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Igor Markevitch

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Igor Markevitch was a Russian composer and conductor. He was born on 27 July 1912 in Kyiv, grew up in France and Switzerland, and studied and worked in Paris. Later he became an Italian and French citizen. In 1929 the impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned a piano concerto from him and invited him to write a ballet with Boris Kochno. Diaghilev died that year, but the publisher Schott took Markevitch on anyway.

Music and breakthrough

In the 1930s he wrote at least one major work every year and was called the second Igor, after Stravinsky. His ballets Rébus and L'Envol d'Icare were performed in concert form, the latter with quarter tones in the winds. In 1941 he became seriously ill. After that he gave up composing and chose conducting. He made his debut at eighteen with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, studied with Pierre Monteux and Hermann Scherchen, and during the war helped the Resistance in Italy.

Influence

After 1947 he lived in Switzerland and conducted all over the world, including the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris, the orchestra of Spanish RTVE, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. He was admired for his French, Russian and Austro-German repertoire and for twentieth-century music. His recordings from the 1950s and 1960s, such as The Rite of Spring and Symphonie fantastique, remain in circulation. From 1970 he also conducted his own work again. He died in 1983 in Antibes, after a tour of Japan and Russia.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to The Rite of Spring in his recording and notice the rhythmic sharpness: where do the accents fall, and how does the orchestra keep the tempo tight while the time signatures keep changing?

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists