Zachary Paliashvili (ზაქარია ფალიაშვილი in Georgian; Захарий Петрович Палиашвили in Russian; 16 August [O.S. 4 August] 1871 in Kutaisi — 6 October 1933 in Tbilisi) was a composer from the nation of Georgia. He is regarded as a founder of Georgian classical music.
As a young boy he sang in a choir and learned to play the organ in the St. Mary Catholic Church of Kutaisi. His first tutor was his brother Ivan, who later became a conductor. Paliashvili moved to Tbilisi in 1887 as a chorister in the St. Mary Assumption Catholic Church of Tbilisi, eventually entering the music school there, studying French horn and composition. During 1900-1903 he studied composition under Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory. Upon returning to his native land, Paliashvili began to play a strong role in developing national music in Georgia. He collected Georgian folk songs, co-founded the Georgian Philharmonic Society, and became head of the Tbilisi Conservatory.
Paliashvili composed works for symphony orchestra (e.g., Georgian Suite on Folk Themes), but is probably best known for his vocal music, which includes choruses and songs. His major works in this regard are the operas Abesalom da Eteri (Absalom and Eteri) (premiered 1919, although a version of Act III was performed in 1913; based on a folk tale "Eteriani"), Daisi (Twilight) (1923), and Latavra (1927). [1]
His father, Petre Ivanovich Paliashvili (1838-1913) was a kind, hard working man, a model father and husband. he was an elder at the Kutaisi Georgian Catholic Church. Zachary's mother, Maria Pavlova Mesarkishvili (1851-1916) was noted for her grace and spiritual beauty. Zachary was the third child in a family of eighteen children (thirteen sons and five daughters). Seven children died in infancy. Thought Zachary's parents where not professional musicians, their children remembered their mother's singing. [2]
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Biography
childhood and youth
In his autobiographical notes Zachary Paliashvili writes: "...in our big family, my brothers and sisters displayed a natural gift of music even in their early age. To my mind the explanation of this should be sought in the fact that we, being catholics attended the church where the sweet sounds of organ music are not only enjoyable but help develop a good ear... we spend much time in the church and gradually developed a good ear.." The first to display considerable musical abilities was the eldest son Ivane (Vano) Paliashvili (1868-1934) who subsequently became an outstanding conductor. When Vano was eleven years old he was made assistant to the church organist, and the eight-year-old Zachary was admitted as a chorister to the church choir. With the help of the dean, Father I. Antonishvili, little Zachary studied "Lullaby for Jesis" and sang it with great success on Christmas night. [3] The Kutaisi period, however, left a deep impression on the life of the future composer. It was the place of his first contact with music, and the basis of his professional attitude to his life's dedication - music - had developed there, too. All his life Zachary had retained his youthful love for the relics of Georgia's magnificence, the ruins of the Church of Bagrat (built by Georgias king Bagrat III in 1003, ruined and plundered by the Turks in 1631), Gelati (1106-1125), one of the most important centres of education, philosophy and literature in medieval Georgia and the extraordinary beauty of his home town. Subsequently, Zachary Petrovich recalled Kutaisi many times, permeated, he said, with a "truly Georgian spirit" Upon leaving the two-year parish school, brothers Ivan and Zachary began to play the piano under tutorship of Felix Mizandari, an organist and pianist. Mizandari did not charge the family for the lessons for he was aware that Paliashvili family was of very modest means. Shortly afterwards, people in the town learned of the two talented and exceptionally persevering young musicians. [4] The news reached father Alfonso Khitarishvili, dean of Tbilisi Georgian Catholic Church of the assumption. With the parents' consent Khitarishvili took Ivan and Zachary Paliashvili to Tbilisi. This was in the spring of 1887. The elder brother was appointed to the post of the organist and Zachary was made his brother's assistant and a choirboy. A short time after, the entire family of Petre Paliashvili moved to Tbilisi. The work at the Catholic Church in Tbilisi, besides providing a small but badly needed salary also gave Zachary Paliashvili the opportunity to broaden his musical knowlage by getting acquainted with the composers of Palestrina, Lassus, Bach, Handel, Mozart and other great composers of the past. [5] The first performance of a Georgian Ethnographic choir, established of the initiative and with the material support of Lado Agniashvili, a well-known public personality of those days, took a place in Tbilisi in 1886. [6] Later the concerts of this choir were conducted by Joseph Ratil (Navratil), though Czech by birth had forever associated his life with Georgia. The concerts of Agniashvili's choir evoked very favourable comments from the patriotically minded Georgian public. Vano and Zachary Paliashvili sang in this choir in 1887-1889 and this fact was of importance for future composer. [7]
