Ivan Dzerzhinsky

Ivan Ivanovich Dzerzhinsky () (April 9, 1909 – January 18, 1978) was a Soviet composer. The work for which he is best known, his opera , was more successful for its political potential than for any musical distinction. Early life Born in Tambov, Dzerzhinsky had an extended formal background in music. He studied piano with Boleslav Yavorsky at the First Music Tekhnikum in Moscow between 1925 and 1929. Afterwards he spent 1930–31 at the Gnesin School as a composition student of Mikhail Gnessin. Two years at the Leningrad Central Music Tekhnikum followed. There he studied composition first with Gavriil Popov, then with Pyotr Ryazanov. He then proceeded to the Leningrad Conservatory for two years of study with Boris Asafyev. This opera was premiered at the Leningrad Maly Opera Theater in October 1935. Joseph Stalin saw the work on January 17, 1936 and immediately recognized its propaganda value. Its subject was heroic and patriotic; it glorified the spirit of the Don Cossacks, whose support would become necessary in the event of war (a war that, incidentally, seemed increasingly inevitable); and its music was both lyrical and immediately appealing. Sholokhov’s novel, whose first editio