He is called a classic during his lifetime, many orchestras consider it an honor to perform his works. With a minimal set of tools, its orchestration instantly becomes hits. And he, the genius composer Rodion Shchedrin, invariably repeats that all his life he strived to be himself.
Rodion was born in 1932, on Beethoven's birthday, in Moscow. Music surrounded him from early childhood - many of his loved ones loved music and singing. Therefore, they wanted to send Rodion to the school at the conservatory, but the war began.
The brave boy tried several times to escape to the front, but he was found and returned to his parents. Soon the Shchedrin family was evacuated to Kuibyshev, where Rodion got to the dress rehearsal of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony.
After school, Shchedrin was waiting for the Nakhimov school, but again fate makes a sharp turn: his father became a teacher at the choir school of Alexander Sveshnikov, and Rodion entered this school. Here he received excellent training as a pianist.
Musical creativity
After college, he entered the conservatory and studied at two faculties at once - composer and piano. He enthusiastically performed the works of other composers, and was going to give up writing, but the teachers dissuaded. And already in the 4th year Rodion Shchedrin became a member of the Composers' Union.
His creative destiny was rather happy: he began to create in the 60s of the twentieth century, and this was a time of relative freedom in art. At that time, individuality was valued, and Shchedrin possessed it to the fullest, because he did not want to imitate anyone. And he reacted little to the opinions of critics.
Rodion Shchedrin called his first concert for orchestra in 1963 "Mischievous ditties" - in it folk motives are organically interwoven into the overall composition. The composer loved Russian classics, used its motives in his works
Shchedrin's first opera is called Not Only Love; it premiered at the Bolshoi Theater, conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov, and Irina Arkhipova sang the lead role. Then there were other operas: "A Christmas Tale", "Boyarynya Morozova", "Levsha" and others.
Of the vocal works, critics noted the choirs from Eugene Onegin and the a cappella choirs to verses by the poets Tvardovsky and Voznesensky
Shchedrin is not only an academic composer, he has music for films: Anna Karenina, People on the Bridge and Height.
Rodion Shchedrin has a lot of awards, the main ones being the Lenin Prize, the USSR State Prize and the RF State Prize, as well as the title of People's Artist of the USSR.
Personal life
Once the owner of the literary salon Lilya Brik drew the attention of her guest Rodion Shchedrin to a thin girl - Maya Plisetskaya. Three years have passed since that evening, when Maya and Rodion met again and did not want to part anymore.
Together they lived for more than half a century - 57 years, until Plisetskaya's death in 2015. They have no children, mainly because of Maya's enormous employment.
They say that Shchedrin was on the sidelines with his star wife, but he himself does not regret it at all. He gave his beloved the most valuable - music: "Anna Karenina", "Carmen Suite", "The Seagull", "Lady with a Dog".
And Plisetskaya wrote two books in which she showed how dear to her the person whom Providence itself gave her: "13 years later" and "I, Maya Plisetskaya." Shchedrin has a book about his life with Plisetskaya, it is called Autobiographical Notes.
Now Rodion Shchedrin lives in Germany, in his house, where pictures of Maya Plisetskaya are everywhere.