In 1889 Vano left for Russia where he was engaged as an opera conductor. His post of church organist was taken over by Zachary who now had to support the entire family; as a result, he had no opportunity to continue his musical education. [8]
in 1874 on the initiative of singer Kharlamphy Savaneli, pianists Aloizy Mizandari and Konstantin Alikhanov, the first musical school in Georgia was founded in Tbilisi. The Tbilisi Musical School was reorganised into the Tbilisi Branch of the Russian Royal Musical Society with the statue of a musical college. This was carried out with the active assistance of Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov, a well-known Russian composer, conductor and educationalist (worked in Tbilisi in (1882-1893) Zachary Paliashvili's cherished dream came true only in 1891 when he was admitted to the french horn class under F.F. Parizek. A year later, when Parizek left the school, Zachary continued to study under A.I. Mosko. Paliashvili graduated from the French horn class in 1895 and in the same year was admitted to the musical theory class which was conducted by Nikolai Semenovich Klenovsky, a Russian conductor, composer and teacher. Apart from this, Zachary studied with Ippolitov-Ivanov and music critic Vasili Davidovich Korganov. [9]
Zachary Paliashvili graduated from the school with honour diploma in the spring of 1899.During his school years he had founded a mixed choir factory and office workers which performed Georgian and Russian folk songs for workers. In 1898 Paliashvili conducted his choir in Gyandja and had a tremendous success. While studying in Klenovsky's class Paliashvili wrote several piecevs and this aroused in him an indomitable desire for further composition.
Following and exchange of letters with Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915), an outstanding Russian composer and teacher, Zachary Paliashvili went to Moscow towards the end of August 1900. After taking his entry examinations he became a pupil in the class of counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatorie. Three years of study with Professot S.I. Taneyev, a distinguished theorist and a profound expert in polyphony enriched Paliashvili with fundamental knowlage and facilitated his maturing into a professional composer. [10]
Of great importance for thebroadening of his musical outlook was his favourite composers: Glinka, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky as well as listening to operas at the Bolshoi theatre and symphonic concerts at the Conservatorie, the Club of the Nobility and other concert halls. He studiet with great interest the compositions of the great masters of the world musical culture: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Verdi, Grieg and later wrote fundamental articles on them. [11]
As a pupil of the Moscow Conservatorie in 1901, Zakaria Paliashvili made his first trip through Georgia to collect folksong material. He recorded remarkable speciments of Georgian songs. This work laid the foundation for Paliashvili's folklorist activity.
Towards the end of June 1903 Paliashvili comleted his studies under Taneyev. Together with his young wife Julia Mikhailovna Utkina, Zakaria Paliashvili returned to Georgia to put into practice the knowlage gained in Russia. In autumn of 1903, Paliashvili began teaching at the Tbilisi High School for the nobility, where he had a singing class and also conducted the choir and orchestra, founded by him. Zakaria was a strict and uncompromising teacher. He demanded full accuracy of intonation and precision of rhythm for every pupil-member of his choir or orchestra. He made such big progress in this field, that the school choir and orchestra soon began giving public concerts. The press called this "a triumph of the gifted maestro" and said, tha the "choir and orchestra were brought to an evinous standard even for a musical school". It should be noted, that a number of personalities who later on distinguished themselves in the Georgian Soviet musical culture (Composers: I. Tuskia, G Kiladze, S. Taktakishvili, V. Gokiely, A. Andriashvili; music critics: S. Aslanishvili, G. Chkhikvadze; Violinist L. Yashvili and others) had their first inspiring contact with music in this school, attending Z. Paliashvili's class. Violinist Andrei Karashvili and composer Zakaria Chkhikvadze worked at the same high school, where they conducted musical classes. [12]
In 1906, using a piano piece by A. Karashvili ("Sazandary") as a point of departure, Paliashvili composed a profoundly patriotic song "Samshoblo", wich became popular throughout Georgia. [13]
In 1904 Paliashvili was invited to head the teaching of theoretical subjects at the Tbilisi Musical Collage. Besides instructing classes in solfeggio, harmony and orchestration, he conducted pupils' choir and orchestra, the public performances of which were invaribly successful.
