Nikolay Peyko

Nikolay Ivanovich Peyko or Peiko (Николай Иванович Пейко) (25 March 1916 in Moscow – 1 July 1995 in Moscow)[1] was a Russian composer and professor of composition.[2]

Peyko studied composition at Moscow Conservatory under Nikolay Myaskovsky, graduating in 1940, then working in a military hospital during the Second World War and teaching at the Moscow Conservatory 1942-1949. After he had been working since 1941-1943 in Ufa at a military hospital, NIkolay worked partly with and was influenced by Dmitri Shostakovich. From 1959 till retirement Peyko was professor of composition at the Gnessin State Musical College and his students included Sofia Gubaidulina and Alexander Arutiunian. Nikolay was considered as an important composition teacher and taught his students twelve-tone case. Nikolay's first successful works, a sympathetic suite "From the Legends of Yakuta" (1940). During World War 2, he worked in a military hospital and composed several patriotic pieces "Dramatic Overture" (1941), first symphony (1944-1946) were highly appreciated by Myaskovsly and Schostakovich. Some classical archives from Nikolay are Moldavian Suite for orchestra (1950), "The Tsar Ivan's Night", "Jeanne d'Arc", Ballada, for piano, Piano Sonata NO.1, Variations for piano, Sonatina for piano No.2, Bylina, for Piano, Piano Sonata NO.2, Concert Triptych for 2 pianos. Nikolay worked on a genre of "pure" sympathy composed music for theater plays composed chamber music. Nikolay was more of a traditional composer who performed Folk music to the soviets in his musical language. His music is known for a more harsh, distant sound with much expression. Another sense of his music is driving march-rhythms with good humor, also presented with the sound of bells. In 1964 he received the title as a Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR. Nikolay began working with 12-note methods in the 1960s. In 2012 he performed in the Irish-Russian chamber-music festival in Moscow. Nikolay has won many awards throughout his lifetime, including two Stalin prizes for his first symphony (1947) and his Moldavian Suit (1950–51). Unfortunately NIkolay is completely unknown in the west, but his first two CD's ever made covers his piano music and was the first time any piece of music by Peyko was recorded on a western label (though several Soviet recordings of his music have reappeared in the West, e.g. his setting of Gogol's "The Overcoat" on 1950s Monitor LPs, or more recently a violin & orchestra fantasia in Brilliant Classics "Tretiakov Edition" (a 2007 CD set of recordings of that violinist's, mostly radio broadcast, performances.))

Selected works
  • Piano Ballad (1939)
  • From the Legends of Yakutia, symphonic suite (1940, rev. 1957)
  • Dramatic Overture (1941)
  • Sonatina-Folktale for Piano (1942)
  • Aikhylu, opera (1942)
  • Symphony No. 1 (1944–45)
  • Symphony No. 2 (1946)
  • Piano Concerto (1943–47)
  • From the Early Russia, symphonic suite (1948)
  • Moldavian Suite for orchestra (1949–50)
  • Seven Pieces on Themes of the Soviet People (1950)
  • Concerto-Fantasy for violin and orchestra No. 1 on Finnish themes (1953)
  • Piano Sonata No. 1 (1946–54)
  • Jeanne d'Arc, ballet after Schiller (1952–55)
  • Symphonic Ballad (1956)
  • Symphony No. 3 (1957)
  • Sinfonietta (1959)
  • Capriccio for chamber orchestra (1960)
  • Piano Quintet (1961)
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1962)
  • Concerto-Fantasy for violin and orchestra No. 2 (1964)
  • Symphony No. 4 (1963–65)
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1965)
  • One Night of Tsar Ivan, oratorio after Tolstoy (1968)
  • Symphony No. 5 (1968)
  • Suite for violin and orchestra (1968)
  • Decimet (1971)
  • Symphony No. 6 (1972)
  • Concerto-Symphony (1974)
  • Piano Sonata No. 2 (1975)
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1976)
  • Symphony No. 7 (1977)
  • Elegiac Poem for strings (1980)
  • One Night of Tsar Ivan, opera based in the 1968 oratorio (1982)
  • Concert Variations for two pianos (1983)

Selected recordings
  • Complete Piano Music. Toccata Classics (TOCC 0104 and 0105)
  • Symphonies 4, 5 & 7. Melodiya LPs (1978, 1981).
  • String Quartets. Shostakovich Quartet (Квартет имени Шостаковича) Melodiya LP 33 С 10—13037-8 (1979)
gollark: Wow! I actually got what I asked for in the Hub!
gollark: I'll just play as usual and end up with a few by September.
gollark: I told you it would affect xenowyrm demand.
gollark: Either that or the drama which sometimes occurs. There have been complaints on the silly DC Confessions thing about it.
gollark: They were annoyed at our reaction to a bug or something.

References
  1. Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory: Пейко, Николай Иванович
  2. Richard Taruskin On Russian music p402 2009
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.