Борис Иванович Тищенко | en

Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko (Russian: Бори́с Ива́нович Ти́щенко; born March 23, 1939, Leningrad – December 9, 2010) was a Russian and Soviet composer and pianist.

Tishchenko studied at the Leningrad Musical College from 1954 to 1957. There he learnt composition under Galina Ustvolskaya and piano under Mikhelis. Then from 1957 to 1963 he studied composition with Vadim Salmanov, Victor Voloshinov and Orest Evlakhov, and piano with L. Logovinski at the Leningrad Conservatory. He took a postgraduate course with the composer Dmitri Shostakovich from 1962 to 1965.

He has taught at the Leningrad Conservatory since 1965. He became a professor there in 1986.

Tishchenko actively assisted in the secret delivery of the manuscript of Shostakovich's memoirs to the West. Later, however, he raised his voice in dispute against the authenticity of the Testimony published by Solomon Volkov in 1979. In March 2006 he was announced as the first laureate of the 'Epokha Shostakovicha' prize instituted for the centennial of Shostakovich's birth.

His output includes more than seven symphonies, two violin concertos, two cello concertos, a piano concerto, five string quartets, two cello sonatas, ten piano sonatas, a requiem, chamber and vocal works, the opera "The Stolen Sun", the operetta "A Cockroach", three ballets "Twelve", "Fly-bee" and "Yaroslavna" (The Eclipse), and incidental music for theatre and film.

Tishchenko's music style and composer's manner shows him to be a typical representative of Leningrad composers' school. He was very much influenced by music of his teachers Dmitri Shostakovich and Galina Ustvolskaya turning these influences in his own way. He tried to use some experimental and modernist ideas like twelve-tone or aleatoric techniques, but was much more attached to the native traditions of his homeland. He demonstrated a kind of originality, scoring his Second Cello Concerto for 48 cellos, 12 double-basses and percussion (1969). Ten years later, however, he re-orchestrated for the more practical combination.

He was honoured by Shostakovich's orchestration of his First Cello Concerto, and repaid his master by the orchestration, editing and transcription of a few scores by Shostakovich. Tishchenko's "Requiem", to the forbidden poem by Anna Akhmatova, written in the period of political stagnation in 1966, was a courageous cultural gesture. .