Dmitri Kabalevsky was born in St. Petersburg on December 30, 1904, and
received his musical training in Moscow, at the Scriabin Music School
and the Moscow Conservatory. He was graduated from the latter school in
1929, and in 1932 he was appointed instructor there. His first success
as composer came in 1931 with his first symphony, commemorating the
fifteenth anniversary of the Russian revolution; this was followed in
1934 by his second symphony, which enjoyed an even greater triumph both
in and out of the Soviet Union. In 1939 Kabalevsky was elected a member
of the Presidium of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet
Composers; in 1940 he was given the Order of Merit; and in 1946 he
received the Stalin Prize for the second string quartet. He has also
written operas, concertos, additional symphonies, and piano music.
A composer who has always been partial to the more conventional means
and techniques, and has relied heavily on broad and stately melodies and
subjective feelings, Kabalevsky has managed to produce several
compositions that have wide appeal. One is the sprightly _Colas Breugnon
Overture_. _Colas Breugnon_ was an opera adapted by V. Bragin from a
novel by Romain Rolland; it was first performed in Leningrad on February
22, 1938. The central character is a 16th-century craftsman—a jovial man
who enjoys life and has a spicy sense of humor and a happy outlook on
all things. The overture is essentially a study of that man,
consistently gay and sprightly. There are two main melodies, both of
them lively, and both derived from Burgundian folk songs.
Another popular work by Kabalevsky is _The Comedians_, op. 26 (1938), an
orchestral suite made up of selections from the incidental music to a
children’s play, _The Inventor and the Comedians_. The play is about the
varied and picaresque adventures of a group of wandering performers in
various towns and at public fairs. There are ten episodes in the suite,
each in a light, infectious style that makes for such easy listening
that this work is often given at children’s concerts. The ten sections
are: Prologue, Galop, March, Waltz, Pantomime, Intermezzo, Little
Lyrical Scene, Gavotte, Scherzo, and Epilogue.