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From a night on a bare mountain to 1001 nights in Asia, Donald Macleod continues exploring the life and evocative musical images of Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

This week, Donald Macleod traverses the dramatic and vivid musical landscapes of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: a vital, fascinating, and perhaps under-appreciated figure in the evolution of the canon of western art music. His life alone was extraordinary: beginning as a cadet in the Tsar’s navy, it ended soon after the tumult of the 1905 revolution; the prospect of far greater upheaval, national and international, looming.

The series celebrates many of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most popular favourites, including the Flight of the Bumblebee, the Russian Festival Overture and Capriccio Espagnol, and Scheherazade, which is heard in instalments across the week: there also are opportunities to hear some of the symphonic works and chamber music; and a focus on the operas, which perhaps deserve to be heard more often than they generally are.

Tuesday's programme looks at his friendship with fellow composer Modest Mussorgsky and the other members of the so-called Mighty Handful.

The Maid of Pskov: Overture
Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Igor Golovchin, conductor

Mussorgsky arr. Rimsky-Korsakov
Night on the Bare Mountain
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
Theodore Kuchar, conductor

Rimsky-Korsakov
Legend of Sadko, Op 5
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor

Quintet
Nash Ensemble

Scheherazade, Op 35 (1st mvt, The Sea and Sinbad's Ship)
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Vassily Petrenko, conductor

Produced by Lyndon Jones for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Audio Wales and West