Born in Novospasskoye, nr Yelnya, Smolensk district, 20 May/June 1, 1804
Died in Berlin, Feb 15, 1857
- Glinka is often referred to as the “father of Russian music,” from which many prominent 19th and 20th-century Russian composers identify as their forefather, including Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Stravinsky.
- Born into the Russian ruling class, Glinka was trained to be a civil servant but pursued his love of music as a hobby. He never received a formal musical education.
- In his youth, Glinka was influenced by the folk music of the Russian serfs who worked for his family (in fact, his uncle had a “serf orchestra”) and by Russian Orthodox church music and bells.
- Glinka traveled Europe to hear Italian and German music styles, but he became one of the first Russian composers to utilize folk idioms and create a Russian orchestral style.
- His music, particularly his operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Ludmilla, inspired the next generation of Russian composers, including “The Five,” who were more overtly nationalist.
- At the same time, Glinka’s ability to successfully combine Western music traditions with Russian idioms was a model for more cosmopolitan composers like Tchaikovsky.1
- In his memoirs, Glinka wrote that after spending time abroad, he felt “a longing for my own country [which] led me gradually to the idea of writing in a Russian manner.”
- Fun fact – Glinka was one of the first Western composers to use the whole-tone scale in his music.2
Learn More
Sources
- Stuart Campbell, “Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 31, 2023, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000011279.
- Erik Levi, “Composer of the Month: Mikhail Glinka,” BBC Music Magazine Vol. 26, No. 1 (2017), 64-68.