Igor Borisovich Markevich was a Ukrainian composer and conductor. He was born in Kyiv on 9 August 1912. When he was two, his parents moved to Switzerland. Alfred Cortot discovered his musical talent and took him to Paris in 1926 to train as a composer and pianist; there he studied with Nadia Boulanger.
Markevich gained recognition in Paris in 1929 through a performance of his Concerto Grosso. Béla Bartók called him “the most outstanding personality in contemporary classical music” and cited him as an influence on his own compositions. During the 1930s, Markevich's works attracted increasing attention, and he was sometimes called “the second Igor,” after Igor Stravinsky. After completing a new orchestral work in October 1941, he became seriously ill. Once recovered, he gave up composition to concentrate on conducting.
He made his conducting debut at the age of eighteen with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He was highly regarded for his interpretations of French and Russian repertoire and of twentieth-century music. He settled in Italy and acquired Italian citizenship, later moving to London in 1953 and then returning to Switzerland. From 1965 he worked with Spain's RTVE Orchestra. He died unexpectedly in Antibes on 7 March 1983.
His compositions include Partita for piano and orchestra (1931), The Flight of Icarus, a ballet for orchestra (1932), The Lost Paradise, an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra (1934–35), and Lorenzo the Magnificent for soprano and orchestra (1940). In 1982, Edition Peters of Leipzig published his The Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven: Historical, Analytical and Practical Studies, a work popular with conductors though controversial.