Bidzina Kvernadze

Bidzina Kvernadze (born in Signagi, eastern Georgia, 29 July 1928) is one of the Georgian composers of the second half of the twentieth century who did most to renew the genres of his country's music. Trained at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire, where he graduated in 1953 after studying composition with Andria Balanchivadze, he remained attached to the institution as a teacher: first of orchestration and composition from 1963, then as professor from 1987 and, in 1995, as head of the composition department.

His career clearly shows how quickly Georgian composers assimilated the Western techniques of the twentieth century during the 1950s and 1960s. From his earliest works he sought to move away from the clichés of the Georgian Romantic school without losing certain national traits, drawing closer to currents such as that represented by Ravel. His poetic lyricism already appears in Tsekva-Phantasia of 1959 and in Seraphita (1965), pieces built on variations of themes linked to folk dances, with flexible modulations and very marked changes of mood. The same line is evident in the ballet Khoreographiuli novelebi, inspired by four paintings by Gudiashvili, in which the gestures of the figures pass naturally into an orchestral texture of Impressionist character.

In the 1960s he combined this Impressionist writing with a more constructivist style, culminating in Berikaoba (1973), a one-act ballet based on a traditional Georgian farce. Here, motoric structures built on relentless ostinatos, together with polyrhythm and polytonal and dissonant chords, generate an almost overflowing energy. In the vocal field, Chemi lotsva (1974), close to Georgian sacred music and to the neoclassical aesthetic of Stravinsky, Honegger and Orff, illustrates his search for a more sober expression and for a recitative that respects the natural intonation of the language.

His key work is the opera Iko mervesa tselsa (1982), a synthesis of everything that came before. Based on the life of the martyred queen Shushanik, it combines mime, laconic dialogue and a retrospective narration recalling the figure of the Evangelist in Bach's Passions. Apparently, the tension between Romantic lyricism and neoclassical rigour runs through the entire score. Kvernadze is thus remembered as a composer who integrated the currents of the twentieth century with the roots of Georgian tradition, and whose melody and dramatic sense place him among the central figures of his country's music.