Alemdar Sabitovych Karamanov (1934-2007); RUS

Alemdar Karamanov (1934-2007) began musical composition at the age of five years. He wrote an opera when he was nine and completed his musical studies at Moscow Conservatory under the tuition of Semyon Bogatyrev and Vladimir Natanson and an under the guidance of Tikhon Khrennikov and Dmitri Kobalevsky who took a special interest in him at this time, referring to him as “…one of our time…”

Alemdar was born in Simferopol, the Crimea. His mother was Russian, she sang at the Tsar’s Livadia Palace near Yalta prior to the Revolution. His father, who was Turkish, was taken under arrest by Soviet authorities, exiled and died in the exile. Karamanov’s life and fate were reflected in the tragical story of his music. His close friend and colleague, Alfred Schnittke, thought of him as a ‘genius… a phenomenally gifted person’, but his refusal to conform to the ‘official culture’ and persistence in writing on the topics that were banned led to severe opposition from the authorities and the suppression of his music. Today, in Russian cultural circles, Karamanov is a legend, referred to as ‘The Great Unknown’.

Karamanov had two distinct periods of his creative life. In the early 1960s he moved away from the avant-garde, pursuing musical ideas linked to his spiritual beliefs. He wrote on topics of Christianity at the time when religion was persecuted when priests were sent to prison camps and asylums. He entitled a symphony America at the height of the ‘cold war’, and this action not only destroyed his chances of success in his career, but also involved risk to his personal safety. Forced to withdraw from the centre of cultural life in Moscow, in the early 1960s he returned to his homeland in the Crimea where he lived as a recluse, creating vast quantities of large-scale compositions. Among his works there are 24- symphonies (including three symphonic cycles), 4 overtures, 3 oratorios, 3 piano concertos, 3 violin concertos, a symphonic suite, 2 symphonic poems, 3 ballets, a concerto for trumpet, cantatas, choral suites, romances, songs, instrumental ensembles, piano sonatas, etudes, preludes, fugues and music for films.

Alemdar Karamanov