16th February – Dmitry Kabalevsky

Dmitri Kabalevsky was born in St Petersburg. As a child he demonstrated considerable talent in art as well as music, much to his family’s chagrin, who had hoped he would study mathematics or economics. His music is very nationalistic in style, heavily infiltrated with germs of Soviet folk songs and echoing the politics of his time.

Kabalevsky enjoyed great success on his home soil particularly with his operas and operettas. His style of composition was very much in keeping with the accepted Soviet authorities, who at that time had a strong proscriptive influence over the arts. Concert music, they had proclaimed, had to be accessible to the widest feasible audience and should be melodious, and also ought to end in a major key. The politics of the time, “Social Realism” required music to be popular and optimistic.

The most prestigious award for Russian composers at this time was the “Stalin Prize”, which Kabalevsky won three times. Works which Kabalevsky is particularly noted for are his “Comedians Suite”, his Violin Concerto and his third Symphony  “Requiem for Lenin”. He also wrote quite a lot of film music, and children’s piano pieces.

When Kabalevsky died, his obituary was released to world by the Soviet press agency a few days later. Reports differ in the precise day of his death, with some saying the 14th, others the 16th and yet others the 18th of February. We’ve picked the 16th as a happy medium!

Here is the first movement of Kabalevsky’s Violin Concerto in C major:

Listen to more works by Kabalevsky – click the box!