Summary
Samuil Abramovich Samosud (Russian: Самуи́л Абра́мович Самосу́д) (Tbilisi, Georgia, 14 May [O.S. 2 May] 1884 — Moscow, 6 November 1964), PAU, was a Soviet and Russian conductor.
He started his musical career as a cellist, before becoming a conductor at the Mariinsky Theater, Petrograd in 1917. From 1918 to 1936 he conducted at the Maly Operny, Leningrad. In 1936 he became musical director at the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow. He founded what became the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in 1951. He premiered several important works, including Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, The Nose and the Seventh Symphony; as well as Prokofiev's War and Peace and On Guard for Peace. Shostakovich "had a high opinion" of Samosud's theatrical performances, and regarded him as "the supreme interpreter" of operatic works including Lady Macbeth.[1] Nonetheless, after hearing Samosud conduct the Seventh Symphony, the composer wrote that he wanted to hear Yevgeny Mravinsky perform the symphony, as he didn't "have great faith in Samosud as a symphonic conductor".[2][3]
References edit
- ^ Shostakovich, Dmitri; Isaak Glikman (2001). Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman, 1941-1975. trans. Anthony Phillips. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. xxxvi. ISBN 0-8014-3979-5.
- ^ Shostakovich, Dmitri; Isaak Glikman (2001). Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman, 1941-1975. trans. Anthony Phillips. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 7. ISBN 0-8014-3979-5.
- ^ Brown, Kellie D. (2020). The sound of hope: Music as solace, resistance and salvation during the holocaust and world war II. McFarland. p. 214. ISBN 978-1-4766-7056-0.
External links edit
- Samuel Samosud — Biography on Prokofiev.org (on Internet Archive, captured on 4 February 2012)