Georgy Sviridov | |
|---|---|
 Georgy Sviridovc. 1939 | |
| Born | (1915-12-16)16 December 1915 Fatezh, Russian Empire |
| Died | 6 January 1998(1998-01-06) (aged 82) Moscow, Russia |
| Resting place | Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow |
| Occupation | Composer |
Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov (Russian:Георгий Васильевич Свиридов[n 1]; 16 December 1915 – 6 January 1998) was a Soviet and Russian composer. He is most widely known for his choral music, strongly influenced by the traditionalchant of theRussian Orthodox Church, as well as his orchestral works which often celebrate elements of Russian culture.
Sviridov employed, especially in his choral music, rich and dense harmonic textures, embracing a romantic-eratonality; his works would come to incorporate not only sacred elements of Russian church music, including vocal work for thebasso profundo, but also the influence of Eastern European folk music, 19th-century European romantic composers (especiallyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), and neoromantic contemporaries outside of Russia. He wrote musical settings of Russian Romantic poetry by poets such asMikhail Lermontov,Fyodor Tyutchev, andAlexander Blok. Sviridov enjoyed critical acclaim for much of his career in the Soviet Union and Russia.
Sviridov was born in 1915 in the town ofFatezh in theKursk Governorate of theRussian Empire (present-dayKursk Oblast) in a family of Russian ethnicity.[1] His father, Vasily Sviridov, aBolshevik sympathizer during theRussian Civil War, was killed when Georgy was four. The family moved toKursk, where Sviridov, still in elementary school, learned to play his first instrument, thebalalaika. Learning to play by ear, he demonstrated such talent and ability that he was accepted into the local orchestra of Russian folk instruments. He enrolled in a music school in 1929, and following the advice of his teacher, M. Krutinsky, went toLeningrad in 1932, where he studied piano at the Leningrad Central Music College, graduating in 1936. From 1936 to 1941, Sviridov studied at theLeningrad Conservatory underPyotr Ryazanov, thenDmitri Shostakovich. Mobilized into theRed Army in 1941, just days after his graduation from the conservatory, Sviridov was sent to a military academy inUfa, but was discharged by the end of the year due to poor health.
In 1935, Sviridov composed a cycle of lyricalromances based on the poetry ofAlexander Pushkin which brought him first critical acclaim. During his studies in Leningrad Conservatory, 1936–1941, Sviridov experimented with different genres and different types of musical composition, such as his Piano Concerto No. 1 (1936–1939), Symphony No. 1 (1936–1937), and the Chamber Symphony for Strings (1940). Later Sviridov would turn to Russian musical heritage, including folk songs, for inspiration.
Among Sviridov's most popular orchestral pieces are the "Romance," "Waltz," and "Winter Road" from his suiteThe Blizzard, musical illustrations after Pushkin (1975), that were extracted from his score for theeponymous 1964 film based on the short story fromAlexander Pushkin'sThe Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin. A short segment from his score for the 1965 filmTime, Forward! (Время, вперёд!) was selected as the opening theme for the main evening TV news programVremya (Время, 'time') and became a staple of Soviet life.[2]
Poetry always occupied an important place in Sviridov's music. He composed songs and romances to the lyrics ofMikhail Lermontov (1938, 1957),Alexander Blok (1941),William Shakespeare (1944–1960),Robert Burns (in Russian translation, 1955). Despite the popularity of Sviridov's instrumental works, both the composer himself and the music critics regarded vocal and choral music to be his main strengths.Oratorio Pathétique (1959) afterVladimir Mayakovsky has been called[by whom?] a masterful musical rendering of one of the most popular Russian revolution poets. Sviridov's prolific vocal chamber and vocal symphonic output includes the oratorioTo the memory of Sergei Yesenin (1956), Little CantataWooden Russia (1964) after Yesenin, CantataSongs of Kursk (1964),Spring Cantata (1972) afterNikolay Nekrasov, songs, romances, and cantatas afterFyodor Tyutchev,Sergei Yesenin,Alexander Blok,Boris Pasternak,Alexander Prokofyev,Robert Rozhdestvensky. He also wrote one opera,Twinkling Lights (1951).
While Sviridov's music remains obscure in theWest, it is widely known within Russia. According to his nephew Alexander Belonenko, who posthumously edited and published Sviridov's personal jottings:
[Sviridov's music] is perceived [in Russia] as a sort of natural, or to put it more precisely, co-natural phenomenon, an integral part of the Russian landscape... Not everyone watchingORT will know the name of the composer to the music that accompanies the programVremya, which has become a symbol of our bustling times. To say nothing of the "Romance" from ...The Snowstorm. Whenever I visit Moscow, I hear it played in subway tunnels. In the words ofAlexander Blok, it "sunk into the souls of the people".[2]
The "Winter Road" movement that concludes the suite fromThe Snowstorm was allegedly plagiarized byTappi Iwase and used as the theme for the popular video game seriesMetal Gear Solid.[3]
In 1946 Sviridov was awarded theStalin Prize for his Piano Trio. TheLenin Prize of 1960 was bestowed on the composer for hisOratorio Pathétique. Georgy Sviridov was awarded theUSSR State Prize in 1968 and 1980 and honored with the titlePeople's Artist of the USSR. He became aHero of Socialist Labor (1975) and was twice awarded theOrder of Lenin.
Asteroid4075 Sviridov, discovered by the Russian astronomerLyudmila Karachkina in 1982, was named in honor of Georgy Sviridov.
Sviridov died of a heart attack at theMoscow Central Clinical Hospital in the early morning hours of 6 January 1998.[4]
