Rebikov, Vladimir Ivanovich (1866–1920)

Russian composer. He was the most advanced, if by no means the strongest or most important, Russian composer of his generation, using many unconventional devices (including whole-tone scales) and evolving an idiom of his own. His short piano and vocal pieces are his most characteristic work, and include a number of dramatic melomimiki (or mélominiques, small-scale works in an expressionist style).

He was born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, and studied at Moscow and Berlin. He later settled in southern Russia and founded music societies at Odessa and Kishinev. Some of his stage works are described as ‘musico-psychological’ or ‘musicopsychgolographic’ dramas, among them his opera The Christmas Tree (1903).

Works Stage the operas and dramatic scenes The Storm (1894), The Christmas Tree (1903), Thea, The Woman with the Dagger (based on Schnitzler's play, 1911), Alpha and Omega (1911), The Abyss (after Andreiev), Narcissus (after Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses’, 1913), Fables (after Krilov); ballet Snow-White.

Orchestral and chamber suites for orchestra and string orchestra; numerous sets of piano pieces, including Rêveries d'automne (1897), Mélomimiques, Aspirer et attendre, Chansons blanches (on the white keys).