Rodion Shchedrin died: biography and work of the outstanding composer

Soviet and Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, People's Artist of the USSR, author of the world-famous ballets Carmen Suite and Anna Karenina, died at the age of 93. This was reported in the press service of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia. His work became an important part of the musical culture of the second half of the 20th century. The biography of the People's Artist of the USSR is in the material of Izvestia.

Rodion Shchedrin: when and from what the composer died

On Friday, August 29, it became known about the death of the outstanding Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin. He was 92 years old. The official statement from the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia does not specify the cause of death.

"Rodion Shchedrin is a unique phenomenon and an epoch in the life of world musical culture. His operas, ballets and symphonic compositions have been performed with great success on all major stages of the world for many decades.

Shchedrin's priceless creative legacy has always found a response in the hearts of the public. This is a huge tragedy and an irreparable loss for the entire art world," the Bolshoi Theater's Telegram channel says.

In 2025, it was planned to open the first museum in Russia dedicated to Rodion Shchedrin. For this purpose, they chose a special place — the house in Aleksin, where the future composer spent his early years.

Shchedrin found out about the project after the official announcement, but he reacted to the idea with sincere enthusiasm. The museum was supposed to create a permanent exhibition, as well as organize a space for concerts, meetings with musicians and cultural programs.

Rodion Shchedrin: childhood and youth

Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin was born in Moscow on December 16, 1932, on the same day that Ludwig van Beethoven was born several centuries earlier. Mother, Concordia Ivanovna, an economist by profession, sincerely appreciated art and supported the love of it in the family.

His father, Konstantin Mikhailovich, had an absolute ear, was fond of singing and received a musical education at the Moscow Conservatory, where he entered with the assistance of actress Vera Pashennaya.

Shchedrin later admitted that he had not felt much interest in music in his youth. His father's ingenuity helped to make him study: promises to go fishing after piano lessons became an incentive, thanks to which the boy began to learn the basics.

Studies at the music school at the conservatory were interrupted due to the war. The family was evacuated to Kuibyshev. His parents worked for front-line needs, and young Rodion spent most of his time on the street with other boys. In search of food and under the impression of patriotic films, the guys decided to escape to the front.

The first attempt was unsuccessful, and during the second, in 1942, Shchedrin, hiding the truth about his age and family, ended up at the front. However, soon his uncle, who held a high position, returned the teenager home.

When his father returned from the war, he wanted to send his son to the Nakhimov Military School. But fate decreed otherwise: Konstantin Mikhailovich was invited to teach at the Alexander Sveshnikov Choral College, where Rodion was enrolled. Subsequently, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied in two areas at once — piano and composition. At some point, Shchedrin seriously considered a career as a pianist, but his mentors managed to convince him not to leave the composer's business.

Already in his fourth year, he became a member of the Union of Composers. Later, as head of the organization, Shchedrin tried to follow the example of his predecessor Dmitry Shostakovich — to help colleagues and support their creativity. He held this post until 1990.

Rodion Shchedrin: Becoming a composer

Rodion Shchedrin's creative career turned out well. The composer himself noted in an interview that during the Soviet era, most of his colleagues had no serious reason to complain. His artistic boldness was largely explained by belonging to the generation of the "sixties" — a time when freedom of thought and individuality came to the fore, and outdated dogmas receded into the background.

In addition to classical motifs, Shchedrin was attracted to folk motifs in his youth. He was particularly impressed by trips to the village of Aleksino to visit his grandmother, where he first heard professional mourners singing. These voices remained in his memory for a long time.

By the end of the 1950s, Shchedrin had already established himself as a talented author. In 1959, he completed his postgraduate studies and presented to the public the ballet The Hunchback Horse, based on Yershov's fairy tale. The production took a firm place in the repertoire of the Stanislavsky Musical Theater and later entered the poster of the Bolshoi Theater. His First Symphony appeared in the same years.

The 1960s were the composer's heyday. It was then that he wrote the famous "Carmen Suite", created in just twenty days. In it, Shchedrin offered a fresh look at the classics: he replaced the symphony orchestra with a combination of strings and percussion, which gave familiar themes a new sound.

During the same period, the opera "Not only Love" appeared, the tragic Second Symphony, filled with military intonations, and the concert "Naughty Ditties", in which the author's love for Russian folklore was vividly manifested. Thanks to his friendship with Andrei Voznesensky, an unusual project "Poetoria" based on the poet's poems was created.

In the 1970s, Shchedrin turned to the large form. One of his significant works was the opera "Dead Souls" by Gogol, where the composer again found an original solution — he introduced an additional chamber choir instead of strings. In the same years, the ballets Anna Karenina and The Seagull appeared, the latter being singled out by critics for its sophistication and transparency of sound.

In the mid-1980s, Shchedrin wrote the ballet "The Lady with the Dog" based on Chekhov, staged by ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, for whom it was a special work. By the millennium of the Baptism of Rus, the composer created a spiritual composition "The Imprinted Angel" based on the text of Leskov's story.

Gradually, he was invited abroad more and more often. In 1988 Shchedrin became an honorary guest of the Soviet-American festival "Making Music Together". And after the collapse of the USSR, he moved to Munich, although he continued to consider Russia his home and returned regularly.

In the 1990s, the premiere of the opera Lolita, inspired by Nabokov's novel, was performed. It was first presented in Stockholm, and almost a decade later in Perm. Subsequent works include The Enchanted Wanderer, dedicated to Maestro Lorin Maazel, as well as the operas Boyarina Morozova and Lefty, written especially for Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre.

Shchedrin's anniversaries became real musical events. In 2002, on his 70th birthday, the Rodion Shchedrin Festival was held in Russia. Self-portrait". Anastasia Volochkova shone on the stage, and Maya Plisetskaya was present in the audience with her husband. On his 85th birthday, in 2017, the documentary "The Shchedrin Passion" was shot, and concerts were held with the participation of the country's best orchestras conducted by Mikhail Pletnev and Valery Gergiev.

In 2022, the maestro celebrated his 90th birthday. In his honor, the Kultura TV channel has prepared a series of programs and films about the composer, and Channel One presented the documentary Shchedrin Suite.

Already in 2023, he donated his manuscripts to the Museum of Music, among which was one of his latest compositions, "Adventures of a Monkey," written three years earlier.

Recent years Shchedrin lived mostly in Germany, only occasionally coming to Russia or to the country in the Baltic States, which was particularly fond of Plisetskaya. But his music continued to be heard in his homeland: in 2024, the opera "Not Only Love" was staged in Moscow again under the baton of Felix Korobov, and for the maestro's next birthday, "Poetoria" was performed by the orchestra and choir of the Mariinsky Theater.

The ballerina herself died 10 years ago, on May 2, 2015. In her will, she specified that "after her husband's death, their ashes should be joined and scattered over Russia."