Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Il'insky

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Il'insky (Tsarskoye Selo, 1859 – Moscow, 1920) was a Russian composer and teacher whose career combined teaching, composition and the writing of books on music. He is of particular interest as a bridge between the German training of the late nineteenth century and the musical life of Moscow in the early years of the twentieth century.

He studied in Berlin, with Bargiel for composition and with Kullak for piano. He graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1885 and that same year began teaching at the School of Music and Dramatic Art of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, where he was appointed professor in 1896. In 1905 he moved to the Moscow Conservatory as professor of theory, history and composition, a post he held until his death.

As a composer he is remembered chiefly for the opera Bakhchisarayskiy fontan (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai), based on Pushkin, and for a number of choral and orchestral works. He also published a series of treatises and biographies, including studies of Glinka, Beethoven, Dargomyzhsky and Wagner, as well as manuals of harmony and orchestration that were of practical use in Russian musical education of his time.