Dmitry Borisovich  Kabalevsky’s father was a mathematician who wanted his son to pursue a career in economics or mathematics. He gave a liberal education to his son Dmitri, who excelled in the arts, notably painting, poetry and music (as a pianist). After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Kabalevsky’s family moved when he was fourteen years old to Moscow, where he studied music at the Scriabin Musical Institute from 1919 to 1925 while still maintaining his interest in painting. In 1922, out of respect for his father, he took the entrance exam to the Engels Socio-Economic Science Institute, but did not enrol there as he realized that his future career lay in music, initially as a pianist. During the following three years, Kabalevsky began to teach at the Scriabin Institute as well as to compose for his students, but in order to develop as a composer he enrolled in 1925 at the Moscow Conservatory where he studied composition with Nikolai Myaskovsky as well as piano with Alexander Goldenweiser. Myaskovsky’s influence may be seen in such pieces by Kabalevsky as his Three Poems of Blok (1927), considered his most daring work, and in his first internationally-known music, the Piano Concerto No. 1 (1928) and the C Major Sonatina (1930). In the late 1920s there was considerable tension between the two main forces of Soviet music: the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM), and the Association of Contemporary Musicians (ASM). Kabalevsky wrote his Poem of Struggle (1930) in the context of the proletarian ideals of the RAPM, using melodies from songs of the revolution, while also showing his promise as a writer in 1927 with his contributions to a journal published by the ASM. The tension between the two organizations ended in 1932 with the formation of the Union of Soviet Composers in which Kabalevsky played a significant part, helping to organize the Moscow section.

Kabalevsky was appointed an assistant instructor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory in 1932, and in 1939 he became a full professor, writing some of his finest music during the late 1930s and early 1940s. As well as much incidental music for radio and stage, he composed his first opera Colas Breugnon, based on a novel by Romain Rolland: it was first performed in 1938 and was an immediate success, although Kabalevsky himself revised it in both 1953 and 1969. He joined the Communist Party in 1940, in the following year receiving the Medal of Honour from the Soviet government for his musical prowess. His suite The Comedians appeared in 1940, using music that he had composed for the play The Inventor and the Comedian by the Soviet writer M. Daniel. Kabalevsky participated in the war effort through the composition of battle hymns, inspirational songs and cantatas, all written to promote heroism and patriotism among the Soviet population. The opera The Taras Family (1947) incorporated music from the earlier opera Into the Fire (Before Moscow) of 1942, and with its high level of lyricism became a huge popular success.

In 1948, the year that the Soviet Union’s greatest composers were publicly attacked for music that showed signs of ‘bourgeois formalism’, Kabalevsky produced his sunny and tuneful Violin Concerto, the first of three works in this form (the others were his Cello Concerto No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 3) written for young virtuosi in the years between 1948 and 1952. His incidental music to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet appeared in 1956 and follows the distinguished Russian tradition of portraying the events of this tragedy in music. Even more significant was his Requiem of 1962, which was dedicated to those who died fighting fascism, and made a local impact comparable to that stimulated in England by Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Kabalevsky was also a significant force in Soviet musical education. Having been elected head of the Commission of Musical Aesthetic Education of Children in 1962, he was also elected president of the Scientific Council of Educational Aesthetics in the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR in 1969. In addition, he was also honorary president of the International Society of Musical Education. Kabalevsky was awarded the highest honour for a Soviet composer during the Stalin era, the Stalin Prize, three times, as well as the Order of Lenin in 1965; he died in Moscow on February 18, 1987.

As a highly proficient all-round musician, Kabalevsky was an effective conductor of his own music. The state record company Melodya recorded him conducting several of his most popular works such as the Piano Concerto No. 3 (with Gilels), the Violin Concerto (with Oistrakh) and the Cello Concerto No. 1 (with Shafran), as well as the Symphony No. 4 and the Requiem. While he is most noted in Russia for his vocal songs, cantatas, and operas, abroad he is known primarily for his orchestral music. Kabalevsky’s music is immediately appealing with its tunefulness, high spirits and colourful orchestration. He faithfully served the society in which he found himself, composing works which have long since outlived the political priorities of Soviet realism.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).