Rebikov, Vladimir (Ivanovich)

Rebikov, Vladimir (Ivanovich) , Russian composer; b. Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, May 31, 1866; d. Yalta, Aug. 4, 1920. He studied at the Moscow Cons. with Klenovsky, then in Berlin and Vienna. He then went to Odessa, where his first opera, In the Thunderstorm, was produced in 1894. In 1898 he moved to Kishinev, Bessarabia, where he organized a branch of the Imperial Russian Musical Soc. In 1901 he settled in Moscow, remaining there until 1919; he spent his last year of life in the Crimea. His early Works were under the influence of Tchaikovsky, but beginning with Esquisses for Piano he made a decisive turn toward a modern style; he became particularly fond of the whole tone scale and its concomitant, the augmented triad, claiming priority in this respect over Debussy and other European composers; his piano piece Les Démons s’amusent is based entirely on the whole tone scale. He declared that music is a language of emotion and therefore could not be confined to set forms, or to arbitrarily defined consonances. An entirely new departure is represented by his Mélomimiques, short lyric pieces for Piano, in which mimicry and suggestion are used in an impressionistic manner. He also wrote several vocal “melomimics,” 3 “rhythmo-declamations” for Piano (op.32), and 20 for Voice and Piano. In these compositions he abandoned cohesive form in favor of a free association of melodic and rhythmic phrases, sparingly harmonized; prevalence of esthetic theories over musical substance made his experiments ephemeral. A melodious waltz from his children’s opera, The Christmas Tree, is his most popular composition. He publ. numerous articles on musical aesthetics, particularly relating to modern music, and tr. into Russian Gevaert’s Traité d’instrumentation .

Works

DRAMATIC : In the Thunderstorm, opera (Odessa, Feb. 27, 1894); The Christmas Tree, children’s opera (Moscow, Oct. 30, 1903); Little Snow White, musico-psychological pantomime (Tiflis, 1909); Prince Charming, fairy opera; scenic fables after Krylov: The Grasshopper and the Ant, A Dinner with a Bear, The Ass and the Nightingale, The Funeral, and The Liar (Moscow, Dec. 27, 1903); several “musico-psychological tableaux”: Slavery and Freedom, Songs of the Harp, The Nightmare, etc. Piano : Numerous pieces (Scènes bucoliques, Silhouettes, Dans la forêt, Chansons blanches, Idylles, Les Danses, Les Démons s’amusent, etc.).

Bibliography

W. Dale, A Study of the Musicopsychological Dramas of V. I. R .(diss., Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles, 1955); O. Tompakova, V. I. R.: Ocherki zhizni i tvOrch.estva (Moscow, 1989).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire