Alexander Veprik Explained

Alexander Veprik
Birth Name:Alexander Moiseyevich Veprik
Birth Date:23 June 1899
Birth Place:Balta, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire
Death Place:Moscow, Soviet Union
Occupation:Composer, music educator

Alexander Moiseyevich Veprik, also Weprik, (Russian: Александр Моисеевич Веприк, ; 23 June 1899 – 13 October 1958) was a Russian-(Ukrainian); Soviet) composer and music educator. Veprik is considered one of the greatest composers of the "Jewish school" in Soviet music.

Life

Veprik was born in Balta, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). He grew up in Warsaw and studied piano with Karl Wendling at the Leipzig Conservatory. At the onset of World War I, the family returned to Russia. Veprik studied composition with Alexander Zhitomirsky (1881–1937) in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory (1918–1921) and Nikolai Myaskovsky at the Moscow Conservatory (1921–1923).

Veprik was active in the musical life of 1920–1930s. In 1923 he was active in the creation of the Society for Jewish Music, a focal point for Jewish composers in Moscow, and Jewish music flourished as a result of the activities of the Society.[1] He taught at the Moscow Conservatory (1923–1941; professor from 1930; dean from 1938). In 1927 during a business trip in Austria, Germany and France, he met Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel and Arthur Honegger. His music became well known in Europe and the United States during this time: nearly his entire oeuvre was performed by the Berlin Radio Symphony (1928–1929).[2] In March 1933 Arturo Toscanini conducted Veprik's Dances and Songs of the Ghetto at Carnegie Hall in New York.[3]

Veprik was arrested as a "Jewish nationalist" in 1950, maltreated in prison and then deported to the Gulag. He was released from hard labor and instead had to organize an amateur orchestra among the prisoners.[2] In April 1954, Vepryk's case was reviewed and he was acquitted. In September 1954 he returned sick and weary to Moscow, to a world in which Jewish culture had no place.[4] Veprik composed a few works and wrote Principles of J.S. Bach's Orchestration (Принципы оркестровки И.-С. Баха). He died on 13 October 1958 in Moscow.

Selected works

Opera

Orchestral

Chamber music

Comodito, abbandono

Barocco, al rigore di Tempo

Capriccioso, ma placido

Piano

Vocal

  1. Sait gesunterheit (О ты, прости, прощай)
  1. Spaziren zainen mir gegangen (Однажды с милым вдвоём мы гуляли)
  1. Hant zu hant (Держись ровнее)
  1. Eins un zwei (Раз и два)

Choral

Film scores

Literary

Discography

Rhapsodie, Op. 11

Songs of the Dead, Op. 4

Kaddish (Poem), Op. 6

Chant rigoureux, Op. 9

Two Jewish Folk Songs for voice and piano, Op. 8 (1926)

Two Jewish Songs for voice and piano, Op. 10

Dances and Songs of the Ghetto, Op. 12

Two Symphonic Songs, Op. 20

Five Little Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 17

Pastorale

Two Poems

Books

External links

Notes and References

  1. Tabea Zimmermann and Jascha Nemtsov play Jewish Chamber Music: Alexander Weprik and the Society for Jewish Music in Moscow . 1999 . Jascha . Nemtsov . CD booklet . Hänssler Classic . Stuttgart, Germany.
  2. http://www.musica-judaica.com/weprik_e.htm Nemtsov, Jascha (2002): Alexander Weprik
  3. http://www.mjhnyc.org/documents/ReginaResnik.pdf Museum of Jewish Heritage
  4. http://berkovich-zametki.com/2009/Zametki/Nomer15/MGoldshtejn1.php Композитор Александр Веприк (Composer Alexander Veprik)

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