Klimenty Korchmaryov

Klimenty Arkadyevich Korchmaryov was a Soviet composer. He was born on July 3, 1899, in Verkhnyedneprovsk, then in Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire, now in Ukraine.

In 1919 he graduated from the Odessa Conservatory, studying piano with G. M. Biber and composition with Vitold Malishevsky, a pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. From 1921 to 1923 he taught at the M. Glinka Dnipropetrovsk Conservatory. He also appeared as a pianist and worked as a music critic.

Korchmaryov composed in several stage and orchestral genres, and also wrote music for films and animated films. His operas included Ivan the Soldier (1927), Ten Days That Shook the World (1930–31, fragments, in manuscript), Happy Youth (1942), and Child of Joy, also known as The Grey-Haired Girl (1955).

His ballets included The Serf Ballerina (1927), The Merry Deceiver (1942), Girls of the Sea (1944), Young Patriots (1949), and The Scarlet Flower (1949). He also wrote the operetta Hanna, also known as Early Beauty (1939).

Among his other works were the vocal symphonies October (1931), Holland (1933), Peoples of the Soviet Country (1935), and Young Patriots (1949), as well as a String Quartet (1935). His piano pieces included Spring Song, Improvisation, Bright One, Fairy Tale, and Prelude for the Left Hand. He also wrote the song Warriors of the People, Stalinists, to Battle! (1941) to words by A. Zharov.

As a film composer, he wrote for the films The Distant Bride (1948) and Shadow at the Pier (1955). He received the title Honored Art Worker of the Turkmen SSR in 1944. In 1951 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, second class, for the suite Free China for chorus and symphony orchestra, written in 1950.

Korchmaryov died on April 7, 1958, in Moscow. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.