Glière, Reinhold Moritzovich (1875-1956)

Russian composer. He made research into Azerbaijani, Uzbek, and Ukrainian folk song and based some of his later works on it. In 1939 he became chairman of the Organizing Committee of USSR composers.

He learnt the violin as a child, but soon began to compose and was sent to the Kiev School of Music and later to the Moscow Conservatory, where he was taught by Anton Arensky, Sergey Taneiev, and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. He taught at the Gnessin School of Music in Moscow and at the Kiev Conservatory, of which he became director in 1914, but settled in Moscow in 1920 (professor of composition at the Conservatory until 1941). Among his pupils was Prokofiev, who said of him ‘Glière is fat and middle-aged, rather like a well-fed cat’.

Works Stage Shakh-Senem (1926), Leyli and Mejnun (1937), Rachel (after Maupassant's Mlle Fifi; 1943), Ghulsara (1949); ballet The Red Poppy (1927); incidental music for Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Beaumarchais's Marriage of Figaro, and others.

Orchestral three symphonies (No. 3, Ilia Muromets, 1909-11), three symphonic poems, concert overtures; harp concerto, fantasy for wind instruments.

Vocal concerto for soprano and orchestra; 22 Op. nos. of songs.

Chamber four string quartets (1900-48); three string sextets, string octet; many instrumental pieces; 18 Op. nos. of piano music.