Isaak Dunayevsky (Soviet/Russian composer)

[Christopher]

I thought I would share here a composer who is very popular here in Russia, but quite unknown and unsung in the "West": Isaak Dunaevsky (1900-1955).  (Also rendered, in Latin, as Dunayevsky, Dunaievsky, Dunajevsky, etc - Исаак Дунаевский in Russian.)

He wrote operettas and a lot of film music, in the days of Soviet cinema when the score was considered just as important as the movie itself. His operettas are light and joyful - quite an achievement given the Stalinist times in which he was composing.  Indeed, many say that was exactly why he was so popular - he brought lightness into the dark of people's everyday lives.

One of his most popular pieces is the overture The Children of Captain Grant - it's played every year by a live orchestra at St. Petersburg's annual Scarlet Sails festival in June which marks the end of the school year, as a huge scarlet ship sails up the Neva in front of the Winter Palace.  You can see this here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTLah4mcOA&feature=related - the overture is from 16:38 to 20:45 .

His most popular operetta is Free Wind (in Russian "Vol'ny Veter") - very melodic (no twentieth century discordance) - Pepita's aria "Diabolo" is particularly well-known here.  Apparently it was the composer's favourite of his own works. Here is one recording - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvinAJnmoPw&feature=related

Another good operetta is The Road to Happiness ("Doroga k schast'yu").

Just something I thought I would share!  There are a lot of composers in the ex-Soviet space who are great but totally unsung elsewhere.

[Mark Thomas]

Interesting. Thanks, Christopher.

[Alan Howe]

Very interesting, thanks! Do keep us informed about composers like this!

[Christopher]

Very interesting, thanks! Do keep us informed about composers like this!

I will do!  Other unsung composers from Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus include those in the list below.  Some will be known to readers of this site (Ippolitov-Ivanov, Napravnik, Lyapunov), while others less so (Ter-Gevondian anyone?!)...

Cui
Dargomyzhsky
Khrennikov
Napravnik
Karl Davydov
Stepan Davydov
Brandukov
Degtyarev
Alexander Serov
Alexander Ilyinsky (Il'insky, ...)
Verstovsky
Lyapunov
Liadov
Catoire
Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Kryukov
Grechaninov
Fitzenhagen
Rebikov
Goedicke
Gnessin
Knipper
Kalinnikov
Rakov
Pabst
Koreshchenko
Komitas
Dikranian / Tigranian
Chukhajian
Dolidze
Paliashvili
Mosolov
Ippolitov-Ivanov
Nikolai Rubinstein (brother of Anton)
Vasilenko
Juon
Alexander Taneyev (uncle of Sergey)
Djabadary
Oginskiy
Conus (Konyus)
L'vov
Lysenko
Gulak-Artemovsky
Eugen Doga
Ter-Gevondian (Der-Gevondian, Dher-Gevondian, etc)
Tariverdiev

[dafrieze]

Thanks very much for this!  I've become fascinated with Russian and Soviet music in the last couple of years, and there are a number of names on your list (Brandukov, for instance) of whom I had never heard.  I'll be looking into more of them.

The one composer whose name I didn't know a year ago and whose music I find absolutely delightful today is Georgy Catoire.  He wrote a lot of charming piano and chamber music, somewhat reminiscent of Taneyev (and, in a different art form, Chekhov), as well as a very good symphony.  Hyperion has issued a couple of discs with his works, and I highly recommend them. 

The composer on your list who disappointed me is Rebikov.  His piano music sounds like Scriabin with a headache. 

(Scriabin, incidentally, might qualify as one of those composers whose name is far better known than his music.)

[Lionel Harrsion]

The one composer whose name I didn't know a year ago and whose music I find absolutely delightful today is Georgy Catoire.  He wrote a lot of charming piano and chamber music, somewhat reminiscent of Taneyev (and, in a different art form, Chekhov), as well as a very good symphony.  Hyperion has issued a couple of discs with his works, and I highly recommend them. 

Dafrieze, I very much agree with you about Catoire - I have CDs of the Violin Sonatas, the Piano Trio, Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet, the String Quintet and so on.  I'm unaware of recordings of the Symphony or the Piano Concerto, however - do any exist, do you know?

[Christopher]

Thanks very much for this!  I've become fascinated with Russian and Soviet music in the last couple of years, and there are a number of names on your list (Brandukov, for instance) of whom I had never heard.  I'll be looking into more of them.

