Musicology Annotation << Back The early symphonic works of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov through the prism of his creative method Prokopyeva Ekaterina P. The article is devoted to the consideration of the first masterpiece of N. Rimsky-Korsakov – the symphonic picture “Sadko” and the Second Symphony “Antar” from the point of view of manifestation of features of composer personality in them. In modern science, the opinion of the composer’s creative lack of independence in his early works was based on the evidence of Rimsky-Korsakov himself in «My Musical Life». With amazing frankness the composer not only points to the strong infl uence of the works of F. Liszt, M. Glinka, M. Balakirev and others on his music, but also gives whole “lists of ingredients” – “alien” musical ideas, with an exact indication of where this material was taken from and for what purposes it was used in the music of Rimsky-Korsakov himself. The study of the “Kuchkist” context of these works, the trait of the author’s interpretation of their plots, the ways of working with borrowed intonation material made it possible to conclude that the fact of using “ready-made” plots and intonations, which is traditionally considered as the result of “alien” influence on the young composer, it is a direct consequence of his individual creative method - the “ready-made word” or rhetorical method. Keywords: Rimsky-Korsakov, "Sadko", "Antar", creative method, "ready-made word", stylization. DOI: 10.25791/musicology.02.2020.1111 Pp. 30-36.