{{Short description|Russian music teacher and composer (1859–1920)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}} thumb|Alexander Ilyinsky '''Alexander Alexandrovich Ilyinsky''' ({{langx|ru|Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Ильи́нский}}; {{OldStyleDate|24 January|1859|12 January}}{{spaced ndash}}23 February 1920) was a Russian music teacher and composer, best known for the ''Lullaby (Berceuse)'', Op. 13, No. 7, from his orchestral suite "Noure and Anitra", and for the opera ''The Fountain of Bakhchisaray'' set to Pushkin's poem of the same name.
==Life== Alexander Ilyinsky was born in Tsarskoye Selo, Russia, in 1859. His father was a physician in the Alexander Cadet Corps. His general education was in the First Cadet Corps at St Petersburg, and he served in the Artillery from 1877 to 1879.<ref name=grande>[http://grandemusica.net/musical-biographies-i/iljinsky-alexander Grande Musica]</ref> His music studies were in Berlin, under Theodor Kullak and Natanael Betcher<ref name=grande/> at the Berlin Conservatory, and under Woldemar Bargiel at the Neue Akademie der Tonkunst.<ref name=answers>[http://www.answers.com/topic/alexander-ilyinsky Answers.com]</ref> He returned to Russia in 1885, graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatory,<ref name=answers/> and taught at the Moscow Philharmonic Society School of Music and Drama.<ref name=grande/> He resigned in 1899 and started giving private lessons.<ref name=grande/> In 1905, he joined the staff of the Moscow Conservatory.<ref name=grande/><ref name=answers/> His students included Vasily Kalinnikov, Anatoly Nikolayevich Alexandrov, Nikolai Roslavets, Elena Stanekaite-Laumyanskene, and the Finnish composer Väinö Raitio.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.vainoraitio.org/articles/EsittelyArtikkeli.pdf |last1=Isolamm |first1=Hanna |title=VÄINÖ RAITIO (1891–1945) |access-date=6 February 2017 |archive-date=6 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170206185156/http://www.vainoraitio.org/articles/EsittelyArtikkeli.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>
His major work, the 4-act opera ''The Fountain of Bakhchisaray'', to a libretto based on Alexander Pushkin's poem, was produced in Moscow in 1911.<ref>[http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/I.html Opera Glass]</ref> He also wrote a symphony, a Concert Overture,<ref name=grande/> a string quartet, three orchestral suites, a set of orchestral ''Croatian Dances'', a symphonic movement called ''Psyche'',<ref name=grande/> two cantatas for female chorus and orchestra (''Strekoza'' (The Dragonfly) and ''Rusalka''), incidental music to Sophocles' ''Oedipus Rex'' and ''Philoctetes'', and to Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's ''Tsar Fiodor Ioannovich'', piano pieces, church music, songs, etc. His name is perhaps most familiar to music students for his ''Lullaby'' from the third orchestral suite (sometimes described as a ballet),<ref name=grande/> "Noure and Anitra", Op. 13, which excerpt has appeared in many different arrangements.
Alexander Ilyinsky also wrote "A Short Guide to the Practical Teaching of Orchestration" (1917), which remained in use long after his death.<ref name=answers/> In 1904 there appeared under his editorship "Biographies of all Composers from the Fourth to the Twentieth Century".<ref name=grande/> He edited the complete piano works of Beethoven for a commercial publication.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nlr.ru/eng/coll/music/rus.html |title=National Library of Russia |access-date=9 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100719220932/http://www.nlr.ru/eng/coll/music/rus.html |archive-date=19 July 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
He died in 1920 in Moscow.
''Orgy of the Spirits'', an excerpt from ''The Fountain of Bakhchisaray'', was used in the scores of the film ''[https://us.imdb.com/title/tt0026304/ East of Java]'' (1935),<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://members.iquest.net/~taldr/ |title=Flash Gordon and His Universal Serial Compatriots |access-date=9 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090826211937/http://members.iquest.net/~taldr/ |archive-date=26 August 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> as well as the adventure serials ''Tim Tyler's Luck'' (1937) and ''Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars'' (1938).<ref name=answers/> It was also used as the theme music for the radio serial ''The Witch’s Tale''.<ref>[http://www.classicthemes.com/oldTimeRadioThemes/radioTitleIndex.html Old Time Radio: Theme Title Index]</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== * {{cite Efron|Ильинский, Александр Александрович}} * Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th, 1954, Eric Blom, ed.
==Further reading== "Iljinski, Alexander Alexandrovich", in ''The Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'' (1940), Garden City, NY: Blue Ribbon Books.
==External links== * {{IMSLP|id=Ilyinsky, Aleksandr}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ilyinsky, Alexander}} Category:1859 births Category:1920 deaths Category:19th-century composers from the Russian Empire Category:19th-century educators from the Russian Empire Category:20th-century Russian composers Category:20th-century Russian educators Category:Academic staff of Moscow Conservatory Category:Music educators from the Russian Empire Category:People from Pushkin, Saint Petersburg Category:People from Tsarskoselsky Uyezd Category:Saint Petersburg Conservatory alumni