Biography (read more)
Alexander Glazunov was a Russian composer and conductor of the late Romantic period, born in Saint Petersburg, where he spent most of his career as a leading figure of Russian musical life and, from 1905 to 1930, as director of the Saint Petersburg (later Petrograd/Leningrad) Conservatory, before emigrating to Paris in 1928. His output includes eight symphonies, ballets such as Raymonda and The Seasons, concertos for piano, violin, cello, and saxophone, and seven string quartets. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, in 1936.
Glazunov is credited with reconciling Russian nationalist and Western academic traditions in his music, serving as a bridge between the Mighty Handful and the more cosmopolitan style associated with Tchaikovsky, and as conservatory director he guided and mentored a generation of Russian musicians, including the young Dmitri Shostakovich, through the upheaval of the Russian Revolution. Though younger modernists such as Prokofiev and Stravinsky came to view his idiom as old-fashioned, his mastery of orchestration and form is still respected, and his ballets and later symphonies remain part of the standard repertoire.
Sources: