Nikolai Roslavets

Nikolai Andreevich Roslavets ( 23 August 1944, also Mykola Andriiovych Roslavets) was a modernist composer active in the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. Roslavets was a convinced modernist and cosmopolitan thinker; his music was officially suppressed from 1930 onwards. Among his works are five symphonic poems (three of them are lost), two violin concertos, five string quartets, two viola sonatas, two cello sonatas, six violin sonatas, and five piano trios. Life Roslavets was born in Surazh, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire. There are three autobiographies by Roslavets that differ considerably from one another. In one of them, published 1924, the composer deliberately misrepresented his biography in order to prevent the attacks by the “Proletarian Musician” faction. There are differing accounts of Roslavets’ birthplace, some indicating that he was born in Dushatyn to a peasant family, In 1902 Roslavets was accepted as a student at the Moscow Conservatory where he studied violin under Jan Hřímalý, free composition under Sergei Vasilenko, and counterpoint, fugue and musical form under Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and Alexander Ilyinsky. He graduated in 1912 with a silver m