Zakaria Paliashvili.html



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Paliashvili on a 1971 Soviet post stamp

Zakharia Paliashvili (ზაქარია ფალიაშვილი in Georgian; Захарий Петрович Палиашвили in Russian; 16 August O.S. 4 August] 1871 in Kutaisi — 6 October 1933 in Tbilisi) was a composer from the nation of Georgia. He is regarded as a founder of Georgian classical music.^{citation needed}

As a young boy he sang in a choir and learned to play the organ in the St. Mary Catholic Church of Kutaisi. His first tutor was his brother Ivan, who later became a conductor. Paliashvili moved to Tbilisi in 1887 as a chorister in the St. Mary Assumption Catholic Church of Tbilisi, eventually entering the music school there, studying French horn and composition. During 1900-1903 he studied composition under Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory. Upon returning to his native land, Paliashvili began to play a strong role in developing national music in Georgia. He collected Georgian folk songs, co-founded the Georgian Philharmonic Society, and became head of the Tbilisi Conservatory.^{citation needed}

Paliashvili composed works for symphony orchestra (e.g., Georgian Suite on Folk Themes), but is probably best known for his vocal music, which includes choruses and songs. His major works in this regard are the operas Abesalom da Eteri (Absalom and Eteri) (premiered 1919, although a version of Act III was performed in 1913), Daisi (Twilight) (1923), and Latavra (1927).^{citation needed}

His father, Piotr Ivanovich Paliashvili (1838-1913) was a kind, hard working man, a model father and husband. he was an elder at the Kutaisi Georgian Catholic Church. Zakharia's mother, Maria Pavlova Mesarkishvili (1851-1916) was noted for her grace and spiritual beauty. Zakharia was the third child in a family of eighteen children (thirteen sons and five daughters). Seven children died in infancy. Thought Zakharia's parents where not professional musicans, their children remembered their mother's singing.^{citation needed}

Biography

In his autobiographical notes" Zakharia Paliashvili writes: "...in our big family, my brothers and sisters displayed a natural gift of music even in their early age. To my mind the explanation of this should be sought in the fact that we, being catholics attended the church where the sweet sounds of organ music are not only enjoyable but help develop a good ear... we spend much time in the church and gradually developed a good ear.." The first to display considerable musical abilities was the eldest son Ivan (Vano) Paliashvili (1868-1934) who supsequently became an outstanding conductor. When Vano was eleven years old he was made assistant to the church organist, and the eight-year-old Zakharia was admitted as a chorister to the church choir. With the help of the dean, Father I. Antonishvili, little Zakharia studied "Lullaby for Jesis" and sang it with great success on Christmas night.^{citation needed} The Kutaisi period, howerver, left a deep impression on the life of the future composer. It was the place of his first contact with music, and the basis of his professional attitude to his life's dedication - music - had developed there, too. All his life Zakharia had retained his youthful love for the relics of Georgia's magnificence, the ruins of the Church of Bagrat (built by Georgias king Bagrat III in 1003, ruined and plundered by the Turks in 1631), Gelati (1106-1125), one of the most important centres of education, philosophy and literature in medieval Georgia and the extraordinary beauty of his home town. Subsequently, Zakharia Petrovich recalled Kutaisi many times, permeated, he said, with a "truly Georgian spirit" Upon leaving the two-year parish school, brothers Ivan and Zakharia began to play the piano under tutorship of Felix Mizandari, an organist and pianist. Mizandari did not change the family of the lessons for he was aware that Paliashvili family was very moderate means. Shortly afterwards, people in the town learned of the two talented and exeptionally persevering young musicians.^{citation needed} the news reached father Alfonso Khitarishvili, dean of Tbilisi Georgian Catholic Church of the assumption. With the parents' consent Khitarishvili took Ivan and Zakharia Paliashvili to Tbilisi. This was in the spring of 1887. The elder brother was appointed to the post of the organist and Zakharia was made his brother's assistant and a choirboy. A short time after, the entire family of Piotr Paliashvili moved to Tbilisi. The work at the Catholic church in Tbilisi, besides providing a small but badly needed salary also gave Zakharia Paliashvili the opportunity to broaden his musical knowlage by getting acquianted with the composers of Palestrina, Lassus, Bach, Handel, Mozart and other great composers of the past.^{citation needed} The first performance of a Georgian Ethnographic choir, established of the initiative and with the material support of Lado Agniashvili, a well-known public personality of those days, took a place in Tbilisi in 1886.^{citation needed} Later the concerts of this choir were conducted by Joseph Ratil (Navratil), though Czech by birth had forever associated his life with Georgia. The concerts of Agniashvili's choir evoked very favourable comments from the patriotically minded Georgian public. Vano and Zakharia Paliashvili sang in this choir in 1887-1889 and this fact was of importance for future composer.^{citation needed} In 1889 Vano left for Russia where he was engaged as an opera conductor. His post of church organist was taken over by Zakharia who now had to support the entire family; as a result, he had no oppotunity to continue his musical education.^{citation needed} in 1874 on the initiative of singer Kharlamphy Savaneli, pianists Aloizy Mizandari and Konstantin Alikhanov, the first musical school in Georgia was founded in Tbilisi. The Tbilisi Musical School was reorganised into the Tbilisi Branch of the Russian Royal Musical Society with the statue of a musical college. This was carried out with the active assistance of Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov, a well-known Russian composer, conductor and educationalist (worked in Tbilisi in (1882-1893) Zakharia Paliashvili's cherished dream came true only in 1891 when he was admitted to the french horn class under F.F. Parizek. A year later, when Parizek left the school, Zakharia continued to study under A.I. Mosko. Paliashvili graduated from the French horn class in 1895 and in the same year was admitted to the musical theory class which was conducted by Nikolai Semenovich Klenovsky, a Russian conductor, composer and teacher. Apart from this, Zakharia studied with Ippolitov-Ivanov and music critic Vasili Davidovich Korganov.^{citation needed}

See also

Tbilisi State Conservatory

Bibliography

• 100 опер: история создания, сюжет, музыка. 100 Operas: History of Creation, Subject, Music. Ленинград: Издательство "Музыка," 1968, p. 448

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zakaria Paliashvili

• Biography of Zakaria Paliashvili
• Listen Online to Zakaria Paliashvili's operas