Mitrofan Belyayev

He was also the founder of the Belyayev circle, a society of musicians in Russia whose members included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov and Anatoly Lyadov.

Later he became a member in a circle of friends in St. Petersburg of chamber musicians, and with the leaders of that time - Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Borodin - undertook journeys in Russia and abroad to learn more music, among other places to Bayreuth.

The works published there were edited to a high standard, while the authors received higher fees than was usual and kept full control over performance rights.

For example, in 1886, for his 50th birthday, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Lyadov and Glazunov collaborated on a string quartet on the notes B-A-F (Be-la-ef),[1] in 1895, Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov composed the three movement 'Jour de fête' or 'Name-Day Quartet',[2] and in 1899, 10 of the group collaborated to compose the Variations on a Russian Theme in G major,[3] and another collection -of 16 movements by 11 of the group- was published under the "Les Vendredis" group name.

[4] Another of their joint projects was a set of variations on a Russian theme for piano and orchestra, to which in addition Alexander Kopylov, Nikolay Sokolov and other members of the circle contributed individual movements.