Olivier Greif ( French: Olivier Greif ; January 13, 1950 , Paris - May 13, 2000 , Paris ) - French composer and pianist.
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Content
Biography and Creativity
He began to play the piano at the age of three, compose music from the age of nine. He graduated from the Paris Conservatory , where he studied with Lucette Decavé (piano), Tony Aubin (composition), Jean Ubo (chamber ensemble), and others. Since 1969 he studied at the Juilliard School under the direction of Luciano Berio , then he assisted him in staging the Opera Berio at the Opera Santa Fe. In 1971 he returned to the Paris Conservatory and for some time studied the orchestration and arrangement in it; Greif's collaboration with pianist Katya Labek dates back to this time, for which he wrote a series of piano miniatures. In 1978, he became a follower of Sri Chinmoy , shifted his verses and texts to music, and received the spiritual name Haridash (in Sanskrit, “Servant of God”).
By the 1960s and 70s a significant number of chamber (mainly piano) works by Greif belong. In 1981 , the concert premiere of the chamber opera “No” ( French Nô ) on the libretto by Mark Sholedenko , met by colleagues ( Messiane , Boulez ) and criticism was so cool that Greif practically stopped writing for almost 10 years, focusing on the main by propagating the teachings of Sri Chinmoy in France.
Greif's return to active musical activity was marked, in particular, by his participation in the recording of the piano quartet Florent Schmitt, together with Regis and Bruno Pascier and Roland Piedou , who received in 1992 one of the French prizes in the field of sound recording. By 1993, the vocal cycle “Letters from Westerbork” ( FR. Lettres de Westerbork ) , important to Greif , refers to the text of letters from Etti Hillesum and excerpts from psalms; this composition was followed by another work by Greif related to the Holocaust - Symphony No. 1 for voice and orchestra to verses by Paul Celan ( 1997 ). This topic was important for the composer, including because his father came from Polish Jews and managed to survive in Auschwitz , where he spent 1944 - 1945 . Greif's String Quartet No. 3, The Death Fugue ( German: Todesfuge ; 1998 , with vocals) was also inspired by Paul Celan's poem, but in the end, Greif abandoned the idea of putting it to music and replaced the text with Dylan Thomas's poem And Death Shall Have no Dominion . For the next, fourth Greif quartet, the literary basis was the James Ulysses novel by James Joyce . Among Greif's later works are a number of vocal compositions, including verses by Lee Bo , John Donne and other English metaphysical poets , William Blake , Hölderlin , Alfred de Musset , Heine , Prever , Paul Bowles . His legacy, among other things, includes 23 piano sonatas. Among the most famous works of the composer is the Requiem Sonata for Cello and Piano ( 1979 ).
Suddenly died of unknown causes. He was buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse .
Recognition
Repeated laureate of prizes at the Institute of France and other awards as a composer and pianist.
Greif's memory is dedicated to the work of Pascal Amoyel Sadhana for voice and cello.
Notes
- ↑ BNF ID : 2011 Open Data Platform .