Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Moritzovich Glière (birth name Reinhold Ernest Glier; German: Reinhold Ernest Glier; 30 December 1874 / 11 January 1875 – 23 June 1956) was a Russian and Soviet composer, conductor, teacher, and musical public figure. He was born in Kyiv, the son of a brass-wind instrument maker who had moved to the city from Klingenthal in Germany, and he first studied music at home, taking violin lessons from A. Weinberg and K. Vout alongside his schooling at the 2nd Kyiv Gymnasium.

In 1894 he graduated from the Kyiv Music School (now the R. M. Glière Kyiv Municipal Academy of Music), studying violin with Otakar Ševčík and composition with E. Ryba, and then entered the Moscow Conservatory, initially in N. N. Sokolovsky’s violin class and later in the class of Jan Hřímalý. He became a Russian subject on 29 April / 11 May 1897. In 1900 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied polyphony with Sergey Taneyev, harmony with Anton Arensky and Georgy Conus, and composition with Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov; in 1906–1908 he also took conducting lessons with O. Fried in Germany. In the early 1900s he participated in meetings of the Belyayev Circle in St Petersburg and formed as a composer in significant part through contact with Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Glière taught music theory at the Gnessin School in Moscow in 1900–1907 and 1909–1913, and in 1902–1903 he gave private lessons to Nikolai Myaskovsky and Sergei Prokofiev. From 1908 he appeared as a conductor, mainly performing his own works. On 10/23 January 1913 he was granted the status of personal honorary citizen. From 1913 to 1920 he was a professor at the Kyiv Conservatory (composition and orchestration) and served as its director in 1914–1920 (according to some sources, 1914–1918), also leading opera, orchestral, and chamber-instrumental classes; his students there included Borys Lyatoshynsky and Levko Revutsky.

From 1920 to 1941 he was a composition professor at the Moscow Conservatory, teaching students such as Alexander Davidenko, Anatoly Novikov, Nikolai Rakov, and Lev Knipper. He held a range of Soviet cultural-administrative posts, including work in the music section of Moscow’s department of public education and the People’s Commissariat of Education, and membership in the ethnographic section of Proletkult. In 1923 he traveled to Baku at the invitation of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the Azerbaijan SSR to compose an opera on a national subject; the result was the opera “Shakhsenem,” staged in 1927 at the Azerbaijan Opera and Ballet Theater. His later engagement with Uzbek folklore led to the overture “Fergana Holiday” (1940) and, in collaboration with T. Sadykov, the operas “Leyli and Majnun” (1940) and “Gyulsara” (1949), reflecting his growing conviction that national musical traditions should be preserved while seeking ways to merge them.

Among his best-known large-scale works are the Third Symphony “Ilya Muromets” (1909–1911), the symphonic poem “The Sirens” (1908), the “Solemn Overture” (1937) built from Russian, Ukrainian, Azerbaijani, and Uzbek melodies, and the overtures “Friendship of Peoples” and “Overture on Slavic Themes” (both 1941). He wrote operas including “The Earth and the Sky” (1900), “Rachel” (1942–1943), and “Taras Bulba” (1951–1952), and ballets such as “The Red Poppy” (his pioneering Soviet repertory ballet on a contemporary theme) and “The Bronze Horseman” (1945–1948). He also composed concertos (including for harp, coloratura soprano, cello, horn, and violin), chamber music such as four string quartets and three string sextets, extensive piano and instrumental miniatures, songs and romances, music for dramatic theater, and film scores; he was also the author of the “Hymn to the Great City” (the anthem of Leningrad).

Glière’s music was performed during his lifetime by prominent soloists, quartets, and orchestras, and under conductors in major European cities. He was chairman of the All-Russian Society of Dramatists and Composers (1924–1930), chaired the Moscow Union of Composers (1938), and led the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers (1939–1948). His honors included the title People’s Artist of the USSR (1938), a doctorate in art studies (1941), three first-class Stalin Prizes (1946, 1948, 1950), and three Orders of Lenin (1945, 1950, 1955), as well as earlier awards including three Glinka Prizes (1905, 1912, 1914). He died in Moscow on 23 June 1956 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.

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