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Isaak Osipovich Dunayevsky (russian: Исаак Осипович Дунаевский ; also transliterated as Dunaevski or Dunaevskiy; 25 July 1955) was a Soviet film composer and conductor of the 1930s and 1940s, who composed music for
Isaak Dunayevsky: The Red Mozart Of Soviet CinemaFamous Ukrainian Jews Commemorated on Postage Stamps-Isaak DunayevskyThe heart grows light with a joyful song:120th birthday of Isaak Dunayevsky
Isaak Osipovich Dunayevsky (russian: Исаак Осипович Дунаевский ; also transliterated as Dunaevski or Dunaevskiy; 25 July 1955) was a Soviet film composer and conductor of the 1930s and 1940s, who composed music for operetta
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
and film comedies, frequently working with the film director Grigori Aleksandrov.
Biography
Dunaevskiy was born to a Jewish family in Lokhvytsia in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Myrhorod Raion, Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) in 1900. He studied at the Kharkiv Musical School in 1910 where he studied violin underKonstanty Gorski
Konstanty Antoni Gorski () (Lida, 13 June 1859 – 31 May 1924, Poznań) was a Polish composer, violinist, organist and music teacher.Józef Władysław Reiss Najpiękniejsza ze wszystkich jest muzyka polska - 1984 Page 155 "Konstanty Gorsk ...
and Joseph Achron. During this period he started to study the theory of music under Semyon Bogatyrev
Semyon Semyonovich Bogatyrev (15 February 189031 December 1960) was a Soviet and Russian musicologist and composer.
He is best known in the West for his completion of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony in E-flat, which he abandoned while inco ...
(1890–1960). He graduated in 1919 from the Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University of Arts. At first he was a violinist, the leader of the orchestra in Kharkov. Then he started a conducting career. In 1924 he went to Moscow to run the Theatre Hermitage. In 1929 he worked for the first time for a music hall ("To the icy place") with the Moscow music hall
Moscow music hall (russian: link=no, Московский мюзик-холл) is a theater and state cultural institution of Moscow, Russia.
History
The first concert of Moscow music hall took place on the stage of Aquarium Theater in 1923. ...
. Later, he worked in Leningrad (1929–1941) as a director and conductor of the Saint Petersburg Music Hall (1929–34), and then moved to Moscow to work on his own operettas and film music.
Dunaevskiy wrote 14 operettas, 3 ballets, 3 cantatas, 80 choruses, 80 songs and romances, music for 88 plays and 42 films, 43 compositions for light music orchestra and 12 for jazz orchestra, 17 melodeclamations, 52 compositions for symphony orchestra and 47 piano compositions and a string quartet.
He was one of the first composers in the Soviet Union to start using jazz. He wrote the music for three of the most important films of the pre-war Stalinist era, '' Jolly Fellows'', '' Circus'' and the film said to be Stalin's favorite film '' Volga-Volga'', all directed by Grigori Aleksandrov.
In a reply to the British book ''The World of Music'', he listed the following as his chief works: ''The Golden Valley'' operetta (1937), ''The Free Wind'' operetta (1947), and music to the films ''Circus'' (1935) and ''The Kuban Cossacks'' (1949).
He died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1955. His last piece, the operetta ''White Acacia'' (1955), was left unfinished at his death. It was completed by Kirill Molchanov and staged on 15 November 1955, in Moscow.
A previously unknown opera libretto ''Rachel'' (1943) by Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the fir ...
, was later found in his archive. The libretto was based on Guy de Maupassant's '' Mademoiselle Fifi'' and was published in a book by Naum Shafer (see references and links below).
A book of his essays and memoirs was published in 1961.
Honors
Dunaevskiy was named aPeople's Artist of RSFSR
People's Artist of the USSR ( rus, Народный артист СССР, Narodny artist SSSR), also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to artists of the Soviet Union.
