Jānis Ivanovs

Jānis Ivanovs (born October 9, 1906 in Preiļi near Daugavpils , Latgale ; † March 27, 1983 in Rīga ) was a Latvian composer .

Life

Jānis Ivanovs came from a Russian family of Old Believers who had settled in the Baltic States. Ivanovs studied piano and composition with Georg Schnéevoigt at the Latvian Conservatory in Riga until 1931 ; then he attended until 1933 the master class for composition by Jāzeps Vītols . From 1931 he worked for the Latvian Radio as conductor of the radio symphony orchestra and sound engineer. In 1944 he became a lecturer in composition at the Latvian Conservatory in Riga. A year later he received the post of Artistic Director of the Latvian Radio, which he held until 1963. In 1955 Ivanovs was promoted to professor of composition and instrumentation at the Latvian Conservatory in Riga. He continued this teaching activity until the end of his life. Ivanovs received several state awards for his compositions and was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1956 .

style

Ivanovs' style changed greatly over the course of his life; his work therefore shows several different stylistic periods. In the 1930s he created a kind of Latvian national romanticism , the tonal language of which is largely based on the music of the romantic era . Many of the musical images of the works of this time show a great closeness to nature. What is noticeable is a rather gloomy tone that should run through his entire work. After Ivanovs took up influences from Claude Debussy , among others, in the early 1940s and noticeably tightened his harmonics, he initially distanced himself from this tendency around 1948 and oriented himself towards socialist realism . The works of this time radiate optimism and a loyalty to the people. Towards the end of the 1950s, he continued on the path he had previously broken off. He now oriented himself towards more modern composers such as Honegger , Stravinsky or Bartók . Further experiments led him to the twelve-tone technique in the early 1960s . The tone of the works from this period is sometimes quite aggressive. Towards the end of the 1960s, Ivanovs changed his style again and turned to a kind of neo-romanticism, which, among other things, meant a renewed turn to a greatly expanded tonality , which he was less in the traditional sense as a consistent principle of his compositions, but more as a kind Stylistic devices used. Ivanovs is one of the most important Latvian composers. The main focus of his work is his symphonies, which have been compared to Greek tragedies due to their mixture of tragedy and heroic gestures.

Works

• 21 symphonies, among others
  • Symphony No. 1 in B flat minor Poema Sinfonia (1933)
  • Symphony No. 2 in D minor (1935)
  • Symphony No. 3 in F minor (1938)
  • Symphony No. 4 in E flat minor Atlantis (based on Plato's island of Atlantis ) with female choir (1941)
  • Symphony No. 5 in C major (1945)
  • Symphony No. 6 in E minor Latgale (1949)
  • Symphony No. 7 in C minor (1953)
  • Symphony No. 8 in B minor (1956)
  • Symphony No. 9 (1960)
  • Symphony No. 10 in D major (1963)
  • Symphony No. 11 in E minor (1965)
  • Symphony No. 12 in C major Sinfonia Energica (1967)
  • Symphony No. 13 in D minor Sinfonia humana for speaker and orchestra (1969)
  • Symphony No. 14 for string orchestra (Sinfonia da Camera) (1971)
  • Symphony No. 15 in B flat minor Sinfonia ipsa (1972)
  • Symphony No. 16 (1974)
  • Symphony No. 17 in C major (1976)
  • Symphony No. 18 (1977)
  • Symphony No. 19 (1979)
  • Symphony No. 20 in B minor (1981)
  • Symphony No. 21 in C minor (1983, unfinished)

• Other orchestral works
  • Cloud Mountains , symphonic poem (1938)
  • Violoncello Concerto in B minor (1938, lost in the war, reconstructed in 1945)
  • Rainbow , symphonic poem (1939)
  • Violin Concerto in E minor (1951)
  • Lāčplēsis , symphonic poem (1957)
  • Piano Concerto in D minor (1959)
  • Sinfonietta for string orchestra in B minor (1977)

• Vocal music
  • Poem for choir and string orchestra (1973)
  • The song for choir and orchestra (1978)
  • Songs
  • Choirs

• Chamber music
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1931/32)
  • String Quartet No. 2 in C major (1946)
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1961)
  • Piano Trio in B minor (1976)

• Piano music
  • 20 preludes (1934–1982)
  • Variations in E minor (1948)
  • Sonata brevis in E flat minor (1962)
  • 24 sketches (1965–1972)

literature

• Lolita Fūrmane:  Ivanovs, Jānis. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 9 (Himmel - Kelz). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618-1119-5  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
• Ludvigs Kārkliņš: Jāņa Ivanova simfonisms. Liesma, Rīga 1978 (on the symphonies of Jānis Ivanovs, Latvian).

Web links

• Catalog raisonné. Janis Ivanovs. Internet Edition compiled by Onno van Rijen. February 11, 2007, archived from the original on July 19, 2012 ; accessed on June 5, 2018 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arnolds Klotiņš: Jānis Ivanovs - Biography (English), Portal Musica Baltica , accessed on August 13, 2017.