The one composer whose name I didn't know a year ago and whose music I find absolutely delightful today is Georgy Catoire.  He wrote a lot of charming piano and chamber music, somewhat reminiscent of Taneyev (and, in a different art form, Chekhov), as well as a very good symphony.  Hyperion has issued a couple of discs with his works, and I highly recommend them. 

The composer on your list who disappointed me is Rebikov.  His piano music sounds like Scriabin with a headache. 

(Scriabin, incidentally, might qualify as one of those composers whose name is far better known than his music.)

Do you know of a recording of the Catoire symphony or any other of his orchestral works (esp his piano concerto)?  I am not aware of any so would be very interested to know!  There is a Catoire discussion string on this site....

I would have to agree with you about Rebikov - two years ago I went to a performance here in Moscow of his opera Dvoryanskoe Gnezdo ("Home of the Gentry") - and left at the end somewhat shell-shocked!

For Brandukov - see http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Cello-Pyotr-Ilyich/dp/B000EQ47H2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1309185619&sr=1-1

[britishcomposer]

Other unsung composers from Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus include those in the list below.  Some will be known to readers of this site (Ippolitov-Ivanov, Napravnik, Lyapunov), while others less so (Ter-Gevondian anyone?!)...

There are many of whom I have never heard but Ter-Gevondian is NOT among them!
Of course I haven't heard any music by him but he appeared in a big encyclopedia of 20th-century composers which I borrowed from our library in my schooldays. I copied out all birthdays and whenever one of my classmates celebrated his birthday I told him whose composer's birthday he shared. I had these very tightly written lists with me all the time and once during a class exercise my latin teacher confiscated them. He spent the whole hour looking for hidden vocabulary so that we could copy of each other without being noticed. 

[britishcomposer]

Boris Khaikin recorded the Catoire symphony. I don't know when it whas recorded nor if it has ever been available commercially. I checked the 'illegal' russian site which I mentioned a few days ago and it's there. I agree, one should keep one's hands off it as far as commercially available recordings are concerned. I am undecided in this case. Decide yourself.
http://www.classical-music-online.net/en/production/22436

[Christopher]

About Ter-Gevondian - I only have one piece by Ter-Gevondian - called Seda's Aria from the opera Seda.  It's only about 3 minutes long, but I really like it - by the sound of it it was obviously written as a crowd-thriller, it comes to a great crescendo at the end in a way that you know the audience would be on their feet clapping and cheering before the final notes have come!  I found it on a CD while I was in Armenia.  The soloist is Elvira Uzunyan (the "Armenian Callas"!).  I have seen other mentions on the internet of music by Ter-Gevondian if you use other spellings, like Dher-Gevondian, Dher-Gewondian, Ter-Gevondian, Dher-Gevontian, Dher-Gewontian, Ter-Gevontian, etc...

[fyrexia]

The Djabadary Piano Concerto is quite a pleasure to listen. Old georgian (i thinK) composer.
Very "folkish" concerto

Tony

[Lionel Harrsion]

Boris Khaikin recorded the Catoire symphony. I don't know when it whas recorded nor if it has ever been available commercially. I checked the 'illegal' russian site which I mentioned a few days ago and it's there. I agree, one should keep one's hands off it as far as commercially available recordings are concerned. I am undecided in this case. Decide yourself.
http://www.classical-music-online.net/en/production/22436

Thanks very much for the link.  I thought it was a very clean recording for its age and what an interesting and delightful piece.  Much of it seemed to me in the Borodin/Glazunov mould - if Kalinnikov had lived to write a 3rd Symphony it might have sounded like this.  But there are hints in the third and fourth movements of the less orthodox composer Catoire was to become.   Fascinating!

[britishcomposer]

Wasn't Dunayevsky Stalin's favourite composer?

[eschiss1]

This distinction is sometimes attached to Shostakovich and sometimes to others (writing the favorite music of a capricious dictator - pardon the redundancy - did not mean preferential treatment in all cases, I would assume...) - just as Lehar (after a certain point in the war) had the dubious distinction of being Hitler's.  Whence this claim about Dunayevsky?

[britishcomposer]

No professional reference: it was claimed in a short profile on Dunayevsky broadcast along a concert performance of his overture The Children of Captain Grant.