"Even before this I had known and worshipped his operas; but as editor of the scores in print I had to go through Glinka's style and instrumentation to their last little note ... And this was a beneficent discipline for me, leading me as it did to the path of modern music, after my vicissitudes with counterpoint and strict style".In mid-1877, Rimsky-Korsakov thought increasingly about the short story "May Night" by Nikolai Gogol.