About this edition
Mikhail Glinka's A Life for the Tsar holds a singular place in music history as the opera that gave birth to a Russian national school of composition. Premiered in St. Petersburg in 1836, it tells the story of the peasant Ivan Susanin, who sacrifices his life to lead invading Polish forces astray and protect the newly chosen Tsar Mikhail Romanov during the turbulent Time of Troubles. Glinka fused the grand forms of Italian and French opera with the melodic character and harmonic color of Russian folk song, and in doing so created a work that Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, and generations of Russian composers would look to as their true point of departure.
This edition reproduces the full orchestral score published in Moscow by P. Jurgenson, undated but issued around 1904, plate number 30259. Jurgenson was the preeminent Russian music publishing house of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, responsible for bringing the works of Tchaikovsky and countless other Russian composers into print. The score was edited by Mily Balakirev and Sergey Lyapunov — Balakirev, leader of the nationalist circle known as "The Five" and a lifelong champion of Glinka's legacy, and Lyapunov, his close collaborator and fellow custodian of the Russian symphonic tradition. Their editorial hands lend this edition a rare authority: it comes from musicians who understood Glinka's idiom from the inside and worked to preserve his scores for the generations of performers who followed.
About this edition:
- Format: full orchestral score
- Page size: 8.27 x 11.69 inches
- Reproduced from a public domain historical source
- Published by Purple 4R Publishing
Because this historical score has entered the public domain, we're delighted to bring it back into print, offering conductors, orchestras, students, and scholars an affordable and faithful copy of a landmark edition of Russia's first great national opera.