Mikhail Glinka
A well-educated child of privilege, Glinka became a fervent Russian nationalist and is considered the father of Russian music. In his opera A Life for the Tsar he successfully employed Russian folk elements, thereby taking an initial step toward the establishment of a Russian nationalist style. His further development in this vein, which involved considerably more than mere melodic kinship with folk music, culminated in his most influential opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila, wherein his use of rhythm and harmony strike out an individual path, making them clearly distinctive from conventional Western music. His music exerted a significant influence on such great later composers as Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Stravinsky.
Glinka took piano, violin, and voice lessons, but he did not study music or composition seriously as a youth. His first job was as a government official, but realizing how strongly he was drawn to music, he left Russia to pursue both a general and a musical education, as well as try treatments for various illnesses both real and imagined. He studied for a time in Italy and spent several months between 1833 and 1834 studying composition in Berlin with Siegfried Dehn, his most prolonged and significant period of concentrated musical instruction. He had composed some works during and prior to this time, but these were still derivative of prevailing western European styles, and the year in Berlin only reinforced the non-Russian influences he felt. Returning to Russia, he discovered the works of writers such as Pushkin and Gogol, who uncovered for him the wealth and depth of his Russian cultural heritage. Moved, he wrote his seminal, truly Russian work, A Life for the Tsar. It premiered in 1836 and was an immediate success. It intermingled Russian and Polish folk tunes with Italian-style operatic passages and even anticipated Wagner's use of the leitmotif by employing recurring themes identified with specific characters. It also marked a new approach to orchestration in which the orchestra was essentially a member of the cast, not merely background accompaniment for the singers. His song cycle A Farewell to Saint Petersburg was published in 1840. The year 1842 saw the premiere of Glinka's second great Russian opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila. It was not as immediately successful as A Life for the Tsar, but was ultimately more influential. It contained Persian influences and made use of a seven-step, whole-tone scale for the first time in European music. Glinka spent the next several years traveling again through western Europe with the occasional return to Russia. On these trips he would perform occasionally, compose -- often songs, but also orchestral and piano works -- and meet other musical greats of the time such as Meyerbeer, while still seeking treatments for health issues. During several months in Warsaw in 1848, he wrote Kamarinskaya, a highly inventive work employing two Russian folk tunes that became his most popular composition for orchestra. He did return to Berlin in 1856 to spend more time studying with Dehn, but shortly after attending a January 1857 concert that included an excerpt from A Life for the Tsar conducted by Meyerbeer, Glinka became ill, declined quickly, and died in February. His influence upon the Russian composers who followed him was immense; specifically, he inspired Mily Balakirev, who gathered other young Russian composers around him to form the so-called "Mighty Handful," and extended Glinka's effort to foster Russian nationalism in music and the arts in general.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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Classics In The Pop Of Treatments. Glinka - The Best
Classical - Released by Russian Compact Disc on 10 Apr 1999
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The Best Of The Classics Volume 7
Philharmonic Wind Orchestra, Marc Reift
Classical - Released by Marcophon on 11 Jul 2014
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Glinka & Tchaikovsky: Chamber Music
Classical - Released by Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga Musica on 10 Oct 1992
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Russian Conducting School: Mark Ermler, Vol. 1
Classical - Released by Russian Compact Disc on 2 Jul 1996
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Ruslan and Ludmila, Fantasia on Glinka's Theme
Opera - Released by Russian Compact Disc on 20 Jan 1994
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Russian Opera Arias
Opera - Released by Bomba-Piter on 4 Nov 2016
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The Best of Opera - Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky
Hamburg Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester
Classical - Released by Piros - Send on 6 May 2015
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Mikhaïl Glinka: Treasures for the Pianoforte
Classical - Released by PHAEDRA on 6 Dec 2011
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Mikhail Glinka. 20 Golden Melodies In Modern Processing
Classical - Released by Russian Compact Disc on 7 Jul 2000
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Classical assembly. Romantic Trio - Glinka, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich
Chamber ensemble "Romantic Trio"
Chamber Music - Released by Russian Compact Disc on 6 Aug 2012
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Mikhail Glinka
State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Classical - Released by Pipeline Music on 8 Jun 2006
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CCCB A Classical Gas 10-2-2005
Coastal Communities Concert Band
Classical - Released by Tresona on 1 Jan 2012
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Russian Operas
Opera - Released by Groupe Analekta, Inc. on 13 Sep 2013
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Famous Overtures - Russian Authors
Hamburg Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester
Classical - Released by Piros - Send on 6 May 2015
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A Farewell to Saint Petersburg: No.10 The Lark
Classical - Released by Black Powder Classical on 1 Apr 2024
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Glinka - Russlan and Ludmilla: Overture
Orchestra Filarmonica di Roma, Massimo Freccia
Classical - Released by Violet Hill Records on 11 Jun 2012
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