Nomenclature and significa ...
in 1950. He was twice awarded the Stalin Prize (1941, 1951) and received two orders and many medals (including Order of the Red Banner of Labour, Order of the Red Star
The Order of the Red Star (russian: Орден Красной Звезды, Orden Krasnoy Zvezdy) was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 193 ...
, and Order of the Badge of Honour).
Family
His brother Semyon (1906–1986) was a conductor; another brother, Zinovy (1908–1981), was a composer. Dunaevskiy was married once. He had a son Yevgeny (b. 1932) by his wife Zinaida Sudeikina, and another son Maksim (b. 1945) by his lover, the ballerina Zoya Pashkova (1922—30.01.1991). Maksim is also a well-known composer.Works
*''The Tranquillity of the Faun'', ballet (1924) *''Murzilka'', ballet for children (1924) *''For Us and You'', operetta (1924) *''Bridegrooms'' (''Женихи''), operetta (1926) *''The Knives'' (''Ножи''), operetta (1928) *''To the icy place'', operetta (1929) *''Million Langours'', operetta (1932) *'' Jolly Fellows'' (''Весёлые ребята''), film music (1934), including " Serdtse" *''Three Friends'' (''Три товарища''), film music (1935) *''Late for a Date
''Late for a Date'' (russian: Девушка спешит на свидание, Devushka speshit na svidanie; literally ''Girl in a hurry for a date'') is a Soviet comedy film directed by Mikhail Verner. A new print was issued in 1987, completel ...
'' (''Девушка спешит на свидание''), film music (1936)
*''Seekers of Happiness
''Seekers of Happiness'' (russian: Искатели счастья, Iskateli schastya) is a Soviet film from 1936 trying to attract Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) in the far east of the USSR. It is also known by its alternative name, ...
'' (''Искатели счастья''), film music (1936)
*'' Circus'' (''Цирк''), film music (1936)
*''The Children of Captain Grant
''In Search of the Castaways'' (french: Les Enfants du capitaine Grant, lit=The Children of Captain Grant) is a novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1867–68. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of ill ...
'' (''Дети капитана Гранта''), film music (1936)
*''The Golden Valley'' (''Золотая долина''), operetta (1937)
*'' Volga-Volga'' (''Волга-Волга''), film music (1938)
*''The Roads to Happiness'' (''Дороги к счастью''), operetta (1939)
*''My Love'' (''Моя любовь''). film music (1940)
*''Moscow'', suite for solo voices, chorus and orchestra (1941)
*''The Wind of Liberty'' (''Вольный ветер''), operetta (1947)
*'' Cossacks of the Kuban'' (''Кубанские казаки''), film music (1949)
*''The Son of the Clown'' (''Сын клоуна''), operetta (1950)
*''Glory of the Railwaymen'', cantata
*''Our Homeland May Flourish!'', cantata
*Ballet Suite for orchestra
*''Suite on Chinese themes'', orchestra
*''Rhapsody on Songs of the people of the Soviet Union'', jazz orchestra
*''The Music Store'', jazz orchestra
*String Quartet
*''Song of the Fatherland'', film music
*''Requiem'', narrator and quintet
*''Song of Stalin'', chorus and orchestra
*''White Acacia'' (''Белая акация''), operetta (1955, completed by Kirill Molchanov
Kirill Vladimirovich Molchanov (russian: Кирилл Владимирович Молчанов; 7 September 1922 – 14 March 1982) was a Russian and Soviet composer.
He was appointed director of the Bolshoi, at the time political disfavour had ...
)
* ''Quiet, Everything Quiet'' (Тихо, всё тихо), the sign-off tune of the Soviet television until 1991.
Also:
*Songs
*Pieces for chamber orchestra
*Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...
for theatre and cinema
External links
Isaak Dunayevsky: The Red Mozart Of Soviet Cinema
See also
* Maksim DunayevskyBibliography
*Kommissarskaya, M Dunaevskiy, the article in "Tvorcheskiye biografii Kompozitorov", Moscow, 1989 *Shafer, Naum “Dunaevskiy Today” Moscow, Sovetsky Kompozitor, 1988References