Mikhail Ivanovich GLINKA (1804-1857)
Mikhail
Glinka, the efather of Russian musicf, was the son of a retired military
officer. He received no formal musical training but gained musical skills by
working with various teachers. Glinka was the founder of the Russian national
school of music, which was subsequently carried on by such composers as Borodin,
Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. He left his homeland for three year periods
enjoying the pleasant weather and hospitality in both Italy and Spain.
Ill health had bothered him throughout his life and he died at the age of
53 while in Berlin.
While
today's orchestral literature abounds in late-Romantic works by Tchaikovsky and
Rimsky-Korsakov, Glinka stands out as the only significant representative of
Russian music before 1850. In addition to his two famous opera, namely A Life
for the Tsar and Russlan and Ludmilla, he composed more than one
hundred songs, as well as pieces for orchestra, solo piano, and chamber
ensemble. Most of his music strives to establish a uniquely Russian character by
incorporating folk elements and using operatic libretto from Russian history,
literature, or poetry.
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