The first Russian Conservatory opened in St. Petersburg on 20 September with a ceremonial meeting of students and teachers. From then onwards it has changed its name three times in line with the changes of the name of the city and in it changed its status becoming a public educational institution. Its location was changed four times.
The present building of the Conservatory was designed by V. Nicolas and built in Anton Rubinstein β became the founder and first director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was perhaps the most charismatic character in the history of the Russian music: a brilliant pianist, a wonderful teacher and composer and a prominent public figure.
He was the one to develop the in-depth curriculum for the Conservatory. An outstanding faculty including some renowned European musicians was assembled under his leadership. And, finally, Anton Rubenstein secured the Conservatory the right to award degrees in Liberal Arts thus facilitating the appearance of a new class in the Russian society. Such outstanding professors as pianist T.
Leschetitsky and violinist G. Venyavsky became professors at the Conservatory in s. The first class including Pyotr Tchaikovsky, a brilliant composer loved across the globe up to the present day, graduated in It also helped develop local musical cultures β Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian and Lithuanian. When in the Conservatory was named after Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov it demonstrated not only the historical importance of the composer himself but also the large scale of the Russian musical education.
The school of Rimsky-Korsakov brought forward the second after Anton Rubinstein great director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory - Alexander Glazunov β A gifted musician and wonderful composer, a highly moral person, he led the Conservatory through the turmoil of the XX century: the revolution, the world war and the civil war.
