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By Olga Fyodorova
…The summer of 1936. Entrance exams to the composers’ department of the
Leningrad Conservatory…
“Come on, young man, come in and sit down. But first, introduce yourself…”
“Georgy Sviridov. Born in 1915 at Fatezh, near Kursk... Came here after
finishing a music college in Kursk. That’s all…”
“Kursk? Oh, I like the place; it’s so amazingly warm, scenic and
filled with songs! They say your nightingales are the sweetest sounding
around, is that true?”
“Of course they are! By the way, that’s where our songs actually
come from! I think our Kursk nightingales sing the most beautiful songs
in the whole world! I just can’t wait to put them all down on paper so
that everyone can appreciate their beauty…”
“Well, maybe some day you will do exactly that. And now, let’s see what
you’ve got for today’s exam…”
“It’s a cycle of old Russian love songs to Pushkin’s verse…”
“Well, Alexander Pushkin’s poems inspired hundreds of love songs written
by the very best Russian composers, small wonder that you too felt the
urge to do your bit. Alright, let’s see what you’ve got there…”
After the very first pieces the examiners already knew they were dealing
with a really big talent. The 20 year-old Georgy Sviridov was assigned
to the class of the young albeit already well-known composer Dmitry Shostakovich.
From the very outset, songs, romances and choral music topped Sviridov’s
compositional agenda. Well heeled in things poetic, he drew inspiration
from Russian and foreign classics. The cycle of songs written to poems
by Robert Burns won him his first major success…
In 1959 Sviridov presided over the triumphal premier of his Pathetic Oratorio,
which he wrote to the poster lines by Vladimir Mayakovsky which, until
then, were seen as absolutely impossible to harmonize. Sviridov was the
first to harness the sharply expressive rhymes of the revolution’s leading
poet…
The Pathetic Oratorio was played in prestigious concert halls and open-air
stadiums by thousands’-strong choirs and orchestras always being met with
an enthusiastic welcome, including at an international festival in London.
In 1964 Georgy Sviridov finally realized his longtime dream and recorded
the songs of his native Kursk region. Moreover, he made an amazingly
beautiful choral arrangement adorning the pristine folk melodies with a
rich lace of orchestral sounds. The result was a cantata he called “The
Kursk Songs.”
During the Seventies and Eighties Sviridov got back to his beloved Pushkin
writing the choral cycle “Pushkin Garland” and then music to the film “The
Snowstorm” based on Pushkin’s story of the same name.
He later developed this film score into a symphonic suite, which became
hugely popular and the waltz even became his signature tune…
In the early 1970s, Sviridov was already a seasoned composer and a living
classic. Everything he wrote was immediately published and the country’s
best musicians were contesting the right to be the first to play them.
Abrasive and exacting, Sviridov never left anything to chance when it came
to getting the musicians to understand the inner meaning of his music…
During rehearsals Sviridov was always high strung and could even holler
and stomp his feet in anger. The musicians who knew him well never took
those outbursts too close to heart. They knew he had a point there trying
desperately to achieve perfection…
Almost each year there appeared new compositions by Georgy Sviridov, which
made many people believe he was a quick writer. But it was not entirely
true, however, because even though he never took long committing
his musical ideas to paper, he then put the whole thing on ice so
that the new piece could mature, so to say. Occasionally adding small
changes to the score, the author took his time before finally letting it
go…
This moment was never easy on Sviridov who was never 100-percent happy
even about things that had successfully been played over and over again…
Sviridov spent years writing his cycle of Orthodox chants. That long and
arduous work finally complete, he was still not entirely satisfied with
his life’s last masterpiece…
Georgy Sviridov died shortly before the Orthodox Christmas of 1998. He
was 83… They say that only the most righteous depart this world at this
time of the year…
After the composer’s demise they found in his family archives a wealth
of unknown scores, which were eagerly taken up by willing performers. None
of these works proved a masterpiece though. The Maestro obviously
had a reason to keep them under wraps, because his best compositions were
already out there for us to enjoy…
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