Vasilii Solovev-Sedoi

(real surname Solov’ev). Born Apr. 12 (25), 1907, in St. Petersburg. Soviet composer and public figure. People’s Artist of the USSR (1967); Hero of Socialist Labor (1975).

Solov’ev-Sedoi graduated in 1936 from the Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied composition under P. B. Riazanov. He is one of the outstanding masters of Soviet song. His most original compositions are his warm, sincere lyric songs, which glorify the patriotism of Soviet man, the battlefield camaraderie, the solidarity of peoples struggling for peace, and pure and true love. Examples include “Play, My Baian” (1941), “Evening on the Roadstead” (1941), “The Nightingales” (1944), “We’ve Been Gone a Long Time” (1945), “It’s Time to Go” (1945), “Where Are You Now, My Comrades-in-Arms?” (1947), “Moscow Nights” (“Midnight in Moscow,” 1956), “If the Lads of the Whole World” (1957), “Ballad of a Soldier” (1960), and “Song of Russia” (1971). Other compositions include the marches “March of the Nakhimov Cadets” (1949) and “Let Us Start” (1955) and the humorous songs “Beyond the Kama River” (1943), “In a Sunny Glade” (1943), “A Lad is Riding in a Cart” (1946), “An Accordion is Singing Beyond the Vologda” (1947), and “What a Soldier Needs” (1965).

Solov’ev-Sedoi’s expressively national musical style is grounded in a synthesis of the intonations and rhythms of Russian peasant folk songs and urban lyric songs, chiastushkl (folk ditties, often humorous), and instrumental folk music. Many of the composer’s songs were written to poems by A. D. Churkin, A. I. Fat’ianov, S. B. Fogel’son, V. M. Gusev, and M. L. Matu-sovskii, as well as to poems by M. V. Isakovskii, V. I. Lebedev-Kumach, and A. A. Prokofev.

Solov’ev-Sedoi composed music for the ballets Taras Bulba (1940, revised 1955) and The Rossiia Sailed In (1964), the musical comedies A Faithful Friend (1945), The Dearest Thing (1952), Olympic Stars (1962), Eighteen Years (1967), and At the Home Berth (1970), vocal cycles, and music for films and dramatic productions.

From 1948 to 1964, Solov’ev-Sedoi was chairman of the administrative board of the Leningrad chapter of the Composers’ Union. He was secretary of the Composers’ Union of the USSR from 1957 to 1974; in 1960 he became secretary of the Composers’ Union of the RSFSR. He was a deputy to the third through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Solov’ev-Sedoi has been awarded the Lenin Prize (1959) and the State Prize of the USSR (1943 and 1947). He has also been awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Star, and various medals.