Valentin Makarov
Valentin Makarov was a Soviet composer and film composer. He was born in Tetyushi to a family with strong musical interests: his father played the accordion and piano, and his mother was a professional singer. After the family moved to Moscow in 1913, he began piano lessons and later studied at the First Moscow Music College, graduating in 1931.
From 1935 to 1938, Makarov attended composition classes at the Moscow Conservatory as a non-matriculated student, studying with G. I. Litinsky, I. V. Sposobin, and V. Ya. Shebalin. His early large-scale works included a piano concerto and a poem for violin and orchestra. He later focused on vocal and choral music, and made the suite a central form in his work. His compositions included The Weaver’s Wedding for soloists, choir, ballet, and folk instruments, and the operetta A Sailor’s Heart, written with Yuri Slonov.
Makarov also wrote songs and song cycles, including Sunny Road, and suites such as Russian Accordion, Sunny Valley, and River-Hero. He led a Russian folk-song choir in Moscow from 1946 to 1949. He received the Stalin Prize, second class, in 1950 for a song cycle and songs, and again in 1951 for River-Hero, a suite for choir and folk-instrument orchestra. His last major completed work was symphonic music for the popular-science film In the Ice of the Ocean, which premiered in 1953. Makarov died in Moscow on September 26, 1952, aged 44.