Lev Knipper

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Lev Konstantinovich Knipper
Born21 November 1898 [O.S. 3 December]
Tiflis, Russian Empire
Died30 July 1974(1974-07-30) (aged 75)
Moscow, Soviet Union
Other namesЛев Константинович Книппер
Citizenship Russian Empire →  Soviet Union
OccupationComposer, secret police agent
Years active1922–1974
Spouse(s)
​
​
(divorced)​

Mariya Garikovna Melikova
​
​
(divorced)​

Tatiana Alekseevna Gaidamovich
RelativesOlga Knipper (aunt)
Olga Chekhova (sister)
Andrei L'vovich Knipper (son)

Lev Konstantinovich Knipper (Russian: Лев Константинович Книппер; 3 December [O.S. 21 November] 1898 – 30 July 1974) was a Soviet Russian composer of partial German descent and an active OGPU/NKVD agent.

Life and career[]

Young Lev (left) with sisters Ada (center) and Olga (right). Date unknown.

Lev Knipper was born in Tiflis to railway engineer Konstantin Leonardovich Knipper and Elena-Luiza Yul’evna Rid.[1] Shortly after his birth, the family relocated to Tsarskoye Selo, then to Ekaterinoslav in 1910, and then Saint Petersburg in 1913. He was greatly influenced by his father's sister, the actress Olga Knipper (wife of the playwright Anton Chekhov), who encouraged his musical interests. He learned to play clarinet, double bass and various brass instruments,[2] and taught himself to play piano out of a book.[3]

Knipper enlisted in the White Army in 1916. Following the Russian Civil War of 1917, he became stranded in Turkey, though was eventually able to reunite with his aunt Olga, who was touring abroad. Upon his return to Soviet Russia in 1922, he was repeatedly interviewed and ultimately recruited by the OGPU foreign department. At their behest, Knipper travelled to Germany in 1922-23, where he made the acquaintance of composers Alois Hába, Philipp Jarnach, and Paul Hindemith.[4] Hindemith's music in particular had a strong influence on Knipper's own compositional language.

Through the connections of his aunt, Knipper made the acquaintance of Elena Gnesina, who hired him as building administrator at the Gnessin Music School in Moscow. Though Knipper was too old to be officially admitted as a student, he was nonetheless able to study with Reinhold Glière and Nikolai Zhilyayev.[5] His wrote his first catalogued composition, the orchestral suite Сказки гипсового божка (Tales of a Plaster God), op. 1, in 1923, a work musicologist Larry Sitsky characterizes as "harsh and chiseled," and somewhat grotesque.[6] Inspired by sculptures of the Buddha by Pavel Tchelitchew, the six-movement suite premiered on 8 March 1925 and was well-received by audiences and critics. Fellow composer Leonid Sabaneyev approached Knipper at the premiere and asked for a copy of the score.[7] In 1929, Knipper was invited by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko to work as a consultant at the Moscow Art Theatre. This led to the creation of Knipper's most significant work of this early period, his 1930 opera Северный ветер (The North Wind), op. 25, based on the play by Vladimir Kirshon.[8] Musicologist Gerald Abraham describes the opera as "harmonically sophisticated, dry, [and] more than a little Hindemithian."[9] The opera is also noted for its defiance of typical operatic conventions.[10] The North Wind received a total of seventy-eight performances, mostly in Moscow, but following harsh criticism from the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians it was not staged again until 1974.[11]

