Nationalist Composers

With the rise of nationalist sentiment that took place in the nineteenth century, and authors and artists turning back to their ethnic heritage for inspiration, many composers began to draw on the musical traditions of their homelands and write in a distinctly nationalist style.

Many composers of this time are inseparable from their native lands. In Russia, the "Mighty Five" (Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky, and Alexander Borodin) dominated the musical scene. Antonín Dvořák became the most famous composer from Czechia. Giuseppe Verdi from Italy, Richard Wagner from Germany, John Philip Sousa from the United States, and Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst from Great Britain are just a few further examples of composers who popularized the musical styles and folklore of their home countries.

We will look at some of these composers in more detail later on.