Matvey Blanter: author of "Katyusha" and many Soviet hits

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

If the composer composed only one world-famous song "Katyusha", then he would forever remain in history. However, Matvey Blanter was the author of almost 200 songs. Of course, they did not all become popular, like his most famous work. But among them there are many beautiful compositions - symbols of the Soviet era. And his melody "Football March" has been opening football competitions in various post-Soviet countries for a long time.

Early years

Matvey Blanter was born on January 28, 1903 in the small town of Pochep, Bryansk region. There were four children in a large Jewish family. Father, Isaac Borisovich Blanter, is a well-known merchant in the city. He owned a chip factory and warehouses at the Unecha railway station, from where he traded in kerosene and grain. Mom, Tatyana Evgenievna Vovsi, served as an actress, a relative of the famous actor and director S. M. Mikhoels. Another well-known relative of hers was M. S. Vovsi, academician, doctor of medical sciences.

In subsequent years, a large family moved to Kursk, this happened shortly before the start of the First World War. Matthew's childhood passed here. He went to study at a real school. Even then, the boy showed creative inclinations. He sang in the school choir, played in the orchestra of the local drama theater. From 1915 to 1917 he studied violin and piano at the local music school with famous Kursk teachers A. Yegudkin and A. Daugul.

Moving to the capital

In the spring of 1917 he moved to the capital of the Russian Empire, where he entered the prestigious Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society (now it is the famous GITIS). Violin playing, music history and composition were taught by the country's most famous music teachers.

Matvey Blanter's work biography began immediately after graduating from college, in the most difficult years of the civil war. He gets a job at the Moscow variety art studio "Workshop of H. M. Forreger". The young musician is responsible for the musical part and composes music for the theater. After working here from 1920 to 1921, he moved to Leningrad, where he worked at the Leningrad Satire Theater, in the same position - head of the musical department.

First hits

Matvey Blanter wrote his first songs in the 1920s in the genre of light dance music. Among the general public, his works gained popularity, inincluding the famous foxtrot "John Grey" in those years. Then there were other exotic songs "Baghdad", "Fujiyama", tango "Stronger than death". Already at that time he was a prolific composer, composing a variety of Charlestons and shimmys that were fashionable at that time.

His hits were staged in popular cabarets: the Petrograd "Balaganchik" (1922) with the participation of Rina Zelena, in the Moscow "Peacock's Tail" (1923). The future famous artists V. Toporkov and L. Kolumbova performed the ironic romance "Leather Belt". In the pre-war years, he continued to work in the theaters of Moscow, Leningrad and Magnitogorsk.

The country's most popular composer

In 1938, the most famous song by Matvey Blanter, "Katyusha" performed by L. Ruslanova, was first performed. Which has become a national symbol of war, and is now sung in many languages of the peoples of the world. He began to move away from dance music a little, a style that was easily recognizable later began to take shape. At this time, "Partizan Zheleznyak" and "The Song of Shchors" were composed, which were included in the repertoire of L. Utesov.

In total, during the war years, he wrote about 50 songs, including "Goodbye, cities and huts" (created on June 23, 1941), under which they went to the front in the first months of the war. Until now, popular songs of those years are heard in military films: "In the frontline forest", "My beloved", "Spark".

In the post-war yearsMatvey Blanter created many songs that are still popular today, including "There is no better color", "In the city garden", "Let's sit down, friends, before a long journey." In 1966, the famous "Black-eyed Cossack" was written.

He continued to collaborate with theaters, wrote music for miniatures by I. Raikin, music hall performances, and began cooperation with cinema. The composer worked actively until 1975.

Personal Information

Very little is written about his personal life in the biography of Matvey Blanter. It is known that the first wife was the ballerina Nina Ernestovna Shvan, from whose marriage the only son of the composer, Vladimir, was born, who worked as the executive secretary of the popular magazine "Priroda". In addition, Vladimir Blanter wrote articles and books under various pseudonyms. The composer dedicated his songs "Lullaby" and "Under the Balkan Stars" to him, for which he received the Stalin Prize in 1948.

Second wife, Olga Ilyinichna, Matvey Isaakovich buried in the 80s. The only granddaughter Tatyana Brodskaya lives in the USA, she flew to his funeral and inherited the composer's property. In 2009, a copyright dispute erupted, and the Russian Football League wanted to stop using Blunter's "Football March". Tatyana Vladimirovna allowed to perform music for free.