№ 273/кор. 100th Birth Anniversary of Georgiy Sviridov (1915–1998), composer, Hero of Socialist Labor

Georgy Sviridov was a Russian composer, pianist and public figure.

He was born in 1915 in Fatezh (Kursk province) in the family of postal employee. Since 1936 he studied at the composition faculty of Leningrad Conservatory, graduating it in 1941. He was admitted to the Union of Soviet Composers in 1937. Mobilized in the Soviet armed forces in 1941, a few days after graduating from the Conservatory, Sviridov was sent to a military academy in Ufa, but it was the reserve at the end of the year for health reasons. He lived in Novosibirsk, where the Leningrad Philharmonic was evacuated, until 1944. Like other composers, he began to write songs about war. The most famous was the "Song of the brave" written on poems of A. Surkov. Sviridov returned to Leningrad in 1944, after 12 years he moved to Moscow. Georgiy Sviridov led the Union of Composers of the RSFSR in 1968-1973.

Sviridov debuted as a composer with cycle of songs on Pushkin's poems(1935). First, he focused on the genres associated with the Russian poetic word - cantata, oratorio, vocal cycles, and all of his highest achievements are associated with this area, although among his instrumental music there are real masterpieces.

Georgiy Sviridov was awarded the honorary title of People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1963, People's Artist of the USSR in 1970. He was a Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, his music was the intro of the first state television news.

An EWCS depicts the portrait of Georgiy Sviridov with the fragment of a musical score of "Time, forward!" on the background; the main image is a symbolic working office of the composer.