AZERBAIJAN
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Azerbaijan has
a tradition of colourful and flamboyant folk-music, studied
and used in the Soviet period by a number of composers. The
major nationalist Azerbaijan composer was Uzeir Gadzhibekov
(1885-1948), who became director of the Baku Conservatory
and who wrote seven Azerbaijan operas on nationalistic subjects.
Fikret Dzhamil Amirov (born 1922) has written colourful music
heavily influenced by Azerbaijani folk-music, including Kyurdi
Ovshari and Shur for orchestra, both based on national
modes (`mugama'), and the ballet Thousand and One Nights
(1979). One of the most important Azerbaijani works was written
by a Ukrainian, Glière's opera Shah-Senem (1925,
revised 1934), which utilised Azerbaijani folk-songs following
Glière's study of the music and mugama of the area, and which
was designed to be sung in Azerbaijani. The most famous of
musicians that Azerbaijan might claim is undoubtedly Mstislav
Rostropovich (born in Baku in 1927), the finest cellist of
the second half of the 20th century and a gifted conductor,
who has consistently encouraged new music, and for whom many
of the more recent cello works in this Guide have been
written.
