Count Aleksandr Dmitriyevich Sheremetev ( – 18 May 1931) was a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n composer, conductor and entrepreneur. He founded his own private symphony orchestra in 1882, and from 1898 organized public concerts in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

involving the orchestra and a choir he had inherited from his father, Dmitri Sheremetev. He also founded the Musical Historical Society in 1910, which gave free lecture recitals involving his orchestra and choir. Sheremetev conducted the Russian premiere of

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

Parsifal ''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival ...

in a series of three concerts in 1906; his conducting on that occasion was described by the press as "primitive". This was followed by Sheremetev conducting the opera's first Russian staging on 21 December 1913 (according to the Russian Old Style calendar; 3 January 1914 according to the standard Western calendar), performed at the Hermitage Theatre before the Imperial Family, the diplomatic corps, representative members of the State Duma and senior government officials. After two further performances there, the production transferred to the Theatre of Musical Drama. On 10 June 1883 Sheremetev married Marie Heyden (born 1863 in

Reval Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ''m ...

), daughter of

Governor-General of Finland The governor-general of Finland ( fi, Suomen kenraalikuvernööri; sv, generalguvernör över Finland; russian: генерал-губернатор Финляндии) was the military commander and the highest administrator of Finland sporadic ...

count Frederick Heyden (1821–1900) and Elisabeth

Zubov The Zubovs (russian: Зу́бов) were a Russian noble family, rose to occupy some of the highest offices of state in the 1790s, when Platon Zubov became the last favourite of Empress Catherine the Great (). The Zubovs were first noticed i ...

(1833–1894).Genealogy handbook of Baltic nobility
/ref> In 1917, Count Aleksandr and his wife fled to their estates in Finland and escaped the Red Terror. They lost all their possessions in Russia, sold their Finnish estates and moved to Belgium and then to Paris. After a while the money ran out and they lived in poverty, helped somewhat by a charity. They both died in Paris in 1930 and were buried in the Russian cemetery there. Their son, Georgy, fought for the Whites, fled Russia and worked as secretary for Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich of Russia in France in the 1920s.

References

* ''Wagner & Russia'',

Rosamund Bartlett Rosamund Bartlett is a British writer, scholar, lecturer, and translator specializing in Russian literature. Bartlett graduated from Durham University with a first-class degree in Russian. She went on to complete a doctorate at Oxford. Rosamun ...

. Cambridge University Press, 1995. * ''former People'', Douglas Smith. Pan Books, 2013.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheremetev, Aleksandr Dmitryevich Aleksandr Dmitryevich Russian composers Russian male composers Russian conductors (music) Russian male conductors (music) 1859 births 1931 deaths