Vyacheslav Gavrilovich Karatïgin

Vyacheslav Gavrilovich Karatygin (Pavlovsk, 1875 – Leningrad, 1925) was a prominent figure in Russian music criticism at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although he initially trained in physics and mathematics at the University of St Petersburg, and went on to work as a chemist for the naval department, his passion for music, cultivated since childhood, eventually prevailed. His close friendship with members of the Belyayev circle encouraged him to abandon that career in 1907 and devote himself entirely to criticism.

His formal musical training began in 1897, when he studied composition with Nikolay Sokolov at the St Petersburg Conservatory until 1902. By 1906 he was already publishing articles on music in various journals. He took part in organising the Evenings of Contemporary Music (1910–1912) and was one of the founders, in 1923, of the Association of Contemporary Music. From 1916 he taught the history of music and aesthetics at the Petrograd Conservatory, and from 1919 he held the chair of music at that institution. He supplemented this work with lectures at the city's institutes, talks at the Philharmonic and classes in natural sciences.

During his nineteen years as a critic he wrote more than a thousand articles for publications such as Zolotoye runo, Rech', Apollon, Severnyye zapiski and Muzykal'nyy sovremennik. His essays on Musorgsky are particularly esteemed, and before the First World War he prepared with great care the scores of Sorochintsy Fair and Salammbô, both unfinished, for publication. In his own compositions he continued the tradition inherited from the so-called Mighty Handful, assimilating later influences in a personal way. Some of his piano pieces, romances, arrangements of folk songs, incidental music and the stage work The Russian Wedding Ceremony were published.

His legacy lies in the combination of criticism, teaching and editing. His written output, which includes studies of Scriabin, Taneyev, Strauss and Wagner, made a notable contribution to the development of Russian musical culture of his time.