Mikhail Glinka is considered the father of Russian music, and influenced later composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky. Glinka took piano, violin and voice lessons, but did not seriously study music as a youth. After eventually studying composition in Berlin Glinka returned to Russia. There he discovered the works of writers such as Pushkin and Gogol, who uncovered for him a wealth and depth of his Russian cultural heritage. Moved, he wrote his seminal Russian work A Life for the Tsar. It combined Russian and Polish folk tunes with Italian-style operatic passages and even anticipated Wagner's leitmotif by using recurring themes identifies with specific characters. It also marked a new approach to orchestration in which the orchestra was essentially a member of the cast, not merely an accompaniment to the singers. Glinka's second great Russian opera, Russlan and Ludmilla was not immediately as successful as A Life for the Tsar, but was ultimately more influential. It contained Persian influences and made use of a seven-step whole-tone scale for the first time in European music. His influence of the Russian composers who followed was immense, as they tried to extend Glinka's effort to foster Russian nationalism in music and the arts.