Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov (December 16, 1915 in Fatezh, Russian Empire - January 5, 1998 in Moscow, Russian Federation) was a Soviet Russian neoromantic composer. In 1935 Sviridov's composed a cycle of lyrical romances based on the poetry of Alexander Pushkin which brought him first critical acclaim. During his studies in Leningrad Conservatory, 1936–1941, Sviridov experimented with different genres and different types of musical composition. He completed Piano Concerto No. 1 (1936–1939), Symphony No. 1 and the Chamber Symphony for Strings (1940). Later Sviridov would turn to the rich Russian musical heritage, including the folk songs, for inspiration. Among Sviridov's most popular orchestral pieces are the Romance and the Waltz from his The Blizzard, musical illustrations after Pushkin (1975), that were originally written for the eponymous 1964 film based on the short story from Pushkin's The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin. A short segment from his score for the 1967 film Time, Forward! was selected as the opening theme for the main evening TV news program Vremya and became the staple of Soviet life for several generations. The music he scored in 1974 to Alexander Pushkin's short story "Metel" (specifically Track 9, "The Finale") is undoubtedly the inspiration behind the main theme to the very successful Metal Gear Solid games. Poetry always occupied an important place in Sviridov's artistic universe. He wrote songs and romances to the lyrics of Mikhail Lermontov (1938, 1957), Alexander Blok (1941), William Shakespeare (1944–1960), Robert Burns (in Russian translation, 1955). Despite the popularity of Sviridov's instrumental works, both the composer himself and the music critics regarded vocal and choral music to be his main strengths. While Sviridov's music remains little known in the West, his works received high praise in his homeland.
