The Leader of "The Five"

In 1837 on this day, Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev was born in Russia. He was a very skilled pianist, and is known for organizing a group of Russian musicians/composers known as "The Mighty Handful" or "The Five", which included Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Borodin. Although Balakirev was the only professional musician amongst them, they were influential in bringing about a "Romantic nationalism" in Russian music.

I'm apparently not alone in knowing only one piece by Balakirev. His music is not widely played, except for one piece, particularly popular with pianists, due to it's impressive difficulty - "Islamey: an oriental fantasy". You can view it here played by Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky. This piece is pretty crazy. Watch the fingers fly, especially during the last minute or so.