Gliere

Reinhold Moritzevich Gliere 1875 ñ 23 June 1956) was a Soviet composer of German-Polish descent. Gliere was the second son of the wind instrument maker Ernst Moritz Glier (1834-1896) from Saxony, who emigrated to Kiev and married Juzefa (Josephine) Korczak (1849-1935), the daughter of his master, from Warsaw (Poland). His original name, as given in his baptism certificate, was Reinhold Ernst Glier [1]. About 1900 he changed the spelling and pronunciation of his surname to Gliere, which gave rise to the legend, stated by Leonid Sabaneyev for the first time (1927), of his French or Belgian descent. He was born in Kiev. Gliere entered the Kiev school of music in 1891, where he was taught violin. In 1894 Gliere entered the Moscow Conservatory where he studied with Sergei Taneyev (counterpoint), Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (composition), (violin) Anton Arensky and Georgi Konjus (both harmony). He graduated in 1900, having composed a one-act opera 'Earth and Heaven' (after Lord Byron) and received a gold medal in composition. In the following year GliËre accepted a teaching post at the Moscow Gnesin School of Music. Taneyev found two private pupils for him in 1902: Nikolai Myaskovsky and the eleven-year old Sergei Prokofiev, whom Gliere taught on Prokofiev's parental estate Sontsovka. Gliere studied conducting with Oskar Fried in Berlin from 1905 to 1908. One of his co-students was Serge Koussevitzky, who conducted the premiere of Gliere's Symphony No. 2, Op. 25, on 23 January 1908 in Berlin. Back in Moscow, Gliere returned again to the Gnesin School. In the following years GliËre composed the symphonic poem Sireny, Op. 33 (1908), the program symphony Ilya Muromets, Op. 42 (1911) and the ballet-pantomime Chrizis, Op. 65 (1912). In 1913 he gained an appointment to the school of music in Kiev, which was raised to the status of conservatory shortly after, as Kiev Conservatory. A year later he was appointed director. In Kiev he taught among others Levko (Lev) Revoutski, Borys Lyatoshynsky and Vladimir Dukelsky (who became well-known in the West as Vernon Duke).