Composer, Educator. He is sometimes called "The Russian Brahms" because his music expresses a romantic spirit through rigorous classical form. He was particularly successful in synthesizing Russian nationalist and Western influences. The ballets "Raymonda" (1898) and "The Seasons" (1900), both with original choreography by Marius Petipa, are his most popular works. Critics consider his Symphony No. 5 (1896) and Symphony No. 8 (1906) as the best of his eight symphonies. From 1905 to 1928 he was director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was born in St. Petersburg, the son of a wealthy publisher. Prodigiously gifted in music, he studied privately with Rimsky-Korsakov (1879 to 1881), who later wrote, "His musical development progressed not by the day, but literally by the hour". He learned to play over a dozen instruments, studied conducting, and acquired a thorough knowledge of the technical aspects of his art. At the 1882 premiere of his Symphony No. 1, the audience was astonished when the 16 year-old composer stepped onstage in his schoolboy uniform to acknowledge the applause; the event made him famous overnight. In 1884 music patron Mitrofan Belyayev took Glazunov to Weimar to meet Franz Liszt, and his early music (such as the Second and Third Symphonies) wavered between German romanticism and the nationalist philosophy of "The Five". He paid tribute to the latter by helping Rimsky-Korsakov complete Borodin's opera "Prince Igor" (1890), and edited a performing version of Borodin's unfinished Third Symphony. From 1897 to 1907 he was principal conductor of Belyayev's Russian Symphony Concerts, which introduced much new music to the Russian public, and in 1899 he joined the faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory as professor of composition and orchestration. Glazunov's Symphony No. 4 (1894) ushered in his creative maturity and over the next two decades he enjoyed great international prestige, culminating with honorary doctorates from Oxford and Cambridge universities. In the student unrest accompanying the 1905 Russian Revolution, Rimsky-Korsakov was fired from the St. Petersburg Conservatory for denouncing police repression, and Glazunov resigned in protest. The ensuing controversy led to the temporary closure of that establishment and its reorganization; it reopened later that year with Glazunov as its new director. In that capacity he did little to modernize the curriculum, but he worked hard to maintain the Conservatory's autonomy and to protect its students from government interference. When anti-Semitic Czarist authorities once demanded to know how many Jews were enrolled, he replied, "We don't keep count here". He was no fan of the Bolsheviks either, but after the 1917 Revolution he remained at his post to provide a stabilizing influence through the difficult years of Civil War and its aftermath (1918 to 1923). His best known student of that period was Dmitri Shostakovich, in whom he recognized the young prodigy he himself had once been. The rise of dictator Josef Stalin saw Glazunov fall under attack as a "bourgeois" by proletarian music groups and in 1928 he left the USSR "for health reasons", never to return. He resigned from the Conservatory in 1930 (though he kept his Soviet citizenship) and eventually settled in Paris. A confirmed bachelor with a reputation as a heavy drinker, he did not marry until he was 64 and in self-exile. Originally buried in Neuilly, his remains were repatriated to his native city in October 1972, fulfilling his last wish. Glazunov left 110 published opuses and a number of unfinished efforts (including a Ninth Symphony, abandoned in 1910). His output fell off sharply after he became an administrator but he never ceased composing; his last major work, the Saxophone Concerto (1934), is a staple of that instrument's repertory. Also of note are two Piano Concertos (1911, 1917), a Violin Concerto (1904), the symphonic poem "Stenka Razin" (1885), seven string quartets, two piano sonatas, and several smaller orchestral works.