GLINKA, MIKHAIL Iva:cm-um (1804-57). A celebrated Russian composer of the early mod em school. He was born at Mikhail, near Smo lensk, of aristocratic parents, and consequently received the education of a young noble of the period. His earlier musical teachers were Bohm (violin), Carl Mayer (theory and pianoforte), and later Field; subsequently he spent four year, in Italy, ostensibly for his health, but practically completing his musical education. After study ing for a little while with Dehn, of Berlin (1834), he was led to attempt composition, the result being •the first Russian national opera, A Life for the Czar (1830), which received its first performance at Saint Petersburg. While the musical treatment of the opera on the whole is Italian to a degree, it is occasionally very Russian in its coloring, which, together with its purely Russian plot, has earned for its composer the reputation of being the pioneer of the modern Russian school, and the forerunner of the famous national composer Tchaikovsky. His success
gained for him the appointment of Imperial chapelmaster and conductor of the opera at Saint Petersburg. The second opera, first pre sented at Saint Petersburg in 1842, was arranged from a poem of the Russian poet Pushkin, and was entitled Russian and Ludmilla. In character it is very similar to the first one, and was al most as great a popular success. In 1844 he visited Paris, and gave a series of orchestral con certs. His other works include compositions for the pianoforte, on which instrument he was a brilliant performer, symphonies, orchestral suites, and numerous songs and , romances, the latter clearly indicating the influence of Field. He died at Berlin, while on a visit to his old teacher, Dehn. Consult Cui, "La musique en Russie," in Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris (Paris, 1878-79).
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