Count Michał Wielhorski

Polish composer, cellist, poet. Born in St Petersburg in the family of Count Jerzy Wielhorski (1753–1807), Polish envoy to the Russian court (1788). Lived in various houses on Mikhailovskaya Square (now Arts Square). Played host to a series of famous musical soirées, attracting leading members of the Russian aristocracy and the creative intelligentsia. Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Pushkin, Vladimir Odoyevsky, Vasily Zhukovsky, Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky, Nikolai Gogol, Count Vladimir Sollogub, Taras Shevchenko, Karl Brullov and Carl Christian Philipp Reichel all visited his house at one time or another. Hector Berlioz, Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Pauline Viardot performed there when they visited St Petersburg, while the first act of Mikhail Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar was rehearsed at his apartment. Died in Moscow (1856).