Alexander Dmitryevich Ulybyshev or Alexandre Oulibicheff (Russian: Александр Дмитриевич Улыбышев) (1794-1858) was a wealthy landowner, an influential biographer of

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

and the most important early patron of Mily Balakirev.

Life

Ulybyshev was born in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, the son of the Russian ambassador to the

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles ...

. From 1816 to 1830 he served in the Russian Foreign Ministry, where his duties from 1825 to 1830 included editing the '' Journal de St.-Pétersbourg''. He retired in 1830, with the rank of State Councillor. He died at his estate in Lukino, near

Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...

, on 24 January (

Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...

; 5 February

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

) 1858.

Writings

Ulybyshev's three-volume ''Nouvelle biographie de Mozart'' (Dresden, 1843) was influential on nineteenth-century perceptions of the composer. It was later translated into German, and into Russian by Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. His views were attacked by

Wilhelm von Lenz Wilhelm von Lenz (born 20 May 1809 in Riga - died 7 January 1883 in Saint Petersburg) was a Baltic German Russian official and writer. Wilhelm von Lenz was a friend and student of many mid-century Romantic composers, including Franz Liszt, Fréd� ...

in ''Beethoven et ses trois styles'' (Paris, 1855), to which Ulybyshev retaliated with ''Beethoven, ses critiques et ses glossateurs'' (Leipzig and Paris, 1857). He also wrote a number of articles on music for the ''Journal de St.-Pétersbourg''.

Sources

Geoffrey Norris Geoffrey Norris (born 1947) is an English musicologist and music critic. His scholarship focuses on Russian composers; in particularly, Norris is a leading scholar on the life and music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, about whom he has written in nume ...

and Edward Garden. "Ulïbïshev, Aleksandr Dmitryevich." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 26 May 2010.
Profile of Ulybyshev
Apr. 4, 2006, by

Voice of Russia Voice of Russia ( rus, Голос России, r=Golos Rossii), commonly abbreviated VOR, was the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service from 1993 until 2014, when it was reorganised as Radio Sputnik. Its interval signal w ...

External links

''Nouvelle biographie de Mozart''
at Google Books.
''Beethoven: ses critiques et ses glossateurs''
at Google Books. 1794 births 1858 deaths Russian civil servants Russian newspaper editors Russian music critics Russian landowners {{music-bio-stub