Frid, Grigory Samuilovich
(b Petrograd, 9/22 Sept 1915). Russian composer. He came from an intellectual Jewish background: his father was a music journalist and the founder and editor of the journal Teatr and his mother, a pianist who graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatory, was Frid’s first teacher. In 1932 Frid enrolled at the music college attached to the Moscow Conservatory and studied there with Litinsky, the composer, polyphonist and theoretician. In 1935 he became a student of the conservatory proper, from 1937 studying with Vissarion Shebalin (1937–9, 1945–8). He soon showed a talent for organization: on his initiative a circle was set up where student pianists such as Svyatoslav Richter and Anatoly Vedyornikov performed works, largely unknown to Soviet musicians, by Mahler, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Krenek, Richard Strauss and other contemporary composers. During these years he travelled with his fellow student and musicologist Isaak Shteynman to the Arctic where he recorded songs of the Nentsy people of the Yamal region.
Frid graduated in 1939 and was immediately called up; from 1942 to the end of World War II he was a member of the folk ensemble on the Western front. He fought on the front line at Kalinin and was shell-shocked and awarded military honours. He then continued at the conservatory (1947–52), and in 1965 he organized the Moscow Music Club for young people, affiliated to the Union of Composers. It was about this time that he began painting; a number of exhibitions were held in the All-Union House of Composers during the 1970s and 80s. He has written several books and numerous articles, and was a member of the USSR Union of Composers and an Honoured Art Worker of the Russian Federation (1984).
Until the mid-1960s Frid wrote in a broadly traditional manner, but the works from this earlier period are notable for their assured technique, polyphonic development and an economy of means. Shostakovich exercised a strong influence on him during these years, and his admiration for the man and the composer has remained strong. The work which marks a shift to a more distinctive voice is the tragic and complex Third Symphony for strings and timpani (1964), in which the restraint of means is compensated for by tensions between the modes and the harmony. These stylistic features and his increasing demands on the listener were intensified with Frid's subsequent fascination with the Second Viennese School and the aesthetics and the techniques of dodecaphony. These techniques were employed for the first time in the Trombone Concerto, and, interpreted freely, they gave added expressivity to Frid's tragic voice.
The high point of Frid's art are the two opera monologues – Dnevnik Annï Frank (‘The Diary of Anne Frank’) (1969) and Pis'ma Van Goga (‘The Letters of Van Gogh’) (1975) – which are both distinctive for their documentary style and chamber proportions. Both operas and the song cycle Federiko Garsiya Lorka (‘Federico García Lorca’) strikingly present the composer's preoccupations with tragedy and the ability to retain one's faith in the moral strength of humanity (as in the portrayal of Anne Frank), and his keen sense of conflict between the artist and the world (as in Pis'ma Van Goga). Dnevnik Annï Frank is in the repertory of a number of theatres in Germany.
WORKS
(selective list)
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Ops: Dnevnik Annï Frank [The Diary of Anne Frank] (Frid, after A. Frank's Diary), op.60, 1969; Pis'ma Van Goga [The Letters of Van Gogh] (Frid, after Van Gogh's letters to his brother Théo), op.69, 1975
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Choral: Pered burey [Before the Storm] (Ya. Kupala, M. Mikhaylov, I. Motlev), op.31, 1958; Raduga [The Rainbow] (S. Galkin), chorus, chbr orch, 1963; Federiko Garsiya Lorka [Federico García Lorca], op.65, S, T, cl, vc, pf, perc, 1973
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Orch: Sym. no.1, 1939; Severnoye skazaniye [Northern Legend], suite, 1946; Skazï [Folk Tales], op.16, folk insts orch, 1948; Sym. no.2 ‘Liricheskaya’ [The Lyric], 1955; Na beregakh Cheptsï ‘pamyati V. Korolenko’ [On the Shores of the Cheptsa ‘in Memory of V. Korolenko’], sym. poem, 1959; Les shumit [The Forest Stirs], op.42, folk insts orch, 1961; Sym. no.3, op.50, str, timp, 1964; Conc., op.52, va, chbr orch, 1965; Trbn Conc., 1967; 4 orkestrovïye kartinï [4 Orch Pictures], op.61, folk insts orch, 1970; Conc., op.73, va, pf, str, 1981; Ladoga, severnaya poėma [Ladoga, a Nothern Poem], op.79, folk insts orch, 1987
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Str qts: no.1, 1936; no.2, 1947; no.3, op.20, 1949; no.4, op.29, 1957; 6 p'yes [6 Pieces], str qt, 1972; no.5, op.70, 1982
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Other chbr: Sonata no.1, op.53, cl, pf, 1966; Sonata no.2, op.75, cl, pf, 1972; Pf Qnt, op.72, 1981; Fedra [Phaedra], op.78/1, solo va, 2 vn, vc, pf, 1985
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Vocal (1v, pf): Romansï na stikhi armyanskikh poetov [Romances of Armenian Poets] (Akhavni, A. Grashi, Sarmen, O. Shiraz), 1949; 6 romansov [6 Romances] (A.S. Pushkin), 1949; Sonetï Shekspira [Shakespeare's Sonnets] (trans. S. Marshak), 1959; Iz liricheskoy tetradi: 4 romansa [From a Lyrical Book: 4 Romances] (S. Marshak), 1960; Zima [Winter] (L. Komoens)
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Pf: Al'bom p'yes dlya detey [Album of children’s pieces], opp.25, 39, 41, 1960; Inventsii [Inventions], 1962; Vengerskiy al'bom [A Hungarian Album], op.54, 1966; Sonatina, op.63/1, 1971; Sonata 2 pfs, op.76, 1984
| BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Tsuker and A. Selitsky: Grigoriy Frid (Moscow, 1990)
NELLI GRIGOR'YEVNA SHAKHNAZAROVA
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