GLAZUNOV Alexander (G-45)

Russian composer, conductor, music and public figure. He studied music theory and composition privately under the guidance of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov. In the late 1880s, together with his teacher, he completed and orchestrated the unfinished works of A.P. Borodin - the opera "Prince Igor" and the Third Symphony. Since 1888 he has performed as a conductor, promoting mainly the works of Russian composers. He was friends with P.I. Tchaikovsky, S.I. Taneyev, V.V. Stasov, and held one of the most important places in the Belyaev Circle and in the management of Russian Symphony Concerts and music publishing house (founded by M.P. Belyaev). Since 1900 – Professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory (in 1907-1928 – director). Doctor of Music from Oxford and Cambridge Universities (1907). In 1905, he joined a group of musicians who actively supported the revolutionary movement, and temporarily left the conservatory in protest against the actions of the directorate. After the October Revolution of 1917, he actively participated in the restructuring of musical education, conducted extensive public musical and educational work, performed as a conductor in workers' clubs, units of the Red Army, but gradually became disillusioned with the path of development that the Soviet country followed. In 1928 he went to the composer's competition in Vienna, dedicated to the centenary of the death of F. Schubert, and after his graduation decided not to return to the USSR. For some time he toured as a conductor, and since 1932 he settled in Paris. The main place in Glazunov's work is occupied by genres of symphonic music (8 symphonies, overtures, poems and fantasies of a programmatic nature). He is the author of ballets ("Raymonda" (1898), etc.), five concertos for solo instruments with orchestra, works of chamber music, compositions for piano, romances, as well as critical articles and memoirs. People's Artist of the Republic (1922). An institute dedicated to the study of A.K. Glazunov's work has been opened in Munich, and the archive of his scores is kept in Paris. The composer's name was given to the Petrozavodsk Conservatory and the small hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.