Vladimir Zahortsev

Vladimir Nikolaevich Zagortsev. Photo sourced from the Russian-language Wikipedia

Vladimir Nikolaevich Zagortsev (Ukrainian Volodymyr Mikolayovich Zagortsev; October 27, 1944, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR - November 30, 2010, Kiev, Ukraine) is a Ukrainian and Soviet composer, one of the representatives of the Kiev avant-garde and one of the last students of Boris Lyatoshinsky ^[2].

Biography

Vladimir Zahortsev began to study music in adolescence, taking private piano lessons from S. V. Rachmaninov's student F. Kalikhman and music theory lessons from A. Guberman. Between 1962 and 1968 he studied at the Kiev Conservatory, where he had Boris Lyatoshinsky and A. Ya. Shtogarenko as composition teachers.

In 1968 he became a member of the Composers' Union. Between 1968 and 1974 he worked as an editor at the publishing house "Muzichna Ukraina".

In the 1960s, along with his friends and associates V. V. Silvestrov, L. A. Grabovsky and V. A. Godzyatsky, he was a member of an informal group of composers known as the "Kiev avant-garde" or the "Boris Lyatoshinsky school". The members of the "Kiev Group" gathered at Silvestrov's parents apartment, where they discussed and listened to new music, shared their impressions, and showed their compositions ^[3]. Due to the inconsistency with the conservative aspirations of the official musical circles of the USSR, the participants of the "Kiev Avant-garde" were subject to various kinds of oppression.

Since 1968, the composer's works have been performed in many cities of the USSR and the world, including New York, Boston, Berlin, Las Vegas, London, Zagreb, Bratislava. In January 1980, the orchestral piece Gradations (1966) was performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta ^[4]. He is a regular participant of such music festivals as "Season Premieres", "Kiev-Music-Fest", etc.

Works

An important place in the works of Vladimir Zagortsev is occupied by his nine chamber concerts, of which the first was written in 1981, and the last - in 2004. Every concert, with the exception of No. 7, was created for a string orchestra with a different composition of soloists. Zagortsev is the author of 5 symphonies, a violin concert (2007), a Concerto for Orchestra "Creativity" (2010), an opera, "Dolores" (1980-1983), "Gradations" for an orchestra (1966).

Zagortsev's piano work includes, among other things, two sonatas (1979-1981 and 1999-2000), Rhythms (1967/1969, here the composer used the dodecaphonic technique), Three Epitaphs (1998), as well as a number of chamber works.

References

1. http://mus.art.co.ua/pam-yati-kompozytora-volodymyra-zahortseva/
2. Union of Composers of Ukraine: Handbook / Comp. A.I.Mukha. - Kiev: Musical Ukraine, 1978
3. Andrusik, Sasha. Composer Vitaliy Godzyatsky: In the 1960s, we were looking for physicists - only they understood us, Ukrainska is true. Life. Date of treatment May 5, 2020.
4. "At the limit - like life in the endless ..." // A. Voitenko, Kyiv Daily

External Links

• Biography on the website of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine (Ukrainian)
• Article in the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine (Ukr.)
• Grove Music Online article

Text adapted from the Russian-language Wikipedia