Sergei Slonimsky
Sergei Slonimsky was a Soviet and Russian composer, pianist, musicologist, and teacher. He was born on August 12, 1932, in Leningrad. He became one of the prominent figures of Russian musical life, combining creative work with scholarship and long years of teaching. He was the author of 34 symphonies, eight operas, three ballets, chamber and vocal music, as well as music for films and theatrical productions.
He was born into a Jewish family. His father was the writer Mikhail Slonimsky, a direct descendant of Chaim-Zelig Slonimsky, and his mother was Ida Kaplan-Ingel, sister of the Soviet architect Robert Kaplan-Ingel. Slonimsky began studying composition privately at the age of eleven with Vissarion Shebalin. From 1945 to 1950 he studied piano with Samary Savshinsky and composition with Boris Arapov and Sergei Wolfenzon, and later continued at the Leningrad Conservatory named after Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, where he studied composition with Orest Evlakhov and piano with Vladimir Nielsen. In 1958 he completed postgraduate study under Tigran Ter-Martirosyan.
From 1959 until the end of his life, Slonimsky taught music-theoretical disciplines at the conservatory, and from 1967 he also taught composition. He earned the degree of Candidate of Art History in 1963 and became a professor in 1976. As a pedagogue, he trained many well-known Soviet and Russian composers. He was also a full member of the Russian Academy of Education.
An important part of his artistic activity was his engagement with folklore. He took part in folklore expeditions and collected Russian folk songs. During a trip to the Pskov region in 1963 with the folklorist N. Kotikova and the sound engineer A. Gadateli, he recorded about one hundred songs, many of which he described as highly original in melody and imagery. He later intended to prepare arrangements of some of these songs for voice and piano and with orchestral accompaniment.
Slonimsky's principal stage works included the operas Virineya, The Master and Margarita, Mary Stuart, Hamlet, Visions of Ivan the Terrible, Tsar Ixion, King Lear, and Antigone. His ballets included Icarus, Princess Pirlipat, and The Magic Nut. Among his orchestral works were 34 symphonies, the Carnival Overture, the suite Humorous Pictures, a concert suite for violin and orchestra, Concerto Buffo for chamber orchestra, a concerto for orchestra, three electric guitars and solo instruments, Dramatic Song, Festive Music for balalaika, spoons and orchestra, Symphonic Motet, Quiet Music, the violin concerto Spring (Concerto primaverile), an oboe concerto, the Slavic Concerto for organ and strings, Petersburg Visions, Sinfonietta, and Jewish Rhapsody, his first piano concerto.
He also wrote vocal-symphonic, choral, chamber, and piano music. These works included a Requiem for soloists, chorus, and orchestra; cantatas such as Songs of Freedom, A Voice from the Chorus, Song of Songs, and One Day of Life; a cappella choral works; romances and songs; and chamber works including sonatas for violin and piano and for cello and piano, a suite for viola and piano, Three Graces, Dialogues for wind quintet, Antiphons for string quartet, and a piano quintet. For piano he composed, among other works, an Intermezzo in Memory of Brahms, 24 Preludes and Fugues, and a sonata. As a film composer, he wrote music for films including Before the Judgment of History, Republic of ShKID, The Mysterious Wall, Intervention, My Life, About Those I Remember and Love, and Ivan and Columbine.
Alongside composition, Slonimsky was a major musicologist. He wrote articles on Robert Schumann, Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Mily Balakirev, and he published the book Symphonies of Sergei Prokofiev in 1964. His distinctions included the title People's Artist of the RSFSR, the Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR, and the State Prize of the Russian Federation.
Slonimsky died on February 9, 2020, in St. Petersburg after a long illness. He was buried at Komarovo Cemetery. In 2020, Children's School of Arts No. 2 in St. Petersburg was named after him.