Grigory Frid

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.

Discography

Grigori Frid: "Das Tagebuch Der Anne Frank / The Diary of Anne Frank", (Monologue-Opera) World Premiere Recording, Profil PH04044, Sandra Schwarzhaupt, soprano, Emsland Ensemble, Hans Erik Deckert, director

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

External links

* [http://ps.1september.ru/articlef.php?ID=200304805 Fragments of Frid's memoirs (in Russian)]
* [http://claudet.club.fr/Westerbork/ProfilPH04044.html CD infornation (in English)]
* [http://www.berlinerkammeroper.de/dat/pro/p61_05.htm Berlin Chamber Opera (in German)]
* [http://www.kultura-portal.ru/tree_new/cultpaper/article.jsp?number=604&rubric_id=207&crubric_id=100442&pub_id=684587 Interview (in Russian)]