Mravinsky, Evgeny Alexandrovich

Born into a noble family.

At the age of six, his parents began to teach the piano, took him to the theater for concerts of opera and symphonic music.

He studied at the 2nd St. Petersburg Gymnasium ^[1] and at the Natural Faculty of Petrograd University , which he dropped out of because of the inability to combine his studies with work as an artist of the mimance at the Mariinsky Theater .

Since 1921 - pianist-accompanist at the Leningrad Choreographic School , where he thoroughly studied the complex technique of classical dance . From 1929 to 1931 - head of the musical part of the school.

In 1923 he studied at the choir college at the Leningrad State Academic Chapel (now the M. I. Glinka Choir College ) ^[2] . In 1924-1931 he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory , first in the composition class, since 1927 he began to study in the conducting department, where he acquired technical skills and the ability to work with the score (teachers in the conducting class N. A. Malko and A. V. Gauk , the course of harmony and instrumentation was held by MM Chernov , polyphony by X. S. Kushnaryov , and composition by VV Shcherbachev ).

In 1932-1938 he was a conductor, mainly of the ballet repertoire, of the Mariinsky Theater (in 1935-1992 - the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater named after S. M. Kirov).

Since 1938, after winning the First All-Union Competition of Conductors in Moscow, for fifty years he has been the main conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra .

In 1940 he made his debut in Moscow . After the outbreak of the war, the orchestra was evacuated to Novosibirsk . During the evacuation, the orchestra gave 538 concerts. In September 1944 he returned to Leningrad .

In 1939, he was the first to perform the Sixth Symphony by D. Shostakovich . Such compositions as S. Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony and A. Khachaturian’s Symphony Poem were also the first to be performed. Held many premieres of D. Shostakovich’s symphonies ( Fifth , Sixth , Eighth (dedicated to the conductor), Ninth and Tenth ) and his oratorio “Song of the Forests”.

He toured with the orchestra abroad: Finland (1946, where he also met with the famous composer J. Sibelius ), Czechoslovakia (1955), East Germany , Germany , Switzerland and Austria (all in 1956), Poland (1958), tours in seven countries of Western Europe 34 concerts (1960). Since then, the orchestra went on tour approximately every two years, to Western or Eastern Europe (8 times in Austria, 6 times in Japan ). The last foreign tour took place in 1984, and the last concert was on March 6, 1987 in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic.

Among the records are the works of L. van Beethoven , I. Brahms , A. Bruckner , J. Sibelius , P. Tchaikovsky , D. Shostakovich , F. Schubert , A. Onegger . After 1961 he did not make studio recordings, all subsequent recordings were made at concerts (one of the most important studio recordings - the last three symphonies of P. Tchaikovsky - was performed by Deutsche Grammophon in 1960).

In 1936-1937 and since 1961 he taught at the Leningrad Conservatory , since 1963 - professor .

He died on January 19, 1988 in Leningrad . He was buried at the Theological Cemetery .

Family

• Grandfather - Konstantin Iosifovich Mrovinsky (1828-1917), Russian military engineer, major general, participant in the heroic defense of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (1854).
• Father - Alexander Konstantinovich (1859-1918), a graduate of the Imperial School of Law , was a member of the consultation at the Ministry of Justice , served as district legal adviser to the military district council of the Petrograd Military District, and had the rank of Privy Councilor ^[3] .
• Mother - Elizaveta Nikolaevna (1871-1958), came from a noble family of Filkovs.
• 2nd wife - Inna Mikhailovna Serikova (1923-1964), a musicologist, in the 1960s she was the artistic director of the Leningrad Regional Philharmonic Society ^[4] ; died at the age of 41 from bone marrow cancer, was buried in the Theological Cemetery.
• 3rd wife - Alexandra Mikhailovna Vavilina (b. 1928), flutist and teacher, Honored Artist of the RSFSR , soloist of the Leningrad Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra (1962-1989), professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory (since 1987), prepared for publication and published diaries E.A. Mravinsky.
• Father's sister - Evgenia Konstantinovna Mravinskaya (1864-1914), opera singer, soloist of the Mariinsky Theater in 1886-1900 under the pseudonym Mravin .
• The father’s half-sister is Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (1872-1952), a Russian revolutionary, a Soviet statesman and diplomat.
• Among the relatives - Igor Severyanin (1887-1941), a poet .

• 1st All-Union Competition of Conductors (1st prize, 1938)
• Hero of Socialist Labor (1973)
• Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1940)
• Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1946)
• People's Artist of the USSR (1954)
• Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (1946) - for concert performance
• Lenin Prize ( 1961 ) - for concert performance
• Two Orders of Lenin (1967, 1973)
• Order of the October Revolution (1983)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1957)
• Order of Friendship of Peoples (1978)
• Order of the Badge of Honor (1939)
• Medals
• The Golden Disk prize of the Melody company for recording the 6th symphony by P. I. Tchaikovsky
• Honorary Member of the Vienna Society of Friends of Music (1982).

Mariinsky Theater

Ballets

• 1932 - The Sleeping Beauty by P. Tchaikovsky
• 1932 - “ Corsair ” to the music of A. Adan , L. Delibes , R. Drigo , C. Pugni
• 1933 - “ Giselle ” by A. Adana
• 1933 - Swan Lake by P. Tchaikovsky
• 1934 - The Nutcracker by P. Tchaikovsky
• The Bakhchisarai Fountain by B. Asafiev

Operas

• " Mazepa " P. Tchaikovsky.

Roles

• 1941 - 1941 film concert

Filmmaking

• 1973 - Conducted by Eugene Mravinsky (documentary)
• 1975 - And so - all my life (documentary)
• 1979 - Reflections on Mravinsky (documentary)
• 1984 - Conversations with Mravinsky (documentary)
• 1984 - Dialogue (Documentary)
• 1984 - Music of Mravinsky (documentary)

Archive footage

• 2009 - Rerberg and Tarkovsky. Reverse side of "Stalker" (documentary)

According to a survey conducted in November 2010 by British classic music magazine BBC Music Magazine , E. Mravinsky took seventeenth place in the list of twenty most prominent conductors of all time. This “twenty” also included A. Toscanini , L. Bernstein , B. Haitink , C. Abbado , P. Boulez , V. Furtwengler , S. Rattle and others ^[5] .

• Bogdanov-Berezovsky V.M. Soviet Conductor . - M .: MUZGIZ, 1956. - 284 p. - 2500 copies.

• In 2004, the book by A. V. Ivanov, “A Look from the Orchestra” (about working with Eugene Mravinsky) ISBN 5-9268-0295-4 was published .

Mravinsky, Evgeny Alexandrovich (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ".

• Site dedicated to Mravinsky
• Discography of Mravinsky
• Memoirs of A.I. Sokolova about E.A. Mravinsky
• "Maestro Mravinsky." Memoirs of Gabriel Glikman G. D. Glikman , Lake Constance , 1985. Published in the journal Zvezda, 2003, No. 5, on the centenary of E. A. Mravinsky.
• Mravinsky Evgeny Alexandrovich in the Virtual Encyclopedia Pro Peter. Literary essay (inaccessible link)
• Eugene Mravinsky (English) on the Allmusic website
• Memoirs of the collaboration of Evgeny Alexandrovich Mravinsky with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra ( Frantisek Slama , memorial site )