Seemingly in response to criticism of his modernist early works, Knipper resigned his post as technical secretary to the Association for Contemporary Music (two years before it was officially disbanded) and abruptly shifted his style towards one more in line with the principals of socialist realism.[12] In 1930-1931, he travelled to Central Asia to study the region's folk music. The music of Tajikistan was apparently a source of great inspiration for him: his list of works reveals eight explicitly Tajik-inspired compositions.[13] The majority of Knipper's works from this period are musically conservative and patriotic and militaristic in tone, most notably his "song-symphonies" (3, 4 and 6). The most notable of these is his Fourth Symphony, "Поэма о бойце-комсомольце (Poem of the Komsomol Fighter)," op. 41 (1934), with lyrics by Victor Gusev dedicated to Kliment Voroshilov. The central theme of the symphony, the song Полюшко-поле, has become Knipper's most famous work as one of the marching songs of the Red Army Choir. Though in line with Soviet political ideals, these song-symphonies were met with criticism by some of Knipper's fellow composers: Dmitri Shostakovich, for one, lambasted Knipper's Third Symphony (1932) for its "primitiveness" at a meeting of the Union of Soviet Composers in 1935 (fortunately for Shostakovich, this criticism did not deter Knipper from coming to his defense following the famous public denunciation of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in 1936).[14] Dmitri Kabalevsky pointed out the shortcomings of Knipper's approach to combining mass-songs and the surrounding symphonic material. In his Sixth Symphony, op. 47 (1936), Knipper apparently veered too close to his earlier style and was publicly rebuked for it; his Seventh Symphony "Military" (1938) returned to an ideologically safer style.[15]

Knipper continued to compose during the Second World War, though much of his time was devoted to extensive travel for the NKVD, which he continued to serve until 1949. According to secret intelligence documents released in 2002, Knipper and his wife were to play a key role if the Nazis should capture Moscow: Under the elaborate plan, ballerinas and circus acrobats were armed with grenades and pistols and ordered to assassinate German generals if they attempted to organize concerts and other celebrations upon taking the city. Knipper was personally charged with the responsibility of killing Adolf Hitler if he got the opportunity, an opportunity the NKVD suspected might arise due to Knipper's sister, Olga, having social connections with high-ranking Nazis including Hermann Göring.[16]

Knipper was prolific. He wrote 5 operas (including one on The Little Prince), 20 symphonies, ballets, pieces for piano and other film musics.

The primary publishers of Knipper's works are Muzyka, Kompozitor and Le Chant du Monde. Most of his published compositions are currently out of print, and the majority of his output has yet to be published.

List of Works[]

Symphonies[]

  • Symphony No. 1 in 4 parts, Op. 13 (1926) - dedicated to Olga Knipper
  • Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 (1929)
  • Symphony No. 3 "Far East," Op. 32 (1932) - poetry by Viktor Gusev
  • Sinfonietta, Op. 33 (1932)
  • Symphony No. 4 "Poem for the Komsomol Fighters" (1934, rev. 1966) - poetry by Viktor Gusev
  • Symphony No. 5 (1935)
  • Symphony No. 6, Op. 47 (1936)
  • Symphony No. 7 "Military" in 3 parts (1938)
  • Symphony No. 8 in 3 movements (1941)
  • Symphony No. 9 in 4 movements (1944–45)
  • Symphony No. 10 in 4 movements (1946) - dedicated to Nikolai Myaskovsky
  • Symphony No. 11 in 4 movements (1949)
  • Symphony No. 12 in 3 parts (1950)
  • Symphony No. 13 in 4 parts (1951–52) - dedicated to Nikolai Myaskovsky
  • Sinfonietta in 4 movements (1952)
  • Symphony in 4 movements (1954)
  • Symphony No. 14 for string orchestra in 4 parts (1961–62)
  • Symphony No. 15 (1962)
  • Symphony No. 16 (1962–69)
  • Symphony No. 17 in 3 movements (1969–70)
  • Symphony No. 18 (1970–71)
  • Sinfonietta for string orchestra in 4 movements (1971–72)
  • Symphony No. 20 in 3 parts (1972)
  • Symphony No. 21 "Dances" in 5 parts (1972)

Concertante[]

  • Violin
    • Souvenir: Six pieces for violin and symphony orchestra, op. 31 (1932)
    • Three Variations on a Theme for violin and symphony orchestra, op. 31a (1932)
    • Concerto No. 1 (1942–44) - dedicated to Olga Knipper
    • Sonatina for violin and string orchestra (1948)
    • Concertino for violin and string orchestra (1962)
    • Little Concerto in Classical Style (1964–65) - dedicated to Arkady Futer
    • Concerto No. 3 (1969–70) - dedicated to Leonid Kogan
  • Cello
  • Woodwinds
  • Brass
    • Four Improvisations & Finale for horn and string orchestra (1971)
  • Double concertos
    • for violin, cello and orchestra (1945)
    • for violin, cello and wind septet (1967) - dedicated to Tatiana Alekseevna Gaidamovich
    • for trumpet and bassoon (1968)
  • String quartet
    • Radif: Suite in Iranian style for string quartet and string orchestra (1944)
    • Concerto for string quartet and orchestra (1963)
    • Symphonic Concerto for string quartet and symphony orchestra (1964–65)

