Nevertheless I'm enjoying Donald's survey of his music.Glinka is a composer I've only ever brushed against (Kamarinskaya, etc) and never really engaged with.

He isn't  an obvious candidate for 'neglected compser' or 'rediscovered genius'  so he tends to slip through many nets.

Does anyone have any fascinatimg insights to share ?

As a regular listener to 'CotW' I feel every Monday the keen sense fo freshness  at broaching  a new name,and every Friday the elegiac sadness at bidding him farewell. Itls a bit like reading  a biography;there's never a happy ending. .

Unfortunately Glinka's music wasn't greatly liked by audiences of his own times (partly out of snobbery - tastes in Russia at the time were for Italian and French music) and thus he would probably have composed a bit more than he did had he ever had the encouragement to do so.

I am slightly sceptical about this title "the father of Russian composition", because it's not really true.  Glinka had 2-3 quite serious predecessors - Fomin, Bortnyansky and Berezovsky.  Yevstigei Fomin had somehow secured funds to go to Italy, where he studied with Cimarosa - he returned to Russia to compose the first operas by a Russian composer.  I wouldn't say he had a particularly "Russian style" of composition, and some of his operas catered to the contemporary fashion for exotic locales and stories...  notably "The Americans" (which is about the native Americans, not the cowboys).  However, he also went in for roistabout comedies with Russian local colour, particularly "The Coachmen At The Post-Station".   Bortnyansky and Berezovsky were locally-educated talents.  Bortnyansky wrote mostly ecclesiastical music - Berezovsky allegedly wrote operas and symphonies too, but I've never been able to hear any of his stuff.

Dargomyzhsky - Glinka's greatly-ignored contemporary - is well worth exploring.  He experimented with the genre of the "melodrama" - spoken poetry declaimed over composed music (Beethoven used this in the first draft of FIDELIO (named "Leonore" at the time) but removed it in the second version).  His opera THE STONE GUEST is occasionally performed - there is a dreadfully poor production of it in the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theatre, in fact.

I did a bit of checking-up and found I've slightly slandered Maxim Berezovsky - it seems that he also studied abroad, in Italy, and produced an opera (PARTENOPE) whilst in Italy, to a Metastasio libretto.  I am not sure if the score is still around, or is lost - I've never heard the piece, anyhow, so it remains a tantalising prospect.  I think, even so, that properly speaking Fomin is the "first Russian opera composer", on the basis that Berezovsky was Ukrainian

Caught part of today's prog and found much to enjoy - the songs anticipated Tchaikovsky in having a mixture of Italianate line and flowing accompaniment - I wonder if he heard John Field? - and hints of Schumann at his most boisterous; the orchestration (by Balakirev) of the polka was attractive and quirky and, I suspect, annoyingly memorable (!); the Prince Khomsky Overture had clarity and direction and again anticipations of Tchaikovsky (syncopation over a descending chromatic bass particularly characteristic). The only things of his I knew before were the R and L Overture (of course - can anyone come up with an earlier use of the whole tone scale?), the Ivan Sussanin (Life for the Tsar) Overture (a bit stodgy and disappointing, I seem to recall), Kamarynskaya (good fun) the two Spanish Overtures (not as colourful as one might be led to expect from the titles) and - my favourite - the Valse-Fantaisie. The viola sonata is an enjoyable piece too, both for audience and performers!

It has been 'background' music for me over the last few days, some parts of it have been really nice though some has not, very mixed.

Liked the violin music lastnight.

I heard Glinka's Kamarinskaya on Breakfast show for the first time in many many years. I know the piece since very young age and I can not i liked it very much. But I really enjoyed it this morning.
Now here in Ireland they are gonig through the same period that Russia went when Glinka was writing. What did the Tzar said: Why is it smell so bad in here? Let the peasant slave out so we can breath.
(This is my free translation by memory).

It is amazing what one can see if one lives long enough. Here many composer close their noses too every time traditional musicians play.