Alexander Chugayev

Alexander Georgievich Chugayev was a Soviet composer, musicologist, and teacher. He was born on February 27, 1924, according to other sources February 29, 1924, in Yeysk, Kuban Region, Russian Empire. He studied music from early childhood.

In 1933, at the age of nine, he entered the class of Elena Gnesina, while also studying children's composition with Yevgeny Messner and later with Vissarion Shebalin. After graduating from the school in 1940, Chugayev entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Shebalin's class, but his studies were interrupted by the Great Patriotic War and resumed only in 1944.

At that time Dmitri Shostakovich had been invited to teach at the conservatory, and Chugayev, who had dreamed of studying with him, transferred to his class. According to the recollections of Karen Khachaturian, Shebalin, burdened by his duties as rector of the Moscow Conservatory, himself suggested that his students move to Shostakovich's class. In 1948, after Shostakovich left the conservatory, Chugayev continued his studies with Yuri Shaporin. He studied until 1949, then postponed his examinations with the right to take them within two years, which he did in 1951, officially graduating from the conservatory with a diploma.

In 1952 he joined the Union of Soviet Composers. From 1947 he taught at the Gnesins State Music College, and from 1952, according to other sources from 1948, also at the Gnesins Musical Pedagogical Institute. He taught there until 1978. From 1983, according to other sources from 1979, he taught at the Moscow Conservatory.

While studying in Shostakovich's class, Chugayev wrote Six Preludes for Piano and his First String Quartet. In 1951, in order to receive his conservatory diploma, he wrote the Concert Overture, and the following year, for admission to the Union of Soviet Composers, he wrote his Second String Quartet. By commission of the Music Fund of the USSR, in 1955 he wrote the symphonic poem 1905, and in 1957 the Dramatic Ballad, dedicated to the fiftieth anniversaries of the 1905 Revolution and the October Revolution.

He also composed film music, writing for the film How Semaga Was Caught in 1958 and for the film A Work of Art in 1959. In 1960, according to other sources in 1965, together with Khalik Zaimov he wrote the ballet Black-Faced Ones. His later works included a Violin Concerto in 1962, Capriccio for Solo Violin in 1967, a Piano Quintet in 1970, and a Piano Trio in 1979.

Chugayev was also active as a scholar. Among the works associated with his name are Polyphony, written with A. Stepanov and published in Moscow in 1972, and The Structural Features of Bach's Keyboard Fugues, published in Moscow in 1975. He died in Moscow on March 22, 1990.