Progressivse Georgians before the revolution had regarded collecting, recording and elaboration of folklore material as an essential element, contributing to the spiritual life of the nation. Apart from the practical application - the use of folklore material as the basis of literaly and msical work - a large scale propaganda of remarkable folk poetry and songs formed a major instrument for stimulating the Georgian people's patriotic sentiments. Many contemporaries of Paliashvili have been engaged in folklorist work: Meliton Balanchivadze (father of well-known Soviet composer Andria Balanchivadze and of George Balanchine, an american choreographer), Dimitri Arakishvili, Filimon Koridze, Zakaria Chkhikvadze, Kote Potskhverashvili and others. [14]
In the summer of 1903, Zakaria Paliashvili and A.S. Khakhashvili (Khakhanov), professor at the University of Moscow and specialist in the history of Georgian literature, made a tour of Svanetia (a high-attetude area in western Georgia). where they recorded some very rare old Georgian folk songs. Paliashvili described the trip to his favourite teacher, S.I. Taneyev. in 1903-1908 with the same goal in view Paliashvili toured such districts as Racha, where he recorded local folk singers, and in particular a mestvire (Bag-piper); Guria (Ozurgeti), Imereti, Kartli and Kakheti. Part of the songs, recorded by Zakaria Paliashvili were published in Moscow as a collection in 1910. The publication was financed by Georgian Philarmonic Society. These are Forty Georgian Folk Songs recorded by Z. Paliashvili and Eight Folk songs rendered for choir and orchestra. Paliashvili, however, did not rest content. Whenever he had the least opportunity, he included folk songs elaborated by him in the concert programme of his choirs. K. Kvitka, the husband of Lesya Ukrainka, a distinguished Ukrainian poetess, sang in one of these choirs. Paliashvili was a good friend of this talanted daughter of the Ukrainian people and of her husband till Lesya Ukraininka's death.
Aolongside secular music, Georgia, which adopdet Christianity in 337, had old traditions in chorals, mostly centred in monasteries and cathedrals. The development of Georgian hymnography dates back to the end of IX century, as is evident from the big collection of chorals complited by Mikel Modrekili (X century) and recorded in ingenious Georgian neumatic signs. The peak of development of chorals and of secular music in medieval Georgia came in XII-XIII cc. Then came the devastating invasions of the Mongols, Turks and Persians, which had retarded the progress of Georgian culture for a long time.
When Georgia joined Russia, the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church was avikusged. This endangered the national music, which is based upon a well-developed polyphony. The first notations of chorals, on the suggestion of the Georgian clergy was carried out by M.M. Ipolitov-Ivanov. His Collection on Georgian Chorals from the Liturgy of St. John the Golden Mouthed formed the basis for the Collection of 22 Georgian Chorals, compiled by Paliashvili and published in Moscow in 1910, together with his collection of folk songs. An illustrative and creative elaboration for the rich traditions of Georgian folk and church singing are the remarkable choral compositions by Niko Sulkhanishvili, a gifted composer and Zakaria's friend. These pieces are distinguished by profound content, variety of form and a well expressed national idiom and have became a part of the golden fund of Georgian classical music. [15]
See also
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zakaria Paliashvili |
- Biography of Zakaria Paliashvili
- Listen Online to Zakaria Paliashvili's operas
- Free scores by Zachary Paliashvili in the International Music Score Library Project
- Free scores by Zachary Paliashvili in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
References
- ^ 100 опер: история создания, сюжет, музыка. [100 Operas: History of Creation, Subject, Music.] Ленинград: Издательство "Музыка," 1968, p. 448
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 9
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 11
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 11-13
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 14-15
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 16
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 16
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 18
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 21
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 23
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 26-27
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 29
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 30
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 31-32
- ^ Zacharia Paliashvili 100th Anniversary, p. 33; 36
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