NATIONAL SCHOOLS

National schools are a musical movement that emerged in the second half of the 19th century in response to the influence of German Romanticism and Italian opera. This movement aimed to emphasize and promote the values and beauty of individual nations through folk music and folklore.
National schools owe their origins to Romanticism, which has always proclaimed freedom, allowing individual nations to voluntarily seek their own artistic styles. Artists began to strive for their own new aesthetics, closer to them for cultural reasons. The art of the first half of the 19th century belonged to three countries: France, Germany, and Italy, which imposed musical styles and tastes on the entire European society. When people began to realize the value of their own culture, influenced by historical events such as the Independence of the United States or the Congress of Vienna, nationalist ideas began to emerge, which also had an impact on music.
The first composers in whose works a hint of folklore can be noticed were Fryderyk Chopin (polonaises and mazurkas), Franz Liszt (Hungarian rhapsodies), Giuseppe Verdi (who incorporated folk melodies into his operas). However, countries such as Russia, Spain, Hungary, and the Scandinavian countries, which had long been under the influence of German and Italian music, eventually became the countries where national schools had the greatest significance.

RUSSIA
The first work created in the national school movement was composed in Russia in 1836 and it was the opera "A Life for the Tsar" by Mikhail Glinka. This work tells the story of a Russian national hero, so both the plot and the music are typically Russian. Then in 1855 and 1871, the operas "Rusalka" and "The Stone Guest" by Alexander Dargomyzhsky were created, which in their aesthetics continued the work of Mikhail Glinka. The peak of the national movement in Russia came with the so-called Mighty Handful, which included: Mily Balakirev, a self-taught pianist, creator of the symphonic poem "Tamara"; Alexander Borodin composed the opera "Prince Igor" and the symphonic poem "In the Steppes of Central Asia"; Cesar Cui, inspired by Russian folklore, created the opera "William Ratcliff"; Modest Mussorgsky, who perhaps delved the most into Russian music and drawing inspiration from the history of Tsar Boris, wrote the opera "Boris Godunov" and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, author of "Scheherazade".

Mikhail Glinka aria from the opera "A Life for the Tsar". Sung by soloist Nikolai Gedda.

Alexander Borodin "In the Steppes of Central Asia" performed by Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Kurt Sanderling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaO9FBtDzyk

SCANDINAVIA
In Finland, which was connected to the Russian Empire for a long time, the symphonic poem "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius was created in 1899, which ignited the patriotic fervor of the Finns. In Norway, the music for Henrik Ibsen's poem titled "Peer Gynt" by Edvard Grieg became the best representation of the Norwegian national school.

Morning Mood from "Peer Gynt" by Edvard Grieg. Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sF_mQLXs_s

CZECH REPUBLIC
The comic opera "The Bartered Bride" (1886) by Bedrich Smetana, promoting national feelings, became a symbol of Czech nationalism. The next representatives of Czech national music were Antonin Dvorak and Leos Janacek.

Finale of the opera "The Bartered Bride" by Bedrich Smetana. Performed by the National Theatre in Prague.

HUNGARY
Bela Bartok, a researcher of folk music, one of the precursors of musical ethnography and author of many works inspired by Hungarian folklore. He composed the symphonic poem "Kossuth" (1903) praising the name of the Hungarian national hero, the leader of the revolution. His compatriot Zoltan Kodaly was a musical ethnographer, mainly composing songs based on folk music. He is the author of the opera "Hary Janos" (1926), whose main character is a figure from Hungarian folklore, a symbol of courage and bravery, who opposes the power of Napoleon.

"15 Hungarian Peasant Songs" by Bela Bartok. With pianist Balazs Szokolay.

SPAIN
The Spanish national movement began a little later than in other countries, yet the artists who created within its framework left many works saturated with elements of folklore. Among them are Isaac Albeniz, author of the Spanish Suite and the orchestral suite "Catalonia" (1899); Enrique Granados, who composed "Goyescas" (1919), a suite inspired by the work of the outstanding Spanish painter Francisco de Goya; and Manuel de Falla, who drew inspiration from the beautiful Alhambra Palace in Granada to write "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" (1915).

"Nights in the Gardens of Spain" by Manuel de Falla. With pianist Katarzyna Musial, accompanied by the Orchestre Symphonique de l'Isle conducted by Christian Gort.

POLAND
Stanislaw Moniuszko was the founder of Polish opera. He incorporated elements of Polish folklore into his works, and composed over 200 of his songs to folk lyrics. His successors were Zygmunt Noskowski (author of the first Polish symphonic poem "Step"), Wladyslaw Zelenki, who continued Moniuszko's operatic work basing his operas on Polish literary texts, and Ignacy Jan Paderewski, an independence activist who infused the spirit of Poland into his compositions.

"Step" by Zygmunt Noskowski performed by the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic.