Absolutely, r: we've already mentioned the Fifteenth, but there are other allusions back to the lost continent of the Fourth, which I'm sure we'll uncover when we reach the Eighth, for example...

To Sydney Grew and research team,

As an assist to research it's worth reminding members about spelling alternatives. Grew may like to write Taneyeff but the searches are much more fruitful if the spelling Taneyev is adopted.

In researches, then, I suggest applying all spelling alternatives with phonetic relevance for Zhilyayeff and Kvadri.

I hope that will be helpful.


John W

from the "MOSKVA" Encyclopaedia, my translation:

Zhilyaev, Nikolai Sergeevich (1881, Kursk - 1938, Moscow)
Musicologist, Textualogist, Teacher, & Composer.  Born of the marriage of two families of minor nobility, son of a military family. In 1895 he moved to Moscow for the first time with his mother, who was studying the piano. From 1896-1901 he became the student and protege of S.I.Taneev. Others who played roles in Zhilyaev's future were S.A.Tolstaya, the singer E.A.Lavrovskaya, and the Tukhachevsky family. In 1905 he graduated from the Free Composition class of the Moscow Conservatoire under the tuition of MM Ippolitov-Ivanov, and in 1906 began studies as an organist. Until 1909 he supported himself by composition (several of his works were published by the Jurgenson imprint) and prior to WW1 he gave piano lessons, & appeared as a pianist in the "Musical Exhibitions" concert series organised by M.A.Deisha-Sionitsky and B.L.Yavorsky.  He also published musical criticism in publications including "Golden Fleece" (1907-1909), "The Moscow Weekly" (1910), "Music" (1912) and became the friend of A.N.Scriabin (in 1929 he became the vice-chairman of the Friends Of Scriabin Association). In 1914 he was called-up into the Army (in which he served with the rank of Ensign).  In 1919 he was demobbed from the Red Army, in which he had served in Tukhachevsky's staff (who had long been his personal friend).  From 1922-26 he worked at the State Academy of Arts & Sciences, and was involved in the establishing of the State Institute of Musical Studies. He was also appointed to the Editorial Committee of the State Publishing Organisation.  From 1926-30, and again from 1933-37, he was a Professor of Composition at the Moscow Conservatoire.

His acute intellect, wide-ranging academic interests, and phenomenal knowledge of music made Zhilyaev a formidable authority. As a teacher he played an influential role in the careers of many national composers. At his "salon evenings", new works were exhibited by young composers including N.Y.Myaskovsky, V.Y.Shebalin, D.D.Shostakovich and others.

He became a victim of soviet repression: his last known address was Chistoprudny Boulevard, 15.

Reference Literature: Golubev, G: "N.S.Zhilyaev", in the albums "Leading Musicologists and Composers of the Moscow Conservatoire" (1966); "In Memoriam N.S.Zhilyaev", Soviet Music Journal, 1970, Volume 8; I Vinokurova, "The Musician Who Was Shot Three Times", "Musical Academy Journal, 1996, Vol #1.

Article Author: O.V.Fraiyonova


Sorry, Kvadri doesn't get a listing in any of the "usual sources", nor does anything come up in Yandex or Aport, the two leading Russian-language search-engines.  Could it be possible, Mr Grew - given your propensity for purposely mispelling Russian surnames for allegedly "humorous" effect - that you've got his name wrong?

A death in 1929 from "Stalin's repressions" is possible, but raises questions - the "terror" is usually considered to have begun from 1934, after the assassination of Kirov (widely believed to have been contrived at by Stalin himself) provided an aegis for such purges.  There must have been some special circumstances to warrant Kvadri's death in 1929,  rather than the usual stories of guilt by association, guilt by suspicion, trumped-up charges etc which applied once the Terror was in full force.

Zhilyayev's queried date of death is more easily explicable.  If he was "repressed" (as stated in the Dictionary article), this usually means he was sent to the Gulags.  Once contact was lost with him in the Gulag system, official and concrete information would have become hazy.  He may indeed have lived until 1942, or perhaps there were reports of him having been seen alive?  "Hope dies last of all" is the unofficial watchword of the Gulag, and perhaps some relative of his only acknowledged the finality of his death and registered it in 1942?  There is a whole generation of repressed soviet intellectuals of this period whose ends are not known with certainty - for example Daniil Kharms (aka Yuvachavsky), Osip Mandelstam, and many others.  I presume the 1996 article listed last in the Dictionary piece quoted above refers to the discrepancy about the year of his death, and how he appears to have been "shot three times" - presumably due to contradictory information in poorly-maintained KGB archives?

