Glinka, Michael Ivanovitch

1803-1857

Dramatic Russian composer, the son of a retired army captain. As a boy he was delicate, and from early childhood showed an extreme sensitiveness to musical sounds. Until his tenth year he passed most of his life in the country, and his first musical impressions were those of the peasants' folk-songs, and of a small orchestra of serfs on his uncle's estate near by. At fourteen he was sent to a school in St. Petersburg, where he remained five years, studying languages and taking some piano lessons of John Field. Later he continued his study under Carl Meyer, with theory in addition, attaining considerable proficiency as a pianist. He also studied the violin under Bohm, but made little progress with that instrument. Various circumstances contributed to his musical development. A trip through the Caucasus Mountains, in 1823, stimulated his imagination and his musical desires; and on his return home he eagerly studied the works of the old masters, and undertook the drilling of his uncle's orchestra. This familiarized him with the different instruments and t!ie separate parts of the scores. He now began to compose; but the straitened circumstances of his family impelled him to take an assistant cscretaryship in a department of the government at St. Petersburg, where he remained for four years. The duties of this position left him considerable time for musical pursuits, and he studied intermittently, but seems to have had no thought of making a profession of music. About 1830 he went to Italy for his health, remaining several years. In Milan he took some lessons of Basil!, the director of the Conservatory, and became greatly interested in Italian vocal music. He met Bellini and Donizetti, and the influence of this period is seen in the vocal parts of his operas. The fascination of Italian melody was but temporary, however; the vivid contrast it presented to the life and music of his own nation brought about a reaction, and he now first became conscious of a desire, which grew into a purpose, to embody the Russian characteristics in an opera. Going from Italy to Berlin, he began at the late age   of twenty-nine the study of composition under Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn, who gave him the condensed and comprehensive work that he needed, and encouraged him in his determination to compose distinctly Russian music. In 1834 Glinka returned home and shortly after wrote his first opera, Zarskaja skisu (A Life for the Czar), a distinctively Russian composition. The Emperor was present at its production in 1836, and soon afterward Glinka received the appointment of Imperial chapelmaster. His second opera, Russian and Ludmilla, based on the fairy story of Pushkin's poem, was brought out in 1842, but was not so popular as his first. After Glinka's death, it was better appreciated, and by the centenary of his birth had been performed no less than three hundred times in Russia. At this time Glinka was harassed by the difficulties growing out of an unhappy married life, and his frail constitution began to give way under the double burden.

Two years later, his health still failing, he went to France, where he met a kindred spirit in Berlioz, to whom he has been compared as a composer. They became fast friends; Glinka made a study of the music of Berlioz, and tried his hand at orchestral composition. The French composer secured several performances in Paris of Glinka's works, and wrote an article for the Journal des Debats, enthusiastically praising the compositions of the Russian, who returned the compliment by similar offices in his own country for Berlioz. A visit to Spain in 1845 proved an additional stimulus, and after several years in these two countries, gathering material and inspiration for future work. Glinka returned to Russia. For three years he lived in Warsaw, and after a second visit to Spain in 1851, settled near St. Petersburg, where he began an autobiography and planned other compositions. Early the next year he died, and his body was interred first in Berlin, but later was taken to St. Petersburg for burial. Glinka's compositions include the orchestral numbers composed after his first visit to Spain, Jota Aragonese, Night in Madrid, and Kamarinskaya, a fantasia; also an adagio and rondo for orchestra, a yalse-fantaisie, a tarantella, two polonaises, two unfinished symphonies, and the incidental music to Prince Kholmsky. His chamber-music comprises two string quartets, a septet, a trio for piano, clarinet and oboe. For piano he wrote less than half a hundred pieces, comprising variations, nocturnes, polonaises, fugues, rondos and various dances. He also wrote several choruses, a Russian national hymn, a memorial cantata for Emperor Alexander I., a number of vocal duets, quartets, trios and over eighty songs with piano accompaniment, including Doubt, The Lark, Thou Wilt Soon Forget Me, Gretchen's Song, and I Am Here, Inezilia.

Personally, Glinka is described as being distinguished in appearance, a man of polish and culture, a proficient linguist and a conservative in his religious and political beliefs. After the separation from his wife, Glinka lived with his mother, and after her death, with his sister, who seems to have been his confidant and sympathizer. From her account, his disposition was always like a child's, warm-hearted and yet variable, wanting his own way, easily moved to repentance for error, or to gratitude for kindness; wholly impractical, extremely shy and sensitive, and moreover, nervous and superstitious. Although the strongly national character of his works has made them most popular in his own country, and his rank among composers is based upon his relation to Russian music, a professor in the Paris Conservatory stated, in a lecture given there within the last decade, that it would be well if young composers would let Wagner alone and take A Life for the Czar, as their model. In Russian and Ludmilla, Glinka anticipates many characteristic features of later Russian compositions, such as those of Tschaikowsky or Rimsky-Korsakow; he was unaffected by the German School, and the influence of Italy and France upon his works was incidental and superficial. As the founder of an original Russian School, he stands among the epoch-makers in music.