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Alexander Constantinovich Glazunov

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ALEXANDER CONSTANTINOVICH GLAZUNOV (1865-), Russian musical composer, was born in St Petersburg on the 10th of August 1865, his father being a publisher and bookseller. He showed an early talent for music, and studied for a year or so with Rimsky-Korsakov. At the age of sixteen he composed a symphony (afterwards elaborated and published as op. 5), but his opus 1 was a quartet in D, followed by a pianoforte suite on S-a-c-h-a, the diminutive of his name Alexander. In 1884 he was taken up by Liszt, and soon became known as a composer. His first symphony was played that year at Weimar, and he appeared as a conductor at the Paris exhibition in 1889. In 1897 his fourth and fifth symphonies were performed in London under his own conducting. In 1900 he became professor at the St Petersburg conservatoire. His separate works, including orchestral symphonies, dance music and songs, make a long list. Glazunov is a leading representative of the modern Russian school, and a master of orchestration; his tendency as compared with contemporary Russian composers is towards classical form, and he was much influenced by Brahms, though in "programme music" he is represented by such works as his symphonic poems The Forest, Stenka Razin, The Kremlin and his suite Aus dem Mittelalter. His ballet music, as in Raymonda, achieved much popularity.