Chamber Music[]

  • Reflections: Six sketches for flute and clarinet, op. 11 (1925)
  • To my Son: Four miniatures, op. 27 (1931) - dedicated to Andrei L'vovich Knipper
  • Four Pieces for violin and piano (1943)
  • String quartets
    • No. 1 (1943) - dedicated to the Bolshoi Quartet
    • Six Miniatures on Kirghiz Themes (1956)
    • No. 2 (1962)
    • No. 3 (1972–73) - dedicated to N. M. Skuzovatova
  • Concert Scherzo for violin and piano (1962)
  • Pieces for flute and harp (1963)
  • Piano trios
    • No. 1 (1968–71) - dedicated to Tatiana Alekseevna Gaidamovich
    • No. 2 (1971–73) - dedicated to Tatiana Alekseevna Gaidamovich
  • Concert Etude for flute and trumpet (1971)
  • Scherzo for flute, trumpet and piano (1971)

Film music[]

Honors and awards[]

References[]

  1. ^ Пажитнов, Евгений. "Род Книппер". Proza.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 16 February 2021.
  2. ^ Gaïdamovitch, Tatiana (2006). Lev Konstantinovitch Knipper (in French). Paris: Le Chant du Monde. pp. 3–5.
  3. ^ Sitsky, Larry (1994). "Lev K. Knipper: Wind from the West". Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780313267093.
  4. ^ Beevor, Antony (2005). The Mystery of Olga Chekhova. Penguin Publishing Group. pp. 79–90, 93–94, 97–99, 224. ISBN 978-1-101-17505-7.
  5. ^ Gaïdamovitch, Tatiana (2006). Lev Konstantinovitch Knipper (in French). Paris: Le Chant du Monde. p. 5.
  6. ^ Sitsky, Larry (1994). "Lev K. Knipper: Wind from the West". Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780313267093.
  7. ^ Gaïdamovitch, Tatiana (2006). Lev Konstantinovitch Knipper (in French). Paris: Le Chant du Monde. pp. 6–7.
  8. ^ Gaïdamovitch, Tatiana (2006). Lev Konstantinovitch Knipper (in French). Paris: Le Chant du Monde. p. 8.
  9. ^ Abraham, Gerald (1943). "Lev Knipper". Eight Soviet Composers. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 53.
  10. ^ Sitsky, Larry (1994). "Lev K. Knipper: Wind from the West". Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 149–150. ISBN 9780313267093.
  11. ^ Lemaire, Frans C. (1994). La Musique du XXe siècle en Russie et dans les anciennes Républiques soviétiques (in French). Paris: Fayard. pp. 73–74.
  12. ^ Dvoskina, Elena. "Knipper, Lev Konstantinovich". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press.
  13. ^ Gaïdamovitch, Tatiana (2006). Lev Konstantinovitch Knipper (in French). Paris: Le Chant du Monde. pp. 30–36.
  14. ^ Hakobian, Levon (2017). Music of the Soviet Era: 1917-1991 (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 99, 109. ISBN 978-1-4724-7108-6.
  15. ^ Sitsky, Larry (1994). "Lev K. Knipper: Wind from the West". Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 151–152. ISBN 9780313267093.
  16. ^ Fischer, Benjamin B. (2004). "Lubyanka in the Days of the Battle for Moscow: Materials from the Organs of State Security SSSR from the Central Archive FSB Russia" (PDF). Studies in Intelligence. Central Intelligence Agency. 48 (2). Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  17. ^ Widstrand, Alex Christopher (2018). "Lev Konstantinovich Knipper's Concerto for Bassoon and String Orchestra: Introduction and Critical Performing Edition". University of Iowa. doi:10.17077/etd.hrub7lpe. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

External links[]

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