Georgy Sviridov

He wrote musical settings of Russian Romantic poetry by poets such as Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Tyutchev, and Alexander Blok. Sviridov enjoyed critical acclaim for much of his career in the Soviet Union and Russia.

Georgy Sviridov studied at Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Training under Dmitri Shostakovich is recorded. The recorded working language is Russian. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera, symphony, choir and symphonic. Works named in the authority record are Time, Forward! Distinctions recorded are Stalin Prize, USSR State Prize, Order of Lenin and Hero of Socialist Labour.

• Name — Georgy Sviridov • Born — 16 December 1915 • Birthplace — Fatezh, Russian Empire • Died — 6 January 1998 • Place of death — Moscow, Russia • Resting Place — Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow • Occupation — Composer

Sviridov was born in 1915 in the town of Fatezh in the Kursk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kursk Oblast) to a family of Russian ethnicity. His father, Vasily Sviridov, a Bolshevik sympathizer during the Russian Civil War, was killed when Georgy was four. The family moved to Kursk, where Sviridov, still in elementary school, learned to play his first instrument, the balalaika. Learning to play by ear, he demonstrated such talent and ability that he was accepted into the local orchestra of Russian folk instruments. He enrolled in a music school in 1929, and following the advice of his teacher, M. Krutinsky, went to Leningrad in 1932, where he studied piano at the Leningrad Central Music College, graduating in 1936. From 1936 to 1941, Sviridov studied at the Leningrad Conservatory under Pyotr Ryazanov, then Dmitri Shostakovich. Mobilized into the Red Army in 1941, just days after his graduation from the conservatory, Sviridov was sent to a military academy in Ufa, but was discharged by the end of the year due to poor health.

Sviridov died of a heart attack at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital in the early morning hours of 6 January 1998.

• Virgin Soil Upturned (1939) • Rimsky-Korsakov (1952) • The Great Warrior Skanderbeg (1953) • Resurrection (1960) • The Blizzard (1964) • Time, Forward! (1965) • Trust (1976) • Red Bells II (1982) • Happy Birthday (1998)

• Symphony for Strings (1940) • Symphony No. 1 (1936–1937; previously lost, score rediscovered posthumously) • Symphony No. 2 (1949; unfinished) • Triptych, a small symphony for orchestra (1964) • Snow Storm (also translated as The Blizzard), musical illustrations after Pushkin for orchestra (1975)

• Piano Concerto No. 1 (1936–1939) • Piano Concerto No. 2 (1942)

• Piano Trio (1945 - rev. 1955) • Piano Quintet in B minor (1945) • String Quartet No. 1 (1945–1946) • String Quartet No. 2 (1947) • Music for Chamber Orchestra (1964)

• Seven Small Pieces for piano (1934–1935) • Seven Songs after Mikhail Lermontov (1938) • Piano Sonata (1944) • Two Partitas for piano (1946, revised 1957 and 1960) • Children's Album, seventeen pieces for piano (1948, revised 1957) • Ruy Blas, serenade (1952) • Partita in E minor • Partita in F minor

• The Decembrists, oratorio (1955) • Poem to the Memory of Sergei Yesenin, oratorio for tenor, mixed chorus and orchestra (1956) • Five Choruses to Lyrics by Russian Poets (1958) • Oratorio Pathétique to words by Mayakovsky for bass, mezzo-soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra (1959) • Song about Lenin ("We Don't Believe") to words by Mayakovsky for bass, mixed chorus and orchestra (1960) • Songs of Kursk, cantata after folk texts for mixed chorus and orchestra (1964) • Wooden Russia, cantata to words by Yesenin for tenor, men's chorus and orchestra (1964) • Sad Songs, small cantata to words by A. Blok for mezzo-soprano, female chorus and orchestra (1962–1965) • It Is Snowing, small cantata to words by Boris Pasternak for female chorus, boys'chorus and orchestra (1965) • Five Songs about Russia, cantata to words by Alexander Blok for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, bass, mixed chorus and orchestra (1967) • Sacred Love (for soprano), from the incidental music to Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich by Aleksey Tolstoy. (1969) • Four Folk Songs for chorus and orchestra (1971) • The Friendly Guest (also translated as The Radiant Guest), cantata to words by Sergei Yesenin for solo voices, chorus and orchestra (1971–1976) • Spring Cantata to words by Nikolay Nekrasov for mixed chorus and orchestra (1972) • Concerto in Memory of Alexander Yurlov for unaccompanied mixed chorus (1973) • The Birch of Life, cantata to words by A. Blok for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (1974) • Three Miniatures for solo voices and mixed chorus (1972–1975) • Three Pieces from Children's Album for mixed chorus a cappella (1975) • Ode to Lenin to words by R. Rozhdestvensky for narrator, chorus and large orchestra (1976) • Hymns to the Motherland for chorus (1978) • Pushkin's Garland (also known as "They beat the Dawn"), choral concerto on verses by Alexander Pushkin (1979) • Night Clouds, cantata to words by A. Blok for mixed chorus a cappella (1979) • Ladoga, choral poem for chorus to words by A. Prokofiev (1980) • Songs From Hard Times, choruses to words of A. Blok for chorus a cappella (1980–1981 and later) • Hymns and Prayers, words from liturgical poetry, for unaccompanied choir (1980–1997)

• Bright Lights, operetta in three acts after L. Sacharov and S. Poloski (1951)

• "Othello", incidental music after Shakespeare (1942) • Original soundtrack to The Blizzard (1964) film after Alexander Pushkin's story • "Time, Forward!", suite of the film score (1967) • Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, incidental music to the play by Aleksey Tolstoy (1973)

• Six Romances on Texts by Pushkin for voice and piano (1935) • Three Songs to words by Alexander Blok (1941) • "Shakespeare Suite" for singer and piano (1944) • "Country of My Fathers", song cycle after A. Isaakian for tenor and bass with piano accompaniment (1949–1950) • "Songs to Words of Robert Burns" for bass and piano (1955) • "My Father is a Farmer", song cycle to words by Yesenin for tenor and baritone (1957) • "Suburb-Lyrics", seven songs after A. Prokofiev and M. Issakovsky for singer and piano (1938–1958) • Eight Romances to words by Lermontov for bass and piano (1957–1958) • "St Petersburg Songs" for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, bass, violin, cello and piano (1961–1963) • "Petersburg Songs" to words of A. Blok for bass and piano (1961–1963) • "Russia Cast Adrift", better "Russia Now Launched", song cycle to words by Yesenin for tenor and piano (1977) • Two Songs to words of Alexander Pushkin (1975–1980) • Nine Songs to Words of A. Blok (1972–1981) • Twenty-five Songs for bass and piano (1955–1981) • "Petersburg", song cycle to words by A. Blok (1963–1995)