GLINKA, MICHAEL IVANOVICH Rus sian composer, was born at Novospassky, Smolensk, on June 2, 1803. The folk-music of his native province made a deep im pression on the child, and he himself said that perhaps the songs he heard in his early days suggested the idea to him of making use of the national music in his compositions. At 13 he was sent to an aristocratic school at St. Petersburg, the Blagorodrey Pension, where he studied music under Carl Maier and John Field, the Irish composer and pianist, who had settled in Russia. In his 17th year he had already begun to compose romances and songs. From 1824 to 1828 he held a post in the civil service in St. Petersburg, and mixed in the literary and scientific society of the capital, where he had the reputation of being a good mathematician and some thing of a scientist. His thorough musical training began in 1830, when he spent three years in Italy studying the works of old and modern Italian masters. His thorough knowledge of the re quirements of the voice may be connected with this course of study, but the study of Italian music did not wean him from his early passion for Russian national melody. His training as a composer was finished under the contrapuntist Dehn, with whom he stayed for several months at Berlin. In 1833 he returned to Russia, and devoted himself to operatic composition. On Sept. 27 (Oct. 9, N.S.), 1836, his opera A Life for the Tsar (the libretto by Baron de Rosen) was produced at St. Petersburg. This was the turning-point in Glinka's life, and in Russian music, for the pro duction marks the beginning of a Russian school of national music. The story is taken from the invasion of Russia by the Poles early in the fi 7th century, and the hero, Ivan Susanin, is a peasant. Glinka has wedded this patriotic theme to inspiring music. His melodies, moreover, show distinct affinity to the popular songs of the Russians, so that the term "national" may justly be applied to them. His appointment as imperial chapelmaster and conductor of the opera of St. Petersburg followed. His second opera Russ lan and Ludmila, founded on Pushkin's poem, did not appear till 1842. Musically it was a great advance on A Life for the Tsar, but it had less popular success. Just as in his first opera he had contrasted Russian and Polish music, so in the second, Oriental themes were set over against Russian melodies. An overture and four entre-actes to Kukolnik's drama Prince Kholmsky followed. In 1844 Glinka went to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Berlioz, and a mutual admiration sprang up between the two com posers. Glinka's Iota Aragonesa and the symphonic work on Spanish themes, Une Nuit a Madrid, reflect the musical results of two years' sojourn in Spain. On his return to St. Petersburg he wrote and arranged several pieces for the orchestra, amongst which the so-called Kamarinskaya achieved popularity beyond the limits of Russia. He also composed numerous songs and romances. In 1852 he went abroad for the third time; he now wrote his auto biography, orchestrated Weber's Invitation a la valse, and began to consider a plan for a symphonic work on Gogol's Taras-Bulba. But he now developed a passion for ecclesiastical music, and went to Berlin to study the ancient church modes. Here he died sud denly on Feb. 2, 1857.
See H. Berlioz, Michael Glinka (Milan, 1874) ; M. D. Calvocoressi, "Gl Mus'c'. ns Celebres (Paris) .