Great russian composer - Mikael Tariverdiev

MIKAEL TARIVERDIEV - everybody in Russia knows the name. It is mostly known in conection with film music, especially with two cult films: Seventeen Moments of Spring and Fate's Irony. But apart from music scores for 132 films Mikael Tariverdiev is the author of chamber vocal cycles, of four ballets, of four operas, of a number of pieces of organ and instrumental music. Student of Aram Khachaturyan ( he graduated from Gnesin Institute, composition class, in 1957), he made his debut as composer when the famed chamber singer Zara Dolukhanova sang his vocal pieces at Moscow Conservatoire Big Hall. Boris Pokrovsky's Chamber Music Theatre started its life with Mikael Tariverdiev's opera Who Are You? His comic opera Count Cagliostro, first produced by this famous theatre in December 1983, has become a mainstay of its repertory and has been presented by the theatre in all its foreign tours.

In the last decade Mikael Tariverdiev concentrated on istrumental music. He composed three organ concerts (Cassandra, Cahier Polyphonic, Third Concert), Ten Chorale Preludes In Imitation of Old Masters, organ symphony Chernobyl prompted by the impressions of his trip to Chernobyl soon after the catastrophy.Among his later pieces there are two concerts for violine and orchestra and the Romantic Style Concert for Viola and String Orchestra composed on the request of the wellkown musician Yury Bashmet.

Mikael Tariverdiev combines two seemingly incompatible traits. His music is always recognizable by the very first bars, recognizable irrespective of its genre - be it film music, theatre, opera or vocal, it invariably bears the imprint of his unique intonation, it has got a face of its own. But as a composer he kept changing, kept searching for new approaches, kept pursuing new aims. In the sixties, after the roaring success of the romances presented by Zara Dolukhanova, refined pieces, exquisite like drawings in Indian ink, he proclaimed the "third direction".What was it, what was its philosophy? A challenge to academism on the one hand and to the triteness of mass culture on the other. But when the third direction is joined by the others becoming popular he reverts to academic genres, but unlike those who are getting bogged down in the maze of avantgarde, Tariverdiev goes for the classical comic opera, for baroque polyphonic organ concert. He fills this music with modern sensibilities, with freshness of feeling again and again bridging the gap between the present day and the past, moulding fragmented music directions into a whole the name of which is just music.

Mikael Tariverdiev won 18 international prizes, among them American Music Academy's award (1975),Japan's recording company Victor's award (1978), three Nika awards for the best film scores of the year (1991, 1994 and 1997). He has been awarded the State prize of the USSR (1977),Lenin Konsomol prize(1977), the title of People's artist of Russia (1986). He headed the Composers' Guild of Cinematographers' Union since its inception, he was the Art Director of New Names - International Charity Programme.

Melody from "Night Fun"




The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (Russian: Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!; Ironiya sudby, ili S lyogkim parom!) is a Soviet comedy-drama directed by Eldar Ryazanov as a made-for-TV movie. The screenplay was written by Emil Braginsky and Ryazanov, loosely based on Ryazanov's 1971 play Once on New Year's Eve (Russian: Однажды в новогоднюю ночь). The movie was filmed in 1975 at Mosfilm. Simultaneously a screwball comedy and a love story tinged with sadness, the film is traditionally broadcast in Russia and some other former Soviet republics every New Year's Eve[1]. It is as fondly viewed every year as the American film It’s a Wonderful Life is during the Christmas holidays. Many memorable quotes from the film have become catch phrases in the Russian language.

The term "Irony of Fate" refers to Fate toying with the lives of mortals. The second title, "S lyogkim parom!" (literally something like "With the light steam!") is an idiomatic expression used to compliment somebody who has just come out of the shower, the banya, or the bathtub ("lyogkiy par" translates to "light steam" or "easy steam").

The score to the film was composed by Mikael Tariverdiev, and includes both orchestral background music and songs in the style of the "author's song" movement, sung by several of the characters. The strikingly melancholy lyrics of the songs were written by some of Russia's greatest twentieth-century poets: Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva, Bella Akhmadulina. The singing voices of the characters were dubbed by the (now well-known) vocalists Sergey Nikitin and Alla Pugacheva.

"I bless you". Lyrics by Marina Tsvetaeva



"Don't part with your loved ones". Lyrics by Alexander Kochetkov



Sources:www.tariverdiev.ru,wikipedia.org.