Marian Koval

(pseudonym of Marian Viktorovich Kovalev). Born Aug. 4 (17), 1907, in the village of Pristan’ Vozneseniia, in present-day Podporozh’e Raion, Leningrad Oblast; died Feb. 15, 1971, in Moscow. Soviet composer; People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1969). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

The son of an agronomist, Koval’ studied composition under M. F. Gnesin at the Moscow Conservatory from 1925 to 1930. Later, he studied there under N. la. Miaskovskii. In 1925, joining the Prokoll group (Production Collective of Students-Composers of the Moscow Conservatory), he participated in the creation of the first Soviet oratorio, The Way of October, and other works. Koval’ composed the oratorio Emel’ian Pugachev (1939), which was later reworked into the opera of the same name (1942; State Prize of the USSR, 1943; 2nd version, 1955). Among his other compositions are the opera The Sevastopolians (1946), the children’s opera The Wolf and the Seven Kids (1939; 2nd version, 1951; 3rd version, 1965), the comic opera Count Nulin (1949, based on a work by A. S. Pushkin), the ballet Aksiusha (1964), the oratorios The People’s Sacred War (1941) and Chkalov (1942), and the cantataPoem About Lenin (1948).

In addition, Koval’ created many choral and solo vocal cycles, art songs, popular songs, piano pieces, arrangements of Russian folk songs, and music for productions at drama theaters. Between 1948 and 1952 he was the editor of the journal Sovetskaia muzyka. Koval’ wrote a number of articles.