Victoria Yagling was a Soviet cellist, composer, and teacher. She was born in Moscow on May 14, 1946, and died in Helsinki on August 1, 2011. She was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1990 and held a professorship.
Yagling studied cello at the Gnessin Special Music School and the Moscow Conservatory’s music school and college, where her teachers included Mstislav Rostropovich. She began composing in 1952, first studying composition with Viktor Bely, and later studied with Dmitri Kabalevsky and Tikhon Khrennikov. In 1962, she made her orchestral debut at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, performing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. She completed postgraduate performance studies in 1972 and received her composition diploma in 1975 for her First Cello Concerto.
From 1969 to 1979, Yagling taught cello at the Moscow Conservatory’s music college. She worked as a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic from 1980 to 1990 and also taught at the Gnessin Institute. After winning first prize at the 1969 Gaspar Cassadó International Cello Competition in Florence, she pursued an active concert career, performing with orchestras in the Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. From 1988, she regularly performed with her son, pianist Viktor Shestopal.
From 1990, Yagling lived and worked in Helsinki, teaching cello at the Sibelius Academy as a professor. She gave master classes in several countries and served on the juries of international cello competitions. Her prizes also included second prize and a silver medal at the 1970 International Tchaikovsky Competition.
Yagling’s published works included two cello concertos, a cello sonata, a suite for solo cello, six piano pieces for children, and three sonnets for mezzo-soprano and piano. Her First Suite for Solo Cello was required repertoire at the second round of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition. Melodiya released recordings of her performances and works; from 2000, she worked actively with the Helsinki music publisher Fennica Gehrman, which published most of her compositions.