Summary Yuri A. Shaporin


YURI ALEXANDROVICH SHAPORIN

1887-1966

Shaporin is one of the oldest Soviet composers. His works, marked by high skill and bright national color, are associated with the realistic traditions of Russian classical music. Special interest Shaporin nourishes the embodiment of heroic and patriotic ideas, themes and images. He sings the romance of heroism, courage, heroic might and greatness of the spirit of Russian people.

Yuri Shaporin was born on November 8 (new) in 1887 in the town of Glukhove b. Chernigov province; in 1912 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, in 1918 – the Petrograd Conservatory. Early compositional experiments of Shaporin are connected with the genres of chamber-vocal and instrumental music. In the vocal cycle Tyutchev’s words (1921) showed a stream of elegiac lyrics, which later received a great development. At the same time, the composer worked in the field of theater music. Among these works music stands

out for the performances of the “Bloch” (for Leskov) and “The Storm of Perekop”, where Shaporin first came into contact with the modern theme. The symphony with the choir (1932) is also dedicated to the events of the revolutionary era.

In the thirties, Shaporin attracted historical themes. He writes music for the films “Minin and Pozharsky”, “Suvorov”, “Kutuzov”, creates a symphony-cantata “On the field Kulikovo” (in the words of A. Blok, 1939). The events of the Great Patriotic War are devoted to another monumental work on the heroic and patriotic theme – the oratorio “The Tale of the Battle for Russian Land” (1944).

A different world of images is revealed in the vocal lyric poetry, which is represented by a cycle of romances to Pushkin’s poems (among them – the widely known “Spell”, 1937), the cycles “Far youth” to the words of Blok (1940) and “Elegy” to verses by Russian poets (1945) . Many years of creative work the composer devoted to the monumental historical opera “Decembrists”, finished in 1953.


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Summary Yuri A. Shaporin