Борис Миколайович Лятошинський | en

Borys Mykolayovych Lyatoshynsky (January 3, 1895 - April 15, 1968) was a composer, conductor, teacher, and leading member of the new generation of twentieth century Ukrainian composers.

Borys Lyatoshynsky was born in Zhytomyr (also the birthplace of Sviatoslav Richter), in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). His father, Mykola Leontiyovych Lyatoshynsky, was a history teacher and was an activist in historical studies. He was also the director of various gymnasiums in Zhytomyr, Nemyriv, and Zlatopol. Lyatoshynsky's mother played the piano well and sang.

Lyatoshynsky started out playing piano and violin. At 14, he wrote a few musical pieces including a mazurka and waltz for piano, along with quartet for piano. He also attended the Zhytomyr Gymnasium, from where he graduated in 1913. After graduating, he joined Kiev University and later the newly-established Kiev Conservatory, where he studied composition with Reinhold Gliere in 1914. Lyatoshynsky graduated from Kiev University in 1918, and from the Kiev Conservatory in 1919. During this time, he wrote his String Quartet No.1, op.1, and his Symphony No.1, op.2.

In 1920, Lyatoshynsky started to teach musical-theoretical disciplines at the Kiev Conservatory, and from 1922 he taught composition. From 1922 to 1925 he was in charge of the Association of Modern Music in the name of Mykola Leontovych (his father's name). From 1935 to 1938 and from 1941 to 1944 he taught concurrently at the Moscow Conservatory. As a composer he wrote a variety of works, including five symphonies, symphonic poems and other shorter orchestral works, choral and vocal music, two operas, chamber music and a number of works for solo piano. His earliest compositions are greatly influenced by the expressionist music of Scriabin and Rachmaninov (Symphony No.1). Later his music moved toward the new musical language of surrealism (Schoenberg, Shostakovich) with its metaphysical philosophy and atonality. This shift in creative output caused significant problems with Soviet censors. Lyatoshynsky was accused (together with Prokofiev and Shostakovich) of formalism and creation of degenerative art. Many of his works were rarely or never performed during his lifetime. The 1993 recording of his symphonies by Theodore Kuchar and Ukraininan State Symphony Orchestra (Marco Polo) brought his music to a worldwide audience. .