Russian night

The quirkily named ‘Mighty Handful’ were a group of composers in St Petersburg in the early nineteenth century who set out to challenge the Western European mode by producing a specific Russian style of music. I learn this from a ‘Lewes Group in Support of Refugees and Asylum Seekers’ volunteer, Sonya Baksi, who is putting on a fund raising evening of words and music called ‘Tales from St Petersburg’, this evening. “It’s all about putting the music into a cultural context”, she tells me. “There was a surge of nationalism after Napoleon had invaded in 1812, and it led to a time of burgeoning Russian music. The establishment of a pure Russian identity became very important to the country. For example, before then the aristocracy had spoken French to each other, but it was at this point that they stopped. The shift was also happening in literature and the visual arts”.

The presentation will also tell the stories of the individual members of the group - Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, “They were all fascinating in their own right”, says Sonia. “Mussorgsky was an alcoholic, Borodin was an internationally renowned doctor and pharmacist, and Cesar was a naval officer. Originally, too, Tchaikovsky had been a part of the group but he broke away to pursue more Western European style music. The others were all writing songs about the orphan boys on the streets and things and he didn’t want to do that. Ironically he’s now the best known," she concludes, "whilst all the others have lapsed into relative obscurity.” ER