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Valery Aleksandrovich Gavrilin (Валерий Александрович Гаврилин, (August 17 1939 – January 29 1999) was Russian composer, Honoured Artist of Russia and the winner if the USSR State Prize

Biography
Valery Gavrilin was born in 1939 in Vologda. In 1964 he graduated from Leningrad Conservatoire with two specialities at the same time, those of a composer (under professor O.A.Evlahov) and a musicologist-folklorist (under professor A.F.Rubzov).

Valery Gavrilin died in St. Petersburg in 1999 at the age of 59 following two severe heart attacks.

Musical style
The art of Gavrilin is one of the most vivid and strinking features of contemporary Russian culture. After having composed "The Russian Music Book" he entered into music of 1960es in the period of the so-called "neo-folklore wave" which was a kind of parallel to the art of such Russian "country-writers" in the genre prose as V.Belov, V.Astafiev, V.Shikshin. The truthful picture of the contemporary life of people, their mood, expectation, hopes abd sorrows is presented in Gavrilin's music.

Both the esthetics and the style in Gavrilin's art are the vivid example of the neo-romantic. First of all it can be seen in the composer's inclination towards the genre of song mostly favoured by romantics, in the ethical and fine development of song forms. To reveal the tragic content the composer uses the developed and symphonized song form which is sometimes close in the manner of intonation to "crying" and "lamentations". They are traditional genres of a Russian village song.

In Gavrilin's instrumental music and appreciable place is given to a programme miniature, to character and genre pieces forming his suits, orchestra suits and variety entertainments. Having been staged in the Naples theatre "Sun-Carlo" and in the Bolshoy in Moscow by V.Vasiliev Gavrilin's ballet "Anuta" became widely known.

Being vocal by nature Gavrilin's talant has its own unique intonation. Just like his beloved romantics he worships melody. The soul of his music is in a fresh primordial melodiousness. Its pure national character is also expressed in the composer's inclination to the "natural" and "native" harmonies.

Links
IMDB page

The Lied and Art Song Texts Page

Sheet music