Semion Zlatov
Semion Zlatov was a Romanian and Moldovan composer, conductor, music teacher, and bandmaster. He was born Shloyme Volkovich Goldenstein on 18 (30) March 1893 in Chisinau, to Volko Itzekovich Goldenstein and Khova Duvidovna Goldenstein. Before 1940, he was known as Atanasiu-Zlatov and also used the pseudonym Gold.
From 1908 to 1912, Zlatov studied at the Chisinau Music School of the Russian Musical Society. In 1916, he graduated from the Imperial Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied the French horn and military band conducting. He also completed his composition studies under Alexander Glazunov.
After graduating, Zlatov returned to Chisinau and conducted a wind band. From 1919, he lived in Bucharest. Until 1927, he played trumpet in the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra under George Georgescu. In 1927 and 1928, he served as chief inspector of the Romanian Army and Navy wind bands. From 1929 to 1940, he was a trumpeter and conductor at the Bucharest Musical Drama Theater, a bandmaster of wind bands in Bucharest and Constanta, and assistant inspector of the Romanian Army wind bands under Edgicio Massini.
During his years in Romania, Zlatov composed music for wind bands and arranged works by contemporary Romanian composers. In 1926, he officially changed his name to Simion Atanasiu-Zlatov. In 1940, he returned to Chisinau and adopted the name Semion Vladimirovich Zlatov. From that year, he taught at the conservatory founded by the composer David Gershfeld and later became a professor. He belonged to the Union of Composers of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and, until 1940, to the Society of Romanian Composers.
Zlatov is known chiefly for his compositions and arrangements for wind bands. His works include two dance suites—the five-movement Moldovan Suite and the five-movement Suite No. 1: Adolescence—as well as choral rhapsodies setting texts by Moldovan poets Leonid Kornyanu and Petru Kruchenyuk. These include Dance at the Fir Tree (1950) and Fruits (1957). He also wrote the Moldovan March, arrangements for wind band of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony (1933), the symphonic poem Let Us Rejoice, four symphonies, Spanish Capriccio for symphony orchestra, piano pieces, numerous arrangements of Moldovan and Romanian folk songs, and film music.
Together with G. F. Borsh, Zlatov compiled a collection of single-line solfège exercises based on Moldovan folk music, published in Moscow in 1956. His arrangement of a Moldovan folk dance for wind band was published in Moscow in 1959. Zlatov died in Chisinau on 23 October 1969.