Shebalin, Vissarion Yakovlevich (1902-1963)

Russian composer. He was director of the Moscow Conservatory 1942-58, but was sacked after being denounced by Stalinists, as a formalist (along with other leading contemporary composers in the USSR).

He was the son of a teacher and received his first musical training at the Omsk School of Music. In 1923 he entered the Moscow Conservatory as a pupil of Nikolai Miaskovsky and stayed there as a professor in 1928, as well as teaching at the Gnessin School of Music.

Works Opera and dramatic music operas The Taming of the Shrew (1957), Sun over the Steppes (1958), comic opera The Embassy Bridegroom (1942); incidental music for Schiller's Die Räuber and Mary Stuart, Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri and The Stone Guest (Don Juan), Lermontov's Masquerade, Scribe's A Glass of Water, and others; film music.

Choral and orchestral symphonic cantata Lenin for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra; five symphonies (1925-62), two suites and two overtures for orchestra; violin concerto, concertinos for violin and strings and for harp and small orchestra.

Chamber nine string quartets (1923-63), string trio; sonatina for violin and viola, suite for solo violin; two piano sonatas and three sonatinas.

Other songs (including settings of works by Pushkin and Heine), popular choruses, and war songs.