Leningrad Conservatory

(full name, N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad Conservatory), the oldest higher music institution in the USSR. It was founded in 1862 by the Russian Music Society at the initiative of A. G. Rubinstein and named after Rimsky-Korsakov in 1944.

Major pedagogic systems known throughout the world were developed at the conservatory—for example, by Rimsky-Korsakov (composition), F. O. Leshetitskii and A. N. Esipova (piano), L. S. Auer (violin), K. Iu. Davidov and A. V. Verzh-bilovich (cello), and G. Nissen-Saloman, K. Everardi, S. I. Gabel’, and N. A. Iretskaia (voice). A. K. Glazunov, who was director from 1905 to 1928, exerted an important influence on the conservatory. Among its students were P. I. Tchaikovsky, A. K. Liadov, M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov, A. S. Arenskii, N. V. Lysenko, N. Ia. Miaskovskii, S. S. Prokofiev, Iu. A. Shaporin, D. D. Shostakovich, A. M. Balanchivadze, Ia. Ia. Vitol, U. Gadzhibekov, A. I. Kapp, E. Ia. Melngailis, G. V. Sviridov, V. P. Solov’ev-Sedoi, A. Sh. Melik-Pashaev, E. A. Mravinskii, S. P. Preobrazhenskaia, V. A. Davydova, and G. M. Nelepp.

During the Soviet era such musicians taught at the conservatory as L. V. Nikolaev, V. V. Sofronitskii, and P. A. Serebriakov (piano), I. A. Braudo (organ), A. Ia. Shtrimer (cello), M. N. Buianovskii (French horn), A. G. Vasil’ev (bassoon), and I. V. Ershov, P. Z. Andreev, and Z. P. Lodii (voice). Composers and musicologists on the staff included M. O. Shteinberg, V. G. Karatygin, B. V. Asaf’ev, V. V. Shcherbachev, A. V. Ossovskii, and Kh. S. Kushnarev.

In 1973 the conservatory had departments of theory and composition (with musicology and composition divisions), conducting (choir, opera-symphony, and folk-instrument divisions), piano and organ, orchestra (stringed, wind, and percussion instruments), voice and conducting (with divisions for opera conductors and ballet masters), and advanced training. It also had a graduate school, a division for research assistants and nonmatriculated students, 23 subdepartments, an opera workshop (since 1923), a music school, and a special ten-year school (since 1934). The conservatory’s collection of recordings contains more than 10,000 records and more than 1,500 km of recorded tapes. The library has nearly 300,000 holdings.

In the 1972–73 academic year nearly 1,500 students were enrolled at the conservatory. The faculty of nearly 300 teachers includes 40 doctors of sciences and professors, more than 100 docents and candidates of sciences, 40 People’s Artists of the USSR and RSFSR. The conservatory is authorized to accept for defense doctoral and candidate dissertations.

Over the years the Leningrad Conservatory has trained nearly 9,000 specialists, 6,000 of them in Soviet times. Nearly 300 of its alumni have been awarded Lenin and State prizes and have won international and all-Union competitions. The conservatory was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1938.