Matvey Blanter
Matvey Blanter was a Soviet composer, born on February 10, 1903 (January 28 Old Style), in Pochep. He grew up in a Jewish family with three siblings. Before the First World War, his family moved to Kursk, where he sang in a choir and played in the drama theatre orchestra.
Blanter studied piano and violin at the Kursk Music School from 1915 to 1917. After moving to Moscow, he continued his violin and music theory studies at the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, and studied composition with Georgy Konyus in 1920–1921.
From 1920 to 1921, he was musical director and theatre composer at the Mastfor studio in Moscow. He later held musical-director posts at theatres in Leningrad, Moscow, Magnitogorsk, and Gorky. From 1936, he was artistic director of the State Jazz Orchestra of the USSR.
His early works included light dance music, including the 1923 foxtrot “John Gray.” In the 1930s, he wrote songs such as “The Song about Magnitogorsk,” “Partisan Zheleznyak,” and “Song about Shchors.” His 1938 song “Katyusha,” written to words by Mikhail Isakovsky, became one of his best-known works. During the war years, he wrote songs including “My Beloved,” “In the Front-Line Forest,” and “Song of War Correspondents.” His later hits included “Enemies Burned Their Home,” “In the City Garden,” and “Migrating Birds Fly.”
Blanter wrote more than 200 songs, as well as operettas, a suite for voice and orchestra, and music for theatre, films, and radio productions. His theatre music included songs for the 1956 production “The Four Seasons” and scores for Moscow Music Hall productions. He received the second-degree Stalin Prize in 1946 and was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1975.
Blanter died in Moscow on September 27, 1990, and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.