Artemyev E. Pastorale Sonatina for Piano

Eduard Nikolayevich Artemyev (born 1937, Novosibirsk) got his initial musical education in the Moscow Choir College. In 1960 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire having completed the course of composition at Yu. A. Shaporin and N. N. Sidelnikov.

His creation embraces chamber and symphonic opuses, so as the opera “Crime and Punishment” (after F. M. Dostoyevsky). Being among the founders of native electronic music, Artemyev was the first to use electric guitar in film sound-track (“Approaching to Dream”, 1963). 

E. N. Artemyev is the author of music to more than 170 feature films. His film music to more than 170 pictures has enjoyed great popularity especially due to such movies as “Solyaris”, “Mirror”, “Stalker” produced by A. Tarkovsky, “At Home among Strangers”, “Slave of Love”, “The Barber of Siberia”, “Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano”, “Relatives” produced by N. Mikhalkov, “Sibiriada”, “The Inner Circle”, “Odyssey” by A. Konchalovsky. 

Now Artemyev is the member of the Composers’ and Filmmakers’ Unions of Russia, president of the “Russian Association of the Electro-acoustic Music” founded by him, so as the member of the executive committee of the International Conference of the Electro-acoustic music (ICEM) at the UNESCO. 

People’s Artist of Russia, Laureate of three State Russian Prizes in honour of Bros Vasilyevs, Laureate of three State Prizes in the spheres of literature and arts (1993, 1995, 1999), Laureate of three “Nike” Prizes (1995, 2004, 2008) Laureate of two “Golden Eagle” Prizes (2006, 2007). 

The Pastorale Sonatina refers to 1958, during the years of the conservatoire studying. Artemyev remembers, the composition to have been inspired by the impression of the old French engravings (18th–19th centuries), describing the Royal Court.