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Rodion Shchedrin

Soviet and Russian composer and pianist (1932–2025) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rodion Shchedrin
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In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Konstantinovich and the family name is Shchedrin.

Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin (Russian: Родион Константинович Щедрин, IPA: [rədʲɪˈon kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ɕːɪˈdrʲin]; 16 December 1932 – 29 August 2025) was a Soviet and Russian composer, pianist and music pedagogue. He wrote music of many genres, including operas such as Lolita, ballets including Carmen Suite, orchestral works, chamber music, vocal music and film scores. His works were performed internationally.

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Life and career

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Shchedrin was born in Moscow on 16 December 1932, into a musical family — his father was a composer and teacher of music theory,[1] and his grandfather was an Orthodox priest. He was exposed to spiritual independence and critical awareness early.[2] He studied at the Moscow Choral School and Moscow Conservatory, composition with Yuri Shaporin and piano with Yakov Flier, graduating in 1955.[1]

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Maya Plisetskaya as Carmen, 1974

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.[3] He was an excellent pianist and organist, playing the solo part of his First Piano Concerto in 1954 while still a student, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.[4] The work that uses elements from Russian folklore with both emphaty and ironic distance.[2] He decided early to focus on composition.[4] Among his early works is the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse, premiered in 1955. He was married to ballerina Maya Plisetskaya from 1958 until her death in 2015.[1] Ballets, often with her in mind, include Carmen Suite (1967), Anna Karenina (1971, based on Tolstoy's novel, and Lady with a Lapdog (1985).[2]

Shchedrin composed his First Symphony in 1958, with "movements in the wrong order" and a tone of "wildness and aggression". The Second Symphony, composed from 1962 to 1965, has a form of 25 preludes that overlap, and a double fugue and canon. In 1963, he created the genre Concerto for Orchestra, works in a single movement in which monothematic events are combined wit other motifs and variation. The first, subtitles Naughty Limericks (Osorniye chastushki) was successful with audiences and critics. George Balanchine created a choreography to it.[2] Shchedrin composed a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues between 1964 and 1970 after he heard those of Dmitri Shostakovich, inspired by those of J. S. Bach. He wrote the Polyphonic Notebook of 25 Preludes for piano in 1972, both as homages to music.[2]

Shchedrin taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1965 and 1969.[4] In his Second Piano Concerto, Shchedrin's experimented with twelve-tone techniques and included jazz. He toured with the Leningrad Philharmonic in Europe in 1967, presenting it with Yevgeny Mravinsky.[2] In 1968 Leonard Bernstein commissioned a Second Concerto for Orchestra, subtitled Zvony (The Chimes) for the 125th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic. The music uses old Russian bell sounds but is far from nostalgia.[2] The third Concerto is based on music of Russian provincial circuses. It was was premiered in 1989 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel.[4] The fourth, Khorovody (Round Dances), was written in 1989, and the fifth, Four Russian Songs, was composed in 1998. He used the "phenomenon of notated aleatorics" in his Third Piano Concerto, in 33 variations with a theme at the end. He premiered it on 5 May 1974, playing the earlier concertos the same night, which caused a sensation.[2] The performance with the USSR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov was recorded and released on LP and later on CD. Shchedrin wrote his Fourth Piano Concerto in 1991, commissioned by Steinway for the centenary of the company's founding. It is subtitled "sharp keys", and the composer used only sharp keys as his "kind of musical minimalism" but with "timbral effects and thematic variety", as the musicologist Sigrid Neef noted.[2]

Shchedrin was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1989. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shchedrin took advantage of the new opportunities for international travel and musical collaboration, and largely divided his time between Munich and Moscow. He was a former member of the Inter-regional Deputies Group (1989–1991). He was also a citizen of Lithuania[5] and Spain.[6]

From 11 to 14 June 2008, Shchedrin Days took place in Armenia with the participation of Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya as honorary guest.[7] Invited by Walter Fink, he was the 19th composer to be featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2009.[8] 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 (2007) 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.[9]

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.[10]

Shchedrin died in Munich on 29 August 2025, at the age of 92.[1][3][11]

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Compositions

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Main article: List of compositions by Rodion Shchedrin

Shchedrin composed works in many genres; stage works including operas such as Not Love Alone (1961), and Dead Souls (1976, after Nikolai Gogol's novel), ballets and incidental music. He composed orchestral works including symphonies, concertos for orchestra and concertos for solo instruments, especially for piano. His works include chamber music and piano works, vocal music for soloists and choirs, arrangements and film scores.[1][12]

Stage works

Operas

Ballets

Musical theatre

  • Nina and the Twelve Months (1988)

Orchestral works

Symphonies

  • Symphony No. 1 (1958) in three parts (1958).
  • Symphony No. 2 "Twenty-Five Preludes" (1962–1965).
  • Symphony No. 3. Symphony Concertante "Scenes of Russian Fairy Tales" in five parts (2000).

Concertos for orchestra

  • Concerto for Orchestra No. 1 "Naughty Limericks" (1963)
  • Concerto for Orchestra No. 2 "The Chimes" (1968)
  • Concerto for Orchestra No. 3 "Old Russian Circus Music" (1989)
  • Concerto for Orchestra No. 4 "Round Dances (Khorovody)" (1989)
  • Concerto for Orchestra No. 5 "Four Russian Songs" (1998)

Vocal music

For soloist, chorus and orchestra

  • Bureaucratiade, satirical cantata for soloists, chorus and small orchestra (1963)
  • Poetoria, concerto for poet accompanied by a woman's voice, mixed chorus and symphony orchestra (1968)
  • Lenin Is Amongst Us, oratorio for soprano, alto and bass, mixed chorus and symphony orchestra (1969)
  • Long Life (Mnogia Leta) for mixed chorus, piano solo and three groups of percussion instruments (1991)
  • Prayer (Molenie) for mixed chorus and symphony orchestra (1991)

Film scores

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Awards and honors

  1. in the nomination "The best essay in contemporary academic music" for the "Concerto cantabile" (1997)
  2. in the nomination "The best work of contemporary composer of classical music" for the opera The Enchanted Wanderer (2009)

References

External links

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