Jurgis Karnavičius (born 1884)

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Jurgis Karnavičius (April 23, 1884 – December 22, 1941) was a Lithuanian composer of classical music and a forerunner of the development of Lithuanian operatic works.

[edit] Biography

Karnavičius was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, which at the time was a part of the Russian Empire. After completing his earlier basic education in his homeland, he began the study of Law in St.Petersburg, Russia.

Music had always been a love of his, and he began to simultaneously study music theory and composition, and this passion soon superseded his pursuit of a career in the legal profession. His primary instrument was the viola. Eventually he became a professor at the Conservatory of Music in the now renamed city of Leningrad. During this period he began experimenting with his own theories of musical composition and began writing his own works.

In 1927, Karnavičius returned to Lithuania, which had only recently regained its independence as a sovereign nation less than ten years earlier. In addition to teaching at the Conservatory of Music in Kaunas, he opted to play the viola with the orchestra of the State Opera for a number of years. Having a personal desire write a new opera himself, and under the spell of the nascent national feelings now released by Lithuanian independence, Karnavičius began to write his first opera, Gražina, which premiered February 16, 1933. It had incorporated more than forty melodies taken from Lithuanian folk songs, and was a popularly acclaimed success. It is considered among the first of the "Lithuanian National Operas." This was followed in 1937, by the 16th century historically based opera, Radvila Perkūnas.