Lyutsian Abramovich Prigozhin

Lyutsian Abramovich Prigozhin (Tashkent, 15 August 1926 – St Petersburg, 21 February 1994) was a Russian composer and professor who trained and worked in Leningrad. His career unfolded within the context of Soviet musical life, where he combined composition with teaching and with directing professional institutions in his field.

He studied at the Tashkent music school from the age of ten and later at the music college attached to the Leningrad Conservatory, which was evacuated to Tashkent during the Second World War. In 1945 he graduated in piano from that college and entered V. Shcherbachyov's composition class at the conservatory; between 1949 and his graduation he was a pupil of Kochurov. In 1950 he joined the Union of Composers. From 1964 he sat on the board of the Leningrad section, directing its chamber orchestra section between 1969 and 1972. In 1967 he was appointed professor of theory and composition at the Leningrad Conservatory, a post he held alongside other titles: in 1979 he became associate professor and was awarded the title Honoured Art Worker of the RSFSR, and in 1990 he was appointed full professor. In 1991 he received the title People's Artist of the RSFSR.

His mature output begins with the cantata Sten'ka Razin (1949–50), presented as his graduation work, which already points to his inclination towards epic and dramatic subjects. During the following decade he cultivated a wide variety of genres, above all vocal and instrumental; the Sinfonietta and the two symphonies met with considerable popular success. The oratorio Nepokorennïy Prometey (1960) is the first work in which his own style fully emerges, expressed more concentratedly in the oratorio Slovo o polku Igoreve (1966), where the epic myth is articulated through laconic thematic material that assimilates znamenny chant, the extended lyric song and choral psalmody. The chamber works V'yuga and Predtechi continued this line.

Emotional restraint, concentration, severity of colour and clarity of rhythmic-melodic profile also characterise his chamber music, among which the two violin sonatas and the string quartets stand out. His legacy lies above all in the balance between the Russian tradition and a sober personal language, as well as in his teaching in Leningrad.