Georgy Sviridov was a Russian composer, a pupil of Dmitry Shostakovich. In his music he implemented the traditions of the Russian culture of choral singing. He composed the vocal-orchestral “Poem in Memory of Sergey Yesenin” (1956), “Pathetic Oratorio” (to the text of Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1959), “Kursk Songs” (on folk texts, 1964) and “Pushkin’s Wreath” (1979) for chorus and orchestra. He also composed small cantatas: “Wooden Rus” (to the text of Sergey Yesenin, 1964), “The Snow is Falling” (text by Boris Pasternak, 1965), “Plaintive Songs” (text by Aleksandr Blok, 1965), as well as “Spring Cantata” (1972), the choral concerto “In Memory of A.A. Yurlov” (1973), the cantata “Night Clouds” for full chorus a cappella on the poem by Blok, music for theatrical productions (most notably, “Tsar Feodor Ioannovich” by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy in the Maly Theater in Moscow in 1973) and films (including “Time, Ahead!,” 1966), songs and art songs (most notably, songs on poems by Robert Burns in translations by Samuil Marshak, composed in 1955). His instrumental compositions include “Musical Illustrations to Aleksandr Pushkin’s Novelette ‘The Snowstorm’” for orchestra (1964). He was a Laureate of the Stalin Prize (1964), the Lenin Prize (1960), State Premiums of the USSR (1968, 1980) and of Russia (1980).
