Revaz Gabichvadze

Revaz Gabichvadze (Tbilisi, 11 June 1913 – Moscow, 9 June 1999) was one of the most prominent Georgian composers of the second half of the twentieth century. Trained within the Soviet tradition, his output combines the heritage of Georgian folk music with moderate avant-garde techniques, such as dodecaphonic chromaticism, texture music and the use of magnetic tape.

He studied composition at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire with Braginsky, Shcherbachov and Tuskia, and remained there as a postgraduate student under Arapov and Ryazanov from 1935 to 1938. From 1938 until 1981 he taught at the same institution. He conducted Georgia's first light orchestra from 1941 to 1943 and served as executive secretary of the Union of Composers of Georgia from 1948 to 1952. Between 1982 and 1987 he was artistic director of the Pan-Russian House of Composers in Moscow.

His output shows a continuity that runs through distinct stages. The early quartets and the concertos for violin and for cello anticipate traits that crystallise in the Symphony for strings, piano and timpani (1964), his first transitional work. In the 1970s and 1980s these traits reach their fullest expression in the later symphonies and in the ballets Medea and Hamlet. His themes oscillate between the lyrical monologue, also present in his songs, and the tragic outburst. In his early chamber symphonies, symphonic development is combined with a play of musical images, or "masks".

Gabichvadze's legacy lies in symphonic synthesis applied to vivid and dramatic ideas, both in musical theatre and in the symphony. His language, which directly quoted Georgian folk melodies only at the beginning of his career, remains an example of how to integrate the national into the modern Soviet idiom.