Georgy Sviridov: biography, interesting facts, creativity

George Sviridov

For several decades, the whole country has been listening to the music of George Sviridov every day. It is his melodies "Time, Forward!" It was destined to become a harbinger and symbol of all the major news over the past half century. Probably, this is the insight of fate - in the past century there was no composer, whose work is so strongly connected with Russia, its original culture and spiritual foundations. His music, filled with moral purity, greatly influences the feelings of the listeners, enlightening them, but most importantly, it encourages a person to believe in their own strength.

A brief biography of Georgy Sviridov and many interesting facts about the composer can be found on our page.

Short biography Sviridov

On December 3, 1915, the firstborn was born in the family of a telegraph employee and teacher in the county town of Fatezh, Kursk Region. Parents had peasant roots and could not even imagine that their son, Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov, would become one of the most famous composers in Russia. A few years later his brother and sister were born. In 1919, the younger son of the Sviridov died from the Spaniard, but then his father was gone. The family moved to Kursk, where little Yura, as they used to call the future musician in his childhood, began to play the balalaika, and then the talented child was accepted into the orchestra of folk instruments.

Teachers of the music school recommended that the young man continue his education in Leningrad. According to Sviridov’s biography, in 1932 Yura entered the musical technical school. After - to the conservatory, where he was lucky to become a student D.D. Shostakovich. However, the relationship Sviridov with his great teacher were far from cloudless. He even threw the last year's conservatory, not returning to classes after the defeat, which Shostakovich perpetrated six songs on the words of A. Prokofiev. Communication between composers resumed only a few years later.

In the summer of 1941, Sviridov was recruited from the musicians as a soldier, but by the end of that year, poor health did not allow him to continue service. It is impossible to return to besieged Leningrad, where the mother and sister remained, and he works in Novosibirsk until the blockade is lifted. In 1956, Sviridov moved to the capital. In Moscow, he leads a rich social life, occupying leadership positions in the Union of Composers.

While still a student, the composer marries pianist Valentina Tokareva, and in 1940 their son Sergei is born. The marriage did not last long, in 1944 Sviridov left the family to the young Aglaia Kornienko. After 4 years, he again becomes the father of his son, George Jr., immediately after the birth of which he moves to his third wife, Else Gustavovna Klazer. Georgii Vasilyevich survived both his sons. Sergey committed suicide at the age of 16, after which Sviridov suffered a first heart attack. Georgy Georgievich died on December 30, 1997 from a chronic disease. This tragic news composer did not know - the spouse was going to tell him about it when it is stronger after a recent heart attack. This did not happen - a week after the death of the younger son, on January 6, 1998, Sviridov was gone.

Interesting facts about Sviridov

• The composer left no direct descendants. Elsa Gustavovna died four months after him. Sviridov’s son, art historian Alexander Belonenko, deals with the whole creative heritage of Sviridov. He created the National Sviridov Foundation and the Sviridov Institute. He published the book “Music as fate”, compiled on the basis of diaries, which the composer had been conducting since the late 60s. In 2002 this edition was declared the book of the year. In 2001, the first complete notaphic reference book of Sviridov's works was compiled, and non-published musical texts were restored. In 2002, the publication of the Complete Works of G.V. Sviridov in 30 volumes.
• The eldest son Sviridov named in honor of Sergei Yesenin. The youngest son, Georgiy Georgievich, was the greatest expert on medieval Japanese prose. In 1991 he was invited to work in Japan. For him, it was literally a salvation — because of chronic renal failure, he needed regular hemodialysis, which was done in Japan for free.
• Vasily Grigorievich Sviridov, the father of the composer, died in tragic circumstances. During the First World War, the Red Army men mistakenly hacked him with a saber, taking the form of a postal employee for the White Guard. The younger sister Tamara was born after the death of her father.
• George Vasilievich, unlike many of his contemporaries, was not a wealthy person. For example, he did not have his own dacha, living on the state, and he rented a piano, which was at his house, from the Union of Composers.
• George Vasilyevich was an encyclopedic educated person. His home library consisted of more than 2.5 thousand books - from ancient playwrights to Soviet writers. He was well versed in painting and sculpture. There are eyewitness recollections, as he conducted an excursion in the halls with Turner's canvases in the London art gallery.

• Both in rehearsal work and in everyday life, Sviridov was abrupt and authoritarian; he could not stand unprofessionalism and unprincipledness.
• At the end of his life, the composer regretted that he had not written an opera, because he mistakenly believed that this genre had exhausted itself. However, the two operettas of Sviridov, “The Sea Spread Widely” and “Lights”, were very popular.
• The crisis of 1948, which followed the Politburo's ruling on the opera “The Great Friendship” by V. Muradeli, also touched upon Sviridov, although his name did not appear in the ruling. The main formalist was declared his teacher - DD. Shostakovich, whose students also fell into disgrace, accompanied by an information vacuum, the lack of orders for works and the ability to perform them. It was a time when much was written "in the table."
• One of the most successful and significant works of the composer, "Pathetic Oratorio", spread Sviridov and Shostakovich. Dmitry Dmitrievich did not like Mayakovsky, and in the presence of other musicians criticized the idea of ​​the work for his poems. Most of the public's composition supported Shostakovich’s opinion. Attempts were made to block the award of the Sonata of the Lenin Prize. However, the work was highly appreciated by the commission on the award and personally by M. Suslov, thanks to which the composer nevertheless became a Leninist laureate. But this correspondence confrontation, as well as subsequent creative differences for many years, cooled the relationship between composers. Nevertheless, shortly before his death, Sviridov admitted that out of all the music of the 20th century, he truly loved only the music of Shostakovich.
• Biography Sviridov says that the composer was a passionate book lover and fisherman.
  
