Rodion Shchedrin, born in Moscow in 1932 and still living there, was arguably the most successful and officially accepted Soviet composer of his generation. He started piano lessons at a very early age and his subsequent musical training and interests were encouraged by his parents who were largely musical.
Having completed his studies at the Moscow Conservatory in 1955, he continued as a piano pupil of Yakov Fliyer and in composition as a pupil of Yuri Shaporin. His earliest compositions are characterized by elements that continue into his maturity. These elements include folk melodies from the former Soviet Union Republics, and the chastushka, a short form of "but mass songs that can be vulgar, clean, emotional, cynical and happy. This is an important element that would be found in Shchedrin’s more mature works, though his early works show signs of this folk influence, one example that shows the folk influence is the Piano Concerto No. 1, early written in 1954 and the ballet Konek-Gorbunok (‘The Little Hump-Backed Horse’). In addition to his large-scale orchestral works, symphonies and concertos for orchestra, piano concertos, vocal and choral works, instrumental and chamber works, Shchedrin is best known for his for the theatre, the 1976 opera Dead Souls and the ballets Carmen Suite, written in 1967, Anna Karenina, written in 1972 and The Seagull of 1989, all first performed at the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow.
