Chairman of the Board of the Union of Composers of the Russian Federation told about the secrets of Dunayevsky's work

Isaak Dunaevsky's music was imbued with optimism and oriented towards ordinary people. Rashid Kalimullin, Chairman of the Board of the Union of Composers of the Russian Federation, People's Artist of Russia, told Izvestia about this, characterizing the work of the classic of Soviet music on the eve of the 125th anniversary of his birth.

"Isaac Osipovich was an outstanding composer. In general, in that era there were many such bright composers, and not only in the song, but also in the symphonic genre: Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, Dmitry Kabalevsky. But Isaak Osipovich Dunayevsky occupied a special place among these outstanding musicians. From him, as from a cornucopia, fell stunning melodies that were immediately memorized. The whole country sang them!" - Rashid Kalimullin noted.

According to him, many of Dunayevsky's songs became so popular that they went to the people, and today we don't even always remember who composed them.

"I remember when we were kids we used to sing 'Fly away, doves'. I was studying at the music school at that time and in parallel went to the orchestra in the House of Pioneers, played in the Russian folk orchestra. And today, remembering the creative heritage of Dunayevsky, I thought how many songs from the repertoire of our orchestra were composed by him", - shared the interlocutor of "Izvestia".

Dunayevsky felt what the people needed, understood and loved them. Both his work and he himself are deeply democratic by nature.

"He worked as a music director even at the plywood factory! He was no stranger to any kind of labor. But at the same time he held many solid positions - in particular, he was chairman of the Leningrad Union of Composers", - emphasized Rashid Kalimullin.

Read more in the exclusive material of "Izvestia":

Sing us a song: how Isaak Dunaevsky created the main melodies of the USSR