A coterie of accomplished and versatile musicians which yields to none for intrinsic charm, vitality, and poetic spontaneity is that of the so-called Neo-Russians, self-styled 'the Invincible Band.' Resenting Rubinstein's almost total surrender to Teutonic standards, and scorning Tschaikowsky as representing a pitiable compromise between Russian and German standpoints, they revolted against conventional technique with as great pertinacity as did Galileo, Peri, Caccini, and Monteverdi in the late sixteenth century. Their æsthetic foster-father, Balakireff, for a time dominated the studies and even supervised the composition of the members--Borodine, Cui, Moussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakoff. Ultimately, each followed his own path, though not without a certain community of ideal. Aiming to continue the work of Glinka and Dargomijsky, both in opera and instrumental music, they wished to use folk-songs for themes and to utilize national legends or fairy stories. But they could not resist the alien form of the symphonic poem, and with it the orchestra of Liszt, and, while they opposed the Wagnerian dramatic forms, one at least, Rimsky-Korsakoff, could not withstand the palpable advantages of the Wagnerian orchestra. Their works combined the elements of western and oriental Russia, adhered largely to folk-song or elements of its style, and in the opera embodied folk-dances, semi-Pagan worship and ceremonial with striking nationalistic effect. Many of their orchestral pieces have taken place in the international repertory of orchestras; of the operas a smaller number have penetrated to European theatres. While the nationalistic operas of Rimsky-Korsakoff are little known beyond Russia, they show his talent in a broadly humanistic and epic standpoint, hardly hinted at in his orchestral works. Moussorgsky's _Boris Godounoff_, one of the finest operas since Wagner, claims attention from the fact that it attains dramatic vitality from a standpoint diametrically opposed to Wagner. The influence of _Boris Godounoff_ is palpable as forming the subtle dramatic idiom of _Pelléas et Mélisande_.