Alexander Ilyinsky

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title: "Alexander Ilyinsky" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1859-births", "1920-deaths", "people-from-pushkin,-saint-petersburg", "people-from-tsarskoselsky-uyezd", "composers-from-the-russian-empire", "music-educators-from-the-russian-empire", "saint-petersburg-conservatory-alumni", "academic-staff-of-moscow-conservatory", "19th-century-educators-from-the-russian-empire"] description: "Russian music teacher and composer" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Ilyinsky" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Russian music teacher and composer ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Il'inskiy_Aleksandr.jpg" caption="Alexander Ilyinsky"] ::

Alexander Alexandrovich Ilyinsky (; 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.

Alexander Ilyinsky was born in Tsarskoye Selo 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. His music studies were in Berlin, under Theodor Kullak and Natanael Betcher He returned to Russia in 1885, graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatory

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. He also wrote a symphony, a Concert Overture, a string quartet, three orchestral suites, a set of orchestral Croatian Dances, a symphonic movement called Psyche, 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), "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.

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 East of Java (1935) and the adventure serials Tim Tyler's Luck (1937) and Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938).

References

Sources

• Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th, 1954, Eric Blom, ed.

References

1. [http://grandemusica.net/musical-biographies-i/iljinsky-alexander Grande Musica]
2. at the [[Akademie der Künste
3. "Archived copy".
4. [http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/I.html Opera Glass]
5. "Flash Gordon and His Universal Serial Compatriots".

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