Khrennikov, Tikhon Nikolaievich (1913–2007)

Russian composer. He was secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers 1948–91 under Stalin and was made a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1973. He played a prominent part in the Stalinist-inspired denunciations of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and wrote optimistic, lyrical compositions such as music for Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing (1936) and the opera Into the Storm (1939).

He learned how to play the guitar and mandolin at home, but entered the Gnesin School of Music, Moscow, in 1929 and the Conservatory in 1932 as a pupil of Russian composer Vissarion Shebalin (1902–1963).

Works Stage and incidental music operas The Brothers (In the Storm, 1939) and Mother (after Gogol, 1957); incidental music for Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, an adaptation of Cervantes' Don Quixote, and others; film music for The Pigs and the Shepherd.

Orchestral three symphonies (1955–73); three piano concertos (1933–82).

Other piano pieces; songs to words by Pushkin and Burns; war songs.