Shalva Aslanishvili

Shalva Aslanishvili was a Georgian musicologist born in Artanuji, near Artvin, in March 1896, and died in Tiflis (Tbilisi) in December 1981. He worked in Soviet Georgia, and his most visible contribution was in music theory and in the study of the country's folk music.

He trained at the Tbilisi State Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1927, and then completed his studies at the Leningrad Conservatory, under Yury Tyulin and Khristofor Kushnaryov, between 1927 and 1930. Earlier, he had taught music theory at the Tbilisi Music College, from 1924 to 1927, and from 1930 he taught at the Conservatory, where he headed the music theory department from 1937 to 1973. Between 1946 and 1950 he chaired the ethnomusicology section of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography in Tbilisi.

For almost two decades he travelled across Georgia on field expeditions, and on the basis of these he introduced a course in Georgian harmony at the Conservatory. He obtained his doctorate in 1964 with a book on Georgian folk song, and in 1972 he received the Z. Paliashvili Prize.

His legacy lies in having laid the foundations for later theoretical studies in Georgian musicology, both on folklore and on Western music. His writings include a study of Tchaikovsky in Georgia (1940), an analysis of the harmony of the Kartli-Kakhetian folk choral songs (1950), and a work on the fugues of Bach (1975).