As a music critic, this man published over 800 articles using a pseudonym with three asterisks, in which he expressed his dislike of music written before Beethoven and denounced modernists like Vincent d’Indy (“van-SAWN dan-DEE”). For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this amateur composer and military engineer, whose music reached a peak of popularity during World War I with his anti-German one-act opera Mademoiselle Fifi.
ANSWER: César Cui (“KYOO-ee”)
[10e] Cui was a member of a group of this many Russian nationalist composers that was dubbed the “Mighty Handful,” although that did not stop him from lambasting fellow member Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov.
ANSWER: five [accept “The Five” or “The Mighty Five”]
[10m] Cui harshly criticized Anton, a virtuoso pianist from this family whose pedagogy emphasized Western European methods. Nikolai, another virtuoso from this family, became a champion of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto.
ANSWER: Rubinstein family [accept Anton Rubinstein or Nikolai Rubinstein]
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