Free Music School

The Free Music School (Russian: бесплатная музыкальная школа, abbreviated as BMS or БМШ) is a private music and educational organization in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was founded in 1862 on the initiative of M. A. Balakirev and G. Ya. Lomakin. Officially, on the basis of the charter, the school began its existence on November 11, 1867, and was under imperial patronage. The directors of the school were G. Ya. Lomakin (in 1867-1868), M. A. Balakirev (1867-1873 and 1881-1908), N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1874-1881), S. M. Lyapunov (1908 -1917).

Balakirev saw the goal of the school “in delivering free musical education to insufficient people to ennoble their aspirations and to make decent church choirs out of them <...>, as well as to develop new talents from them through the preparation of soloists.” BMS students were residents of the capital, without age and social restrictions. The school received its first premises at the Medico-Surgical Academy. Later (in 1871-1900) BMS was located in the building of the St. Petersburg City Duma, which was provided without rent.

The Free Music School was conceived by its founders not only as an educational organization, but also as a concert organization (concert fees were an important source of the school's income). Concerts of the BMSh (choral conducted by Lomakin and orchestral by Balakirev) in the 1860s and 1870s became a platform for promoting new Russian music. The quality of the pupils upon their entry is noted to have been relatively low, Cesar Cui noting that most students at the beginning of their studies could not read any music.[1] They performed works by M. I. Glinka , A. S. Dargomyzhsky, and especially by the composers of The Mighty Handful. Due to the lack of financial resources, the activities of the school from the second half of the 1880s were limited to vocal classes and the teaching of elementary music theory. Concerts, which were once an obligatory component of the educational process, have become a rarity (the last concert of the BMS, dedicated to the memory of Balakirev, took place on March 5, 1911).

Among the teachers of the BMS (in addition to Lomakin, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov) are N. P. Bryansky, A. I. Rubets, V. N. Paskhalov, G. O. Dyutsh, and V. M. Kutkin. Among the graduates of the school is the first performer of the part of Boris Godunov, singer I. A. Melnikov.

The school's student body began to drastically reduce by the late 1860s after Gavriil lomakin stepped away from leadership in 1868, and soon dissolved in 1917 due to the beginning of the revolution.[1] The successor of the BMS in St. Petersburg (since 1918) was the Musical School named after N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov[2]_[rus].