Grigory Frid

Grigory Samuilovich Frid also Grigori Fried (Russian: Григо́рий Самуи́лович Фри́д, born September 22 N.S., 1915, Petrograd, now St. Petersburg) - is a Russia composer of music written in many different genres, including chamber opera. Frid studied in the Moscow Conservatory with Heinrich Litinsky and Vissarion Shebalin. He was a soldier in the Second World War. The style of his early music may be explained as conventional, written in the tradition of so-called "Socialist realism". At the age of 55 he suddenly changed his style radically, turning to the twelve-tone and other more contemporary techniques of music composition. He is a prolific composer. The most notable works are his two chamber operas: The diary of Anne Frank, an opera-monodrama in four scenes for soprano and chamber orchestra, performed in 1969 at the "House of Composers" in Moscow; and The Van Gogh's Letters, a mono-opera for baritone and chamber ensemble, performed in (1975) at the same venue. Both the operas...