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 Moritz Glière, a brass-wind instrument maker and owner of a musical workshop who had moved there from Klingenthal in Germany, and Józefa (Josephina Vikentyevna) Korczak. 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, composition with E. Ryba, and also working with M. Sikard, 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, Levko Revutsky, and M. Frolov.

From 1920 to 1941 he was a composition professor at the Moscow Conservatory, teaching students such as Alexander Davidenko, Anatoly Novikov, Nikolai Rakov, Lev Knipper, N. P. Ivanov-Radkevich, and D. F. Saliman-Vladimirov. He held a range of Soviet cultural-administrative posts, including heading the music section of Moscow’s department of public education in 1920–1922, working in the People’s Commissariat of Education, and membership in the ethnographic section of Moscow Proletkult in 1920–1923. 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, during preparations for the Decade of Uzbek Art in Tashkent, 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,” the first Soviet repertory ballet on a contemporary theme, and “The Bronze Horseman” (1945–1948). Other stage works include the ballets “Chrysis,” “Cleopatra” (“Egyptian Nights”), and “The Comedians,” later revised as “The Daughter of Castile.” He also composed concertos for harp, coloratura soprano, cello, horn, and violin, the last completed and orchestrated after his death by Lyatoshynsky; chamber music including four string quartets, three string sextets, and an octet; a symphony-fantasy for Russian folk instruments; music for wind orchestra; extensive piano and instrumental miniatures; around 150 songs and romances; music for dramatic theater; film scores; and the “Hymn to the Great City,” the anthem of Leningrad.

Glière’s music was performed during his lifetime by prominent soloists, quartets, and orchestras under distinguished conductors in major European cities and beyond, including Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Athens, and Bucharest. In the late 1930s and again in 1947 and 1950 he undertook concert tours across the USSR, appearing in author’s concerts devoted to his own music. 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 titles Honored Artist of the Republic (1925), Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1927), People’s Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1934), People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1935), People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1937), People’s Artist of the USSR (1938), and a doctorate in art studies (1941). He received three first-class Stalin Prizes, for the Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra (1946), the Fourth String Quartet (1948), and the ballet “The Bronze Horseman” (1950), as well as three Orders of Lenin (1945, 1950, 1955), the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1937), the Badge of Honour (1938), and wartime and commemorative medals. He was also the only Russian composer to have won both the Russian Empire’s most prestigious music award, the Glinka Prize, three times, and the USSR’s highest musical distinction, the Stalin Prize, three times.

He was the author of articles on music, some of them later collected in the volume “R. M. Glière. Articles and Memoirs” (Moscow, 1975). He was married to Maria Robertovna Renkvist, whose family had Scandinavian roots, and they had five children: the twins Nina and Lia, Roman, and the twins Valentina and Leonid. Glière died in Moscow on 23 June 1956 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. A monument over his grave by sculptor M. K. Anikushin and architect V. A. Petrov was unveiled on 23 June 1961. His name has remained visible in musical and cultural life through institutions and memorial sites associated with him, including the Kyiv academy that bears his name and his Moscow museum-apartment, preserved by his descendants.

Connections

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