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Mikhail Glinka

Browse piano sheets by Mikhail Glinka on Zen Virtual Piano. Mikhail Glinka was born into a noble family and educated on his father’s estate, where he became familiar with the Russian folk song and with the instrumental music of the Western European classics, regularly attending concerts of the orchestra of serfs and taking part in them himself. At about ten he heard a clarinet quartet by the Finnish composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell, which had a profound effect on him, and many years later he wrote, “Music is my soul.” A boy hearing folk songs and a serf orchestra at home, and a clarinet quartet that moved him, took in two musical worlds at once. At 13 he went to St. Petersburg to attend a school for children of the nobility, where he studied Latin, English, Persian, mathematics and zoology and considerably widened his musical experience, and from 1818 to 1822 he studied at the Noble Boarding School, taking private lessons with John Field and Charles Meyer. In 1830–1834 he travelled in Italy, Austria and Germany, and in Berlin he studied composition with Siegfried Dehn. Private lessons with John Field and study in Berlin give his training a European reach. A schoolroom that mixed Latin, Persian and zoology with music shows an education much wider than composition alone. He worked for almost six years on his second opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842), a fairytale epic based on the long poem by Alexander Pushkin, with whom he was closely acquainted. In 1844–1847 he travelled again, to France and Spain. Almost six years of work on one opera, with a poet he knew closely as its source, show how large a task the fairytale epic was. He composed about 80 songs, among them “I Remember the Wondrous Moment,” “Doubt” and the cycle “Farewell to St. Petersburg,” as well as music for the tragedy Prince Kholmsky (1840), the Spanish Overtures “Jota Aragonesa” (1845) and “Night in Madrid” (1848) and the “Kamarinskaya” Fantasy (1848). In Berlin in 1856 he made a thorough study of the early contrapuntal masters and of the melodies of early Russian znamenny chant, which he saw as providing the foundation for Russian polyphonic music in the future. In the 1850s a group of followers gathered around him, intent on popularizing his music, among them Aleksandr Serov, Vladimir Stasov, Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky and Mily Balakirev. A composer who saw znamenny chant as a foundation for Russian polyphony became the centre of a circle of followers. In 1884 Mitrofan Belyayev founded the annual Glinka Prize, whose early winners included Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, César Cui and Anatoly Lyadov. A prize in his name, won by composers who came after him, shows how his example was carried forward. Similarly to Pushkin in Russian literature, Glinka stood out as a founder of a new historical period in the history of Russian music.

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What is Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila?

His second opera (1842), a fairytale epic based on the long poem by Alexander Pushkin, on which he worked for almost six years.

What is the Glinka Prize?

An annual prize founded in 1884 by Mitrofan Belyayev; its early winners included Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, César Cui and Anatoly Lyadov.

Where did Glinka study composition?

In Berlin, where he studied composition with Siegfried Dehn during his travels of 1830–1834 in Italy, Austria and Germany.