I may very well be the only one at this point who hits the college gym wearing a Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov t-shirt. Of course, I don’t hit the gym as much as I should, but when I do, it is Rimsky who shares my triumph. I bike, I lift, I do leg-presses, but what I really need to work on is my core. Rimsky-core-sakov?

I can’t guarantee that I’ll go to the gym today, but I just might, since it happens to be the anniversary of Rimsky-Korsakov’s birth. Perhaps I’ll warble the “Russian Easter Festival Overture” as I pedal. Or I could just go to Carvel and see if they’ll make me a Rimsky-Korsakov ice cream cake.

Join me today on The Classical Network as we revel in Rimsky’s music, as well as that of fellow birthday celebrants, Paul Le Flem and Gian Francesco Malipiero.

Le Flem’s works are strongly influenced by his native Brittany. We’ll hear some orchestral selections from his opera, “The Magician of the Sea.” The opera is a variation on the same story as that told in Édouard Lalo’s “Le roi d’Ys” and suggested by Claude Debussy’s “La Cathédrale engloutie,” an ancient Breton legend about a submerged city.

Malipiero was a member of the so-called “Generazione dell’ottanta” (Generation of ’80), a group of Italian composers all born around 1880, of which Ottorino Respighi is the most famous. We’ll hear Malipiero’s colorfully orchestrated “Tre commedie goldoniane,” as the title suggests, inspired by three comedies of the Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni.

Rimsky-Korsakov taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatory for nearly 40 years. Dmitri Shostakovich was only two at the time of Rimsky’s death, but he went on to study at the conservatory under one of Rimsky’s students (and his son-in-law), Maximilian Steinberg. As we draw ever closer to our celebration of Bach’s birthday, March 21, we’ll enjoy one of Shostakovich’s Bach-inspired 24 Preludes and Fugues.

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