Concise Directions on How to Become a Modern Composer of Genius without Being a Musician".

[44] Cui composed in almost all genres of his time, with the distinct exceptions of the symphony, symphonic poem and the solo concerto (unlike his compatriots Balakirev, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov).

Some of his most famous art songs include "The Statue at Tsarskoye Selo" ("Царскосельская статyя") and "The Burnt Letter," ("Сожжённое письмо"), both based on poems by Cui's most valued poet, Alexander Pushkin.

Besides children's music (which includes four fairytale operas as well as the aforementioned songs), three other special categories of compositions stand out among his works: pieces inspired by and dedicated to the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau (whom the composer knew from 1885 to her death in 1890), works associated with the Circle of Russian Music Lovers (the "Kerzin Circle"), and pieces inspired by the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.

[citation needed] In the last few decades, Puss in Boots (from Perrault), one of the four children's operas he composed, has gained wide appeal in Germany.