Andrejs Jurjans

Andrejs Jurjans was a Latvian composer and folklorist, one of the founders of Latvian classical music. He was born in Ergli on September 30, 1856, and died in Riga on September 28, 1922.

From 1875 he studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, first in the organ class of Louis Homilius and then also in the composition class of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1877, the first song he had written was published.

After graduating from the conservatory, he taught in Kharkiv from 1882 to 1916. At the same time, he took an active part in the musical life of Latvia as a collector, researcher, and arranger of national song folklore. Together with his brothers, he regularly participated in the Latvian Song Festivals.

With his four-volume work Materials of Latvian Folk Music, which included about 2,000 melodies, Jurjans laid the foundation for all later research in this field. After his death, this work was supplemented with a fifth part by his brother Pavel.

Jurjans's own compositions were also largely based on folklore material. His works include the cantatas To the Fatherland (1886), Belshazzar's Feast, and To the Centenary of the Annexation of Courland to Russia, as well as the symphonic picture Liberation of the Latvian People (1891), along with numerous choral and vocal compositions.

He was buried at the Forest Cemetery in Riga.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.