Yevgeny Alexandrovich Mravinsky

Yevgeny Alexandrovich Mravinsky ( Russian Евгений Александрович Мравинский ., Scientific transliteration Evgenij Alexandrovič Mravinskij , May 22nd ^{. Jul} / 4. June  1903 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ; † 19th January 1988 in Leningrad ) was a Soviet conductor .

Mrawinski's education began at Petrograd University with a degree in natural sciences, which he broke off after his father's death in 1920. He then worked as a répétiteur at the State Ballet School (1921–1931) and simultaneously studied composition with Vladimir Shcherbachev and conducting with Nikolai Malko and Alexander Gauk at the Leningrad Conservatory . From 1931 to 1937 he was assistant and ballet conductor at the Great Opera Theater (from 1934 Kirov Theater). After winning a conducting competition in 1938, Mravinsky was appointed music director of the Leningrad Philharmonic (now the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic ), a post he held until his death in 1988. During these almost 50 years, the legendary conductor shaped the Philharmonic into one of the best orchestras in the world. In 1979 he was awarded the Arthur Nikisch Prize .

Yevgeny Maravinsky was responsible for the world premieres of many works by Dmitri Shostakovich , with whom he was close friends until a falling out for political reasons in the 1960s. Mrawinski is the dedicatee of Shostakovich's 8th Symphony .

Mrawinski's recordings of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's symphonies are particularly legendary , which are characterized by their remarkable freshness and faithfulness to the work and represent the opposite pole to the often emotionally overloaded interpretations of Western conductors.

Yevgeny Mrawinsky is buried in the Bogoslovskoye Cemetery in Saint Petersburg.

Web links

• http://www.mravinsky.org/ ( Memento from October 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) , (Russian)
• Works by and about Yevgeny Alexandrowitsch Mrawinski in the catalog of the German National Library
• Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 Mvt. 4 on YouTube - As with the premiere in 1937, the Leningrad Philharmonic played the famous final movementof Shostakovich's 5th Symphony about 50 years later, also under Yevgeny Maravinsky