Grigory Frid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grigory Samuilovich Frid also Grigori Fried (Russian: Григо́рий Самуи́лович Фри́д, born September 22 N.S., 1915, Petrograd, now St. Petersburg) - is a Russian composer of music written in many different genres, including chamber opera.
Frid studied in the Moscow Conservatory with Heinrich Litinsky and Vissarion Shebalin. He was a soldier in the Second World War. The style of his early music may be explained as conventional, written in the tradition of so-called "Socialist realism". At the age of 55 he suddenly changed his style radically, turning to the twelve-tone and other more contemporary techniques of music composition.
He is a prolific composer. The most notable works are his two chamber operas: The diary of Anne Frank, an opera-monodrama in four scenes for soprano and chamber orchestra, performed in 1969 at the "House of Composers" in Moscow; and The Van Gogh's Letters, a mono-opera for baritone and chamber ensemble, performed in (1975) at the same venue. Both the operas were written to his own libretti.
He wrote three symphonies (1939, 1955, 1964), a series of instrumental concertos including a Concerto for viola, piano and string orchestra (1981), music for theatre and cinema including stage music for Phèdre by Jean Racine (1985), vocal and chamber music including a cycle Poetry (1973) for voice and chamber ensemble to poems by Federico García Lorca, a Piano Quintet (1981), a Fantasia for cello and piano (1982), Fedra (Phèdre, 1985) - a piano quintet with solo viola, and Five Songs to poems by Luís de Camões (1985).
He is known as a music propagandist and organiser of a series of lectures-concerts for young people at the "Moscow House of Composers" that were popular in 1970s. He is also an artist, having a series of exhibitions of his paintings, and he has written of a few books of memoires, two of which first were published in Moscow in 1987 and 1991.
[edit] Discography
Grigori Frid: Das Tagbuch Der Anne Frank / The Diary of Anne Frank, (Monologue-Opera) World Premiere Recording, Profil PH04044, Sandra Schwarzhaupt, soprano, Emsland Ensemble, Hans Erik Deckert, director
[edit] Bibliography
- Фрид, Григорий: Музыка. Общение. Судьбы: О Московском молодежном музыкальном клубе: Статьи и очерки; Автор предисловия И. Нестьев 237, с. ил. 22 см, М. Сов. композитор 1987
- Фрид, Григорий: Музыка! Музыка? Музыка... и молодежь, 213, с. ил., нот. ил. 26 см, М. Советский композитор 1991