Feel free to report this to the moderators, Mr Grew, as you did last time the topic arose - I doubt they will help you here as they did there.  Your lack of any serious intent on this matter is belied by the mispelling you inflict on Shostakovich - when will you grow up, I wonder?

Hi John

Well, in many ways it is good to be back.

I omitted to give the URL of the Russian source of the article I translated - for t-p and any other Russian-speakers who are interested, it's here:
http://slovari.yandex.ru/art.xml?art=mos/mos/19000/51028.htm&encpage=mos&mrkp=http%3A//hghltd.yandex.com/yandbtm%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A//encycl.yandex.ru/texts/mos/mos/19000/51028.htm%26text%3D%25C6%25E8%25EB%25FF%25E5%25E2%26reqtext%3D%25C6%25E8%25EB%25FF%25E5%25E2%253A%253A1819103916%26%26isu%3D2

I can call my chum Lena Vinogradova at "Memorial", the Association for Gulag Survivors, to see if their database has any further info on Zhelyaev  (whose name-spelling is clear in Russian, despite alternative possible transliterations in English).  However, their office is closed today as they are mostly busy in a little event in Moscow this afternoon

Never, obviously

Sydney Grewб Scriabin is very popular in Russia, as R_T knows. He never went out of fashion with musicians there. Authorities did not forbid him and he was played freely always as far as I know.

Thank you R_T for the link. I did not know about Zhilin and about the other man Sydney Grew is curious in his post.

Stalin was such a tragedy for Russian people and for musicians in particular. Did Zhilin write anything?  One begin to understand Schostakovich more when one reads about his friends disappear right and left and central, lead away in the middle of the night and shot or send somewhere.

Dictatorship of the proletariat (as it was called) is costly and usually means dictatorship of primitive unimaginating people.

I agree it's curious that the "Moskva" Dictionary doesn't mention Zhilyaev's work on the Scriabin edition...  although in fact he doesn't really mention any of his work at all, it's merely biographical detail, and although mentioning him as a composer, it fails to mention a single piece by name, or even the genres in which he composed.  It would be good to find a better source of information, although I suspect from the "further reading" quotes cited that it might all be in archived periodicals.

As vouchsafed by t-p, Scriabin's reputation is indeed alive and well in Russia, although don't believe he really receives the recognition he is perhaps due... except perhaps in the field of his solo piano music.  I can't say that I've noticed the orchestral music being performed frequently, or else I should have gone to such concerts.  I am, though, pleased to see that Gliere is enjoying something of a revival,  after long years of neglect.

It's a mystery about Kvadri, but if he was still a student when he disappeared, and hadn't yet published much (or anything), it's very possible this convenient circumstance might have been exploited by the soviet authorities to expunge him from the records entirely.  His surname is unusual and not slavic - he might well have been from one of the other republics of the USSR,  and since his surname seems to emanate from the Caucasus,  he might have been a victim of some of the "old-score-settling" which Stalin got to once established in power.   For example, Muraveli was a Georgian - as was Stalin - who wrote an opera for the Bolshoi Theatre entitled "Velikaya Liubov'" ("The Great Love")... in fact he didn't just write it, it had been commissioned from him.  The opera even got to the Dress Rehearsal stage, after which it was mysteriously banned, withdrawn from repertoire, and to further reduce the chances of it ever being seen by anyone, the sets and costumes were taken to a furnace and burnt.   The reason was that the great "Love" in question was not romantic love, but love between the people of Russia and Chechnya.  Stalin could not abide the Chechens, against whom his own Georgian clan had a centuries-old feud... on the eve of WW2 seven years later, Stalin had the entire population of Chechnya deported to Siberia, as he feared they would side with the Germans. (This, parenthetically, laid the problems of the current political unrest with Chechnya, which has never, in honesty, seen proper restitution for this appalling act of ethnic cleansing).  An opera depicting the Chechens as lovable people, beloved of their Russian neighbours, would have sent Stalin into a frenzy.  Muraveli was lucky to escape with his life, and was demoted to running a Children's Music School (which still exists).  If poor Kvadri had the misfortune to fall into such circles, even by association...  say, for example, even doing a bit of part-copying, as a student well might to earn some extra cash...  he could easily have been "disposed of" without a second's thought.

"There is a man - there is a problem.  No man - no problem!"
- Joseph Stalin.

They shot Daniil Kharms for writing children's stories in which Dostoevsky and Tolstoy have a bet for a 100 roubles, about who could write the best Russian novel (the result to be decided by Vzaimsky).  So expecting logic or consistency from them is pointless.


Daniil Kharms - self-portrait