Mikhail Glinka - "The Lark" for voice and piano (GLINKA’S 211TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE)

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1 June [O.S. 20 May] 1804 - 15 February [O.S. 3 February] 1857) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the fountainhead of Russian classical music. Glinka’s compositions were an important influence on future Russian composers, notably the members of The Five, who took Glinka’s lead and produced a distinctive Russian style of music. “A Farewell to St. Petersburg“ is a song cycle composed by Glinka in 1840. It consists of 12 songs, with the lyrics from lines of poems by famous Russian poets at the time, such as Alexander Pushkin and Vasily Zhukovsky. It was composed in the time when Glinka was going through difficult times in his private life. At this point, his health was beginning to ail; his wife, who however has a dislike for his music, left him for another man, not bothering to divorce him first; and his opera “A Life for a Tsar“ took a long time to be followed-up. T