Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was born 10 August 1865 into the late Russian Romantic tradition, and spent his career trying to reconcile its warring impulses: Balakirev's nationalism, Borodin's epic sweep, Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral flash, Tchaikovsky's lyricism, Taneyev's counterpoint. He became director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1905 and steered it through the Bolshevik Revolution, reorganizing it first into the Petrograd Conservatory, then Leningrad. He stayed on as head until 1930, though by 1928 he had left the Soviet Union for good. His most famous student from those early Soviet years was Dmitri Shostakovich. Younger composers like Prokofiev and Shostakovich eventually found his music old-fashioned, but admitted he remained an imposing figure - a stabilizing hand in a decade that ate its own.