Popov A. Prelude and Fugue for Piano

Alexander Georgiyevich Popov (born in 1957) is the Petersburgian composer, author of symphonic compositions, chamber-instrumental and vocal music.

Alexander Popov tries to solve the problem of relations between the Human Being and the Time in different aspects of this word’s meaning, i. e. the course of time and its perception, concentration and rarefaction, accelerations and stops. Thus all these relations grow at last to the contiguity between the Time and the Eternity on the one hand and between the Human Being and cultural heritage (including musical one) nowadays. The composer resorts to various cultural traditions, e. g. the European Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Oriental Nirvana music and ecclesiastic Armenian music. Among Popov’s most significant works there are the Requiem for soloists, old instruments’ ensemble, prepared piano and metronome, «Theory of Affects» for chamber orchestra, «Sinfonia da camera» to Frescobaldi’s memory, Sinfonia Brevis for full symphony orchestra, Chamber cantata “Ω” for contra tenor and octet to the folk Slavonic texts about the Doomsday. Popov is the laureate of the «International Tribune of Composers» (Paris, 1995). Among his works there are the silent film «Earth» (produced by Alexander Dovzhenko), which the composer wrote music to and «Johan» (produced by Moris Stiller), ordered by the German TV programme ZDF/ARTE. 

Prelude and Fugue (double one with mutual exposition) refers to the 1980ies, having been dedicated to the memory of the composer Iosif Yakovlevich Pustylnik, Alexander Popov’s first teacher of composition and polyphony. Tatiana Voronina was the first to have performed it.