(b Novospasskoye, nr Yelnya, Smolensk district, 20 May/June 1, 1804; d Berlin, Feb 15, 1857). Russian composer. He was the first Russian composer to combine distinction in speaking the musical idiom of the day with a personal and strongly original voice. Emerging from the background of a provincial dilettante, though with generous access to local music-making opportunties, he made himself at home in metropolitan centres and mastered the procedures of Italian and French opera, and complemented that expertise with skill in motivic and contrapuntal working as well as instrumentation. His compositions, especially the operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila and the orchestral fantasia Kamarinskaya, represent cornerstones of what are known as the ‘Russian classics’, and furnished models for later 19th-century composers. The composer’s first years were spent as the eldest surviving child of a noble family whose estate was in the Smolensk government. His father retired from the army with the rank of captain, and several relatives sharing the Glinka surname were or had been prominent in scholarship, poetry, or in the service of the tsar. Glinka’s first contact with music was made through servants who sang folksongs and introduced him to the wider lore of the Russian tradition. Peasant singing made an impact, too, as well as church choirs and bells, which in Novospasskoye had benefited from the interest and investment of Glinka's grandfather. He gained further experience of music by playing the piano (or violin or piccolo) in small-scale domestic ensembles, and sometimes participated (on occasion as conductor) in the work of an uncle’s serf orchestra in a nearby house; this gave him invaluable practice in working with musicians and in finding out the effects of particular instrumental effects and combinations across a broad spectrum of music, from classical overtures to accompaniments for dancing and arrangements of folk tunes. One composition which made a powerful impression on him at the age of 10 or 11 was the clarinet quartet by Bernhard Crusell, played by his uncle’s serf musicians, which, as he recorded in his memoirs, caused him to discover that his heart was above all in music. Through his father’s business visits to St Petersburg, through books, family gatherings, the art tuition of an architect engaged by his father, and through the teaching of his private tutor, the young composer probably enjoyed a more mentally and imaginatively challenging childhood than one might have expected. In his earliest days, however, Glinka was kept in a room heated to too high a temperature, and much indulged by his grandmother. His poor health and later unhealthy interest in his ailments and potential cures are usually traced to early conditions....