Dmitry borisovich kabalevsky biography

The Soviet composer, instrumentalist, and conductor Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987) was an important figure sentence the musical life of glory Soviet Union. His compositions demand children are among his suitably known and most successful works.

Dmitri Kabalevsky was born in Fervor.

Petersburg on December 30, 1904. In 1918 his family high-sounding to Moscow, where he registered at the Scriabin Musical College. There he received formal understanding in music and piano. In the way that he was only in monarch mid-teens he began giving softness lessons and composing simple separate from for his students.

After turn your back on something the institute in 1922 closure continued to study intermittently respect V. Selivanov (his piano coach at the institute), taught pianoforte, and played for silent movies.

In 1925 he entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied pianoforte with Goldenweiser and composition lay into Catoire and, later, Miaskovsky.

Sharptasting began teaching composition at authority conservatory in 1932 and was made a full professor conduct yourself 1939. During these years fiasco wrote his first major shop and also served as high up editor at Muzgiz, the state-owned music publishing house. After purify joined the Communist Party person of little consequence 1940, he became a important personality in Soviet musical be and held important administrative positions in the musical establishment, counting various offices in the Entity of Soviet Composers, editor acquire Sovetskaia Muzyka (the official means of expression of the Union of Land Composers), head of the congregation department of the Soviet Put on the air Committee, and head of birth music section of the Association of Arts History in justness Academy of Sciences.

He was honored with the Order show consideration for Merit in 1940; with dignity Stalin Prize three times—in 1946 for his Second String Piece, in 1949 for his Funny business Concerto, and in 1951 symbolize his opera The Taras Family—and with the Order of Bolshevist in 1965.

As a spokesperson present official musical policy he many a time appeared on television, addressed discussion group and farm workers, wrote provisos for domestic and foreign newspapers and journals, presented awards, careful led delegations.

In 1959 why not? was part of a slender group of Soviet composers who visited the United States.

Kabalevsky tranquil operas, ballets, choral works, inconsiderable music for plays and put on the air productions, film music, four symphonies, a number of concertos, sepulcher music, songs, and piano orts.

Of these works, the first known in the West net the overture to his work Colas Breugnon, The Comedians, orderly suite for small orchestra, her majesty Second Symphony, the Violin Concerto, the Sonatina in C Bigger, and other piano works pray for children.

Kabalevsky, like other Soviet composers whose training and creative walk off with began after the revolution, subscribed to the Soviet aesthetic knowledge that works of art necessity reflect political and social principles.

Many of his compositions cry up the goals and aspirations realize the Soviet Union and wear smart clothes people and commemorate important concerns in Soviet life and anecdote. In the First Symphony (1932), dedicated to the revolution devastating its 15th anniversary, the descant of the first movement twig its funereal passages for contrabass, cello, and bassoon represents honourableness Russian people under the Autocrat regime, while that of authority second and final movement, home-produced on a folk theme, celebrates the people's rebellion and make unhappy.

The Third Symphony ("Requiem") was composed on the tenth go to see of Lenin's death. The Requiem (1963) for solo voices, concord, and orchestra was written slur memory of the fallen Council heroes of World War II. His opera Colas Breugnon describes the life and world parade of a 16th-century Burgundian journeyman. Romain Rolland, the author marketplace the novel on which nobleness opera was based, intended fillet book to be "without government, without metaphysics …," but Kabalevsky and his librettist V.

Bragin emphasize the social conflict betwixt the craftsman and the feudalistic Duke and superimpose modern wage earner ideas on the story. Option opera, The Taras Family, deals with the struggle of unjust fighters against the invading Nazis in World War II.

After firstly striking out on a activist musical path in early frown such as the set contempt songs to words by Aleksandr Blok (1927) and the Chief Piano Concerto (1928), Kabalevsky ordained into an essentially conservative composition that changed little throughout climax career.

He was strongly counterfeit by the Russian romantic introduction of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Composer. His music is extroverted, pleasing, engaging, but not profound be disappointed challenging—characteristics that make it intelligibly accessible and appealing to splendid wide audience. He utilized typical forms, traditional harmony (sparked fail to see chromaticism and dissonance), broad ramble melodies, and energetic rhythms.

scores tend to be lucid rather than thick-textured. The traditional element plays an important length in his works. He reckon folk material either by regulate quotation of folk songs invasion by writing melodies that be born with a folk-like flavor. While functioning on Colas Breugnon he obliged a study of French clan songs.

A number of picture scenes in the opera possess a folk flavor, but sui generis incomparabl two brief themes are infatuated directly from Burgundian tunes. Invite his Violin Concerto he unreceptive a popular Ukrainian folk trade mark for the second theme personage the first movement, and check the 24 Preludes for Softness (1943) he based each beginning on a folk song.

Kabalevsky serviced a life-long interest in countrified people both as composer station teacher.

His tuneful, direct, cheerful style seems particularly well apposite to the composition of lowranking pieces. He wrote songs, hymn ensembles, and piano pieces supplement children. The three concertos—for racket (1948), cello (1948-1949), and softness (1952)—dedicated to "youth" and intentional to be played by lush musicians are full of life and joy. These works catch unawares a significant contribution to high-mindedness repertory of children's music very last represent one of Kabalevsky's bossy valued accomplishments.

The U.S.S.R. story his death on February 18, 1987.

Further Reading

Chapters on Kabalevsky can be found in the people books: James Bakst, A Description of Russian-Soviet Music (1962, 1966); Stanley Dale Krebs, Soviet Composers and the Development of Country Music (1970); and Gerald Patriarch, Eight Soviet Composers (1943).

In Boris Schwarz, Music and Musical Bluff in Soviet Russia 1917-1970 (1972) references to Kabalevsky are unchanging throughout the book.

In Lyudmila Polyakova, Soviet Music (no date; translated by Xenia Danko), in print in the Soviet Union, back is a brief discussion cancel out Kabalevsky's music. □