Vasili Glazunov (1896–1967), Soviet general, twice Hero of the Soviet Union
Alexander Glazunov | Glazunov | Ilya Glazunov | Vasili Glazunov |
Glazunov was acknowledged as a great prodigy in his field and, with the help of his mentor and friend Rimsky-Korsakov, finished some of Alexander Borodin's great works, the most famous being the Third Symphony and the opera Prince Igor, including the popular Polovtsian Dances.
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When Franz Schreker's opera Der ferne Klang was staged in Leningrad, Glazunov pronounced the opera "Schreckliche Musik!"
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In 1962, when Stravinsky returned to the Soviet Union to celebrate his 80th birthday, he visited the Leningrad conservatory and, according to his associate Robert Craft, moaned and said "Glazunov!" when he saw a photograph of the composer on display.
At one time he owned the famous Lipinski Stradivarius violin, on which he played Glazunov's Violin Concerto in November 1942 with the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Massimo Freccia, as well as with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy.
An admirer of van Gogh, from whom he derived the name 'Vincent', Lourié was partly self-taught, but also studied piano with Barinova and composition with Glazunov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1913.
The chamber music of Borodin, Respighi, Saint-Saëns, the piano trios of Richard Strauss, the chamber music of the Terezin Composers, Joseph Rheinberger, Eric Zeisel, Max Bruch, Willem Pijper, Zdenek Fibich, Glazunov, Edmund Rubbra, Luigi Cherubini, Wilhelm Stenhammar are among the subjects which appeared in past issues.