Rodion Shchedrin


Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Soviet and Russian composer and pianist, winner of USSR State Prize, the Lenin Prize, and the State Prize of the Russian Federation, and is a former member of the Inter-regional Deputies Group. He is also a citizen of Lithuania and Spain.

Biography

Shchedrin was born in Moscow into a musical family—his father was a composer and teacher of music theory. He studied at the Moscow Choral School and Moscow Conservatory under Yuri Shaporin and Yakov Flier. He was married to the well-known ballerina Maya Plisetskaya from 1958 until her death in 2015.
Shchedrin's early music is tonal and colourfully orchestrated and often includes snatches of folk music, while some later pieces use aleatoric and serial techniques. In the west the music of Shchedrin has won popularity mainly through the work of Mstislav Rostropovich who has made several successful recordings.
Among his works are the ballets The Little Hump-backed Horse, Carmen Suite, an arrangement by Tony Vernon, Anna Karenina, and Lady with a Lapdog ; the operas Not Only Love, and Dead Souls ; piano concertos, symphonies, chamber and piano music and other works. He composed 24 Preludes and Fugues after he heard those of Shostakovich. Also remarkable is his Polyphonic Notebook.
He has written five concertos for orchestra: the first, variously translated as Naughty Limericks or Mischievous Folk Ditties is by far the best known, and was the work which first established him on the international stage. The second of the Concertos for Orchestra was subtitled Zvony, and was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein as one of the many commissions in honor of the orchestra's 125th anniversary. The third Concerto for Orchestra is based on old music of Russian provincial circuses. Concerto 4, Khorovody, was written in 1989, and Concerto 5, Four Russian Songs, was written in 1998.
As well as a distinguished composer, Shchedrin is a virtuoso pianist and organist, playing solo piano in the premieres of the first three of his six piano concertos. At a remarkable concert on 5 May 1974 Shchedrin performed the feat of appearing as soloist in all three of his then-completed piano concertos, one after the other. The concert, with the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Svetlanov was recorded and released on LP, then CD. Following the collapse of the Soviet regime, Shchedrin has taken advantage of the new opportunities for international travel and musical collaboration, and now largely divides his time between Munich and Moscow.
On 11–14 June 2008 Shchedrin Days took place in Armenia with the participation of Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya as honorary guest.
Invited by Walter Fink, he was the 19th composer to be featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2009. He and his wife attended the concerts which included his Russian liturgy The Sealed Angel for choir and flute, performed in Eberbach Abbey. His chamber music included Ancient Melodies of Russian Folk Songs with the cellist Raphael Wallfisch and himself at the piano, and Meine Zeit, mein Raubtier with tenor Kenneth Tarver and pianist Roland Pontinen who performed it also at the Verbier Festival.
The premiere of a German version of his opera Lolita was performed as the opening night of the Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden in a production of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in 2011.

Stage works

Operas

Nina and the Twelve Months. Musical in two acts on a libretto by T. Futjita after Samuil Marshak's story. First performance on 8 August 1988 in Tokyo.

Orchestral works

Symphonies

For soloist, chorus and orchestra

  1. in the nomination "The best essay in contemporary academic music" for the "Concerto cantabile"
  2. in the nomination "The best work of contemporary composer of classical music" for the opera The Enchanted Wanderer