• In the early 60s, the Sviridov wrote a new version of the anthem of the USSR to the poems of A. Tvardovsky. It has never been made public and has been preserved only in the composer’s personal archive.
• Of all the composers Sviridov put the rest above Mussorgsky and Borodin for their unconditional adherence to the canons of the Russian folk and spiritual musical tradition. "Khovanshchina"he considered the greatest work of Russian art.
• A few months before his death, the composer became an honorary citizen of Moscow.
• The world's only monument to G.V. Sviridov. Since 2005, his memorial museum has been created in the Fatezh house where the composer was born.

Creativity George Sviridov

Unlike his teacher and idol, D.D. Shostakovich, Georgy Vasilyevich was by no means a "child prodigy." From the biography of Sviridov, we learn that his first compositions date from 1934-1935 - these are plays for piano and romances based on A.S. Pushkin. The great poet will be destined to become a companion composer's companion for many years. It is music to Pushkin "Snowstorms"will become the most famous of his works. She will also become his" trap "- no later essays were performed as often, it was her listeners who preferred it.

For the composer who professes classical musical forms, the choice of the main creative direction was also unconventional - vocal music, song, romance. Although both sonatas and the Piano Trio, awarded the Stalin Prize, and music for dramatic performances, and even a single symphony were written. But the life of a 19-year-old novice composer was changed Pushkin romances. Sviridov wrote them both in a noisy hostel of a music technical school, and in his home, sick and hungry in Petersburg, strengthened and caressed by maternal warmth in Kursk. Romances were immediately published, and in the year of the centennial of the poet’s death, many outstanding singers performed.

The composer was inspired by poets of the first magnitude - Lermontov, Tyutchev, Pasternak, R. Burns, Shakespeare. He put on the music and the syllable of Mayakovsky, and even the prose of Gogol. Perhaps the most loved and close to him were Sergei Yesenin and Alexander Blok. Starting from the vocal cycle "I have a peasant father"and the vocal symphonic poem"In memory of S.A. Yesenin"written in 1956, Sviridov constantly uses Esenin's poems to create his works. Almost as often he addresses the poetry of Blok, whom he considered a prophet of his country. Among the works:"Voice from choir"loop"Petersburg songs", cantata"Night clouds"and the last large-scale work, the creation of which took 20 years - a vocal poem"PetersburgThe composer finished this work knowing that he would entrust his first performance to the young baritone D. Hvorostovsky. The premiere took place in London in 1995. In 1996–2004, the singer released two CDs of Sviridov works. For many years, the Sviridov muse was in which several romance concerts were made, where the composer personally accompanied the singer, records were recorded.

Choral music was a noticeable direction of Sviridov's creativity. This and "Five choirs for the words of Russian poets", and cantata"Kursk songs"based on folklore sources, awarded the State Prize, and the most famous"Pushkin's wreathThe author described the genre of this work as a choral concert. The wreath is one of the symbols of life itself with its cycle of seasons, cycles of birth and death. In it are thoughts and feelings, external and internal. From the creative heritage of the poet Sviridov chose 10 poems - written at different times, from 1814 to 1836, of different themes, moods, known and almost forgotten. Each part of the concert, striving to conform to the poetic fundamental principle, has its own sounding. The author is not limited to the choir, he introduces an instrumental The accompaniment, the bells, uses the sound of the second chamber choir.

In the years 1958-1959 Sviridov creates a sevenfold "Pathetic oratorio"verses by V. Mayakovsky. This work became a symbol of a new stage in the composer’s life. The oratorio was unusual for many - a literary source (after all, Mayakovsky’s poetry was considered anti-musical), an expanded composition of the orchestra and choir, a bold musical form. The work was awarded the Lenin Prize.

With rare exceptions, such as cantata "Ode to Lenin"to the words of R. Rozhdestvensky, Sviridov did not change his vocation - to sing about Russia, its people, nature, culture, spirituality. One of the master's last works was the choral composition" Hymns and Prayers "written on the themes of psalms of David.

Music Sviridov in the cinema

Since 1940, George Vasilyevich worked 12 times for the cinema. The music for the two films surpassed the glory of the pictures themselves. In 1964, Vladimir Basov shot "The Snowstorm" after Pushkin's story of the same name and offered Sviridov to write music. Lyrical melodies, perfectly reflecting the patriarchal life of the province of Pushkin's era, were born. In 1973, the composer compiled "Musical Illustrations for the Story of A.S. Pushkin"Snowstorm“A year later, the movie“ Time, Forward! ”About the builders of Magnitka appeared on the screens. The best actors of their time were starring. The music of Sviridov vividly expressed the enthusiasm and emotional upsurge of the Soviet youth.

Among other cinema works of the composer: "Rimsky-Korsakov" (1952), "Resurrection" (1961), "Red Bells. Film 2. I saw the birth of a new world" (1982). In 1981, the operetta "Lights" was filmed (the film "It was behind the Narva Gate").

Sviridov’s music is rarely used in movie soundtracks. One of the few can be called: "Oil of Lorenzo" (1992), "The Dead Is Coming" (1995), "Tanner Hall" (2009).

Its main form of creativity George Sviridov chose a song. He drew inspiration from what the people live, believing that art should be simple and clear. Being a religious man, he remembered that at first there was a word. That is the word composer put above all. Therefore, he devoted his life to combining words and music. Today, two decades after the departure of the creator, his music still lives - popular, relevant and demanded by listeners.