Vissarion Shebalin

Vissarion Shebalin was a leading Russian composer and educator during the first half of the 20th century. His most well-known works are his symphonies and his opera The Taming of the Shrew.

Shebalin was born in 1902 in Omsk, a large Russian city in Southwestern Siberia. His father taught math, sang, and directed a school choir; his mother was also a teacher and music lover but did not have any known musical talents. As a boy, Shebalin attended school at the Omsk gymnasium, and he began taking piano lessons when he was eight years old. Two years later, he enrolled at the Russian Music Society of Omsk as a piano student, and he discovered his passion for both composing and performing. In 1920 he began studying piano with Medvedev at a newly founded music college in Omsk and he progressed so quickly that he was transferred to Mikhail Nevitov's advanced music theory class after only one year. Nevitov was a former student of <a href="spotify:artist:2wk53EBcWhriq03tl5nDYV">Reinhold Glière</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:07yD267mZTiHoptqdYd5mc">Nikolay Myaskovsky</a> at the Moscow Conservatory, and he contacted them and suggested that they listen to Shebalin's compositions. In 1923 he became a composition student of <a href="spotify:artist:07yD267mZTiHoptqdYd5mc">Myaskovsky</a> at the Moscow Conservatory, and he started to earn a reputation as a talented composer from his earliest works.

After two years, Shebalin composed his Symphony No. 1, Op. 6, which he used as his capstone project. After he graduated from the conservatory in 1928, he started teaching there and became a full professor in 1935. He was promoted to head of the composition department in 1940 and earned his doctorate the following year. He then became the director of the conservatory and served from 1942 to 1948. During this time, he was honored with several awards for his compositions, including two Stalin Prizes, and the Peoples Artist of the RSFSR award in 1947. One year later, he became a victim of the artist purge brought on by the Zhdanov Doctrine. This required artists and composers to only create works that honored the mandated political agenda. Those who refused, such as Shebalin, <a href="spotify:artist:6s1pCNXcbdtQJlsnM1hRIA">Shostakovich</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:4kHtgiRnpmFIV5Tm4BIs8l">Prokofiev</a>, were persecuted and professionally reassigned to lesser roles. After his refusal to adhere to the doctrine, Shebalin was removed from the conservatory in 1948 and assigned to a less prestigious teaching position at a bandmasters' school. The demotion was painful and damaging to his reputation, but he was eventually reinstated as a professor at the conservatory in 1951.

He suffered a stroke two years later which left the right side of his body partially paralyzed, but he learned to write with his left hand and resumed teaching and composing. In 1955 he composed the opera The Taming of the Shrew, which after the 1957 premiere was labeled a masterpiece by critics. He suffered a second stroke in 1959 which left him unable to speak. However, he persisted and finished composing his Symphony No. 5, Op. 56 in 1962, which <a href="spotify:artist:6s1pCNXcbdtQJlsnM1hRIA">Shostakovich</a> praised as "a brilliant creative work." Shebalin passed away just a few months later after suffering a third stroke. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi