The operas of Glinka, as well as those of Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, betrayed the influence of Italy on Russian music. Though not the first Russian opera composer, Michal Ivanovich Glinka is the first of historic note. Rubinstein goes so far as to claim for him a place among the greatest five of all composers (the others being, in his opinion, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin), but this is a ludicrously patriotic exaggeration. His master work is “A Life for the Czar,” which created a new epoch in Russian music. The hero of the plot is a peasant, Soussanin, who, during a war between Poland and Russia, is pressed into service as a guide by a Polish army corps. He saves the Czar by misleading the Poles, and falls a victim to their vengeance. In his autobiography Glinka says: “The scene where Soussanin leads the Poles astray in the forest I read aloud while composing, and entered so completely into the situation of my hero that I used to feel my hair standing on end and cold shivers down my back.” It is under such conditions that master works are created. [Illustration: ROMANTIC DANCE] [Illustration: A MOUJIK (PEASANT) DANCE] Although following the conventional Italian forms, “A Life for the Czar” is in most respects thoroughly Slavic--partly Russian, partly Polish. While composing the score he followed the plan of using the national music of Poland and Russia to contrast the two countries. In some cases he used actual folk tunes, including one he overheard a cab driver sing. In other instances he invented his own melodies, but dyed them in the national colors. As the eminent French composer, Alfred Bruneau (bree´-no), remarked, “by means of a harmony or a simple orchestral touch,” Glinka “could give an air which is apparently as Italian as possiblea penetrating perfume of Russian nationality.” By his utilizing of folk tunes in building up works of art--he did the same thing in his next opera, “Ruslan and Ludmilla”--Glinka entered a path on which most of the Russian composers of his time, and later on, followed his lead; but his influence did not stop there. He was also the pioneer who opened up the road into the dense jungle of discords, unusual scales, and odd rhythms, which have made much of the music by later Russian composers seem as if written according to a new grammar. Furthermore, Rosa Newmarch, who is the best historian in English of Russian opera, writes that “it is impossible not to realize that the fantastic Russian ballets of the present day owe much to Glinka’s first introduction of Eastern dances into ‘Ruslan and Ludmilla’.” [Illustration: MICHAL GLINKA] Clearly, Glinka was the father of Russian opera. He wrote some good concert pieces, too. _Rubinstein, the Russian Mendelssohn_