Mikhail Glinka in the Presidential Library’s collections: “People are composing music”

June 1, 2019 marks the 215th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857), the great composer, founder of the Russian national opera, author of the world famous operas “Life for the Tsar” (“Ivan Susanin”) and “Ruslan and Lyudmila”. The Presidential Library has formed a collection that consists of three sections: “Composer’s Life and Work”, “Mikhail Glinka’s Oeuvre”, “The Memory of the Composer”.   

Mikhail Glinka was born in Smolensk Region, in the village of Novospasskoye, on the estate of his father, the retired captain Ivan Glinka. This is reflected in the book by S. Bazunov “Mikhail Glinka. His Life and Musical Oeuvre”. 

Since 1817, Mikhail lived in St. Petersburg and studied at the Noble Guesthouse at the Main Pedagogical School, and his tutor was the poet, the future Decembrist V. K. Küchelbecker. In the 20s of the XIX century, Mikhail Ivanovich enjoyed fame among Petersburg music lovers mainly as a singer and pianist. Only having been on a trip abroad and closely acquainted with Bellini, Donizetti, Berlioz, he becomes a composer. 

An electronic copy of the monthly historical journal “Russian Antiquity” (1870), which is available in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library, contains Glinka’s notes from that period.

While abroad, he also came into contact "with the greatest seriousness of German music", - continues A. Gruzinsky in the above-mentioned edition Mikhail Glinka. The awakened national consciousness has not left the Russian musician since. He realized that the music of composers from different countries was based on the life-giving folk melos.

Then again Russia: Petersburg, literary evenings with the poet V. A. Zhukovsky, where Glinka met N. V. Gogol, P. A. Viazemsky, V. F. Odoyevsky, A. S. Pushkin. It was Zhukovsky who gave the young composer the idea to write an opera on a plot about Ivan Susanin, which he learned in his youth, after reading the “Duma” by the poet and the Decembrist Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleev.

The idea fell on the prepared ground, because as a rare collector of melody Glinka was imbued with the folk melodies of central Russia. In the digitized book of V. Avenarius "The Creator of the Russian Opera, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka" (1903) from the collections of the Presidential Library he describes the very beginning of the creation of the masterpiece:

“We, Russians, do not have national music. This is my dream to compose Russian opera. Glinka sat at the piano. The room was announced by an aria known now to every Russian who had heard the opera “Life for the Tsar” at least once. “This is something completely new, fresh and at the same time so familiar, dear! - exclaimed admired companion. “The topic is purely Russian, national ...””.  

The premiere of the work, called at the insistence of the Directorate of Theaters for Life for the Tsar, took place on January 27, 1836 and became the birthday of the Russian heroic-patriotic opera. The performance was a great success, the royal family was present, and Alexander Pushkin was among Glinka’s many friends in the hall. On the eve of the poet’s death on the Black River (Chyornaya Rechka), Mikhail Ivanovich managed to devote him into his plans to compose an opera based on the plot of Ruslan and Lyudmila. Since that evening, the idea of ​​turning Pushkin's poem into an opera has never left Glinka. Once while riding in a shaky carriage in some feverish state, the composer composed and began to record the entire final of Ruslan, from which the main theme of the overture later emerged.  

“In the spring of 1842, he came to St. Petersburg to concert Franz Liszt and showed his phenomenal art on Ruslan: in the salon of Count Wielgorski, he played the whole huge opera right off the page - he played with such perfection that all the experts present were stupefied; and then he responded with unconditional praise both about the melodiousness of the opera, and about its texture”, - says the publication “The Creator of the Russian Opera, Mikhail Glinka”.

But there were also spiteful critics in the face of Faddey Bulgarin. In November 1942, three weeks before the first performance of “Ruslan”, a poisonous article appeared in the Bulgarin “Northern Bee”, directed not against Glinka, but against opera singers. Glinka learned about this during a tense rehearsal at the Bolshoi Theater. Tenor Leonov bluntly told him that all artists were very offended. "These are not my words", - answered Glinka, - but the author of article’s words".  

“However, from the end of November 1842, for less than three months, there were held 32 performances of Ruslan, while the best of Rossini’s operas, Wilhelm Tell, passed only 16 times in the first season”, - reports Avenarius. - For one season, Glinka got one-time three thousand rubles in silver. More pleased with him was only the decorator Roller, who, without any worries, was awarded the title of academician for the sketches of the enchanted castle of Chernomor”.

Last year of his life, Glinka lived in Berlin, attending music classes. The royal palace gave a concert of his things under the management of Giacomo Meyerbeer. In one of his last letters, the composer said: “In order to understand the importance of this event for me, it is necessary to say that I am the first Russian to attain a similar honor. Meyerbeer's letter as proof that I did not impose myself, and I will deliver articles of journals in a short time”. 

At this concert, Glinka got a cold. He died on February 3 (15), 1857. His body was transported to St. Petersburg at the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

The place of Mikhail Glinka in the national culture was defined more precisely by the critic V. V. Stasov: “In many respects, Glinka has the same meaning in Russian music as Pushkin does in Russian poetry. They both are great talents and the founders of the new Russian artistic expression, both created a new Russian language — one in poetry and the other one in music”.