As a young, prodigiously gifted composer, Glazunov continued the colourful and attractive Russian symphonic tradition he inherited from Borodin and Tchaikovsky. Perhaps his most precious legacy, though, was maintaining the standards of the St. Petersburg Conservatory through the fraught years of the Revolution and subsequent Civil War; in that time he recognised and nurtured the talent of the young Shostakovich. Born in St. Petersburg in 1865, Glazunov was introduced as a budding pianist, aged 14, to Balakirev, who—recognising his exceptional gifts—passed him to Rimsky-Korsakov for composition lessons at the Conservatory. His Symphony No. 1, composed at age 16, was premiered in 1882. That work alone inspired a wealthy timber merchant, Mitrofan Belyayev, to set up a music publishing company to promote Glazunov’s work—and, by extension, the works of Rimsky-Korsakov and his circle, effectively raising their international profile. Glazunov composed eight symphonies in all and a popular Violin Concerto (1904), though his productivity abruptly fell off when he became director of his alma mater in 1905, his time now taken up by administrative demands. In 1928, disenchanted and dismayed as his authority was undercut by young upstarts promoted under the Soviet regime, he resigned from the Conservatory and left Russia for Paris, where he died in 1936.