Composers and Authors /

Jurjāns, Pāvuls (1866 - 1948)

Biography   Works  

Pavuls Jurjans (known also as Jurjanu Pavuls) – concert singer, teacher, conductor, and composer; brother of Andrejs Jurjāns (see also).
He played a significant role in the education of concert and opera soloists, and the establishment and management of Latvian symphony concerts and the musical theatre company Latviešu opera [Latvian Opera] (1912–1915). In addition, he actively promoted choral singing and singing in schools, which brought him closer to the work of folk song arranging. His output of folk song arrangements includes around 100 for mixed and male voice choirs, a similar number for children's choir, many settings in collections issued for school use, and other works as well.
Born in Ergli in the District of Madona, he obtained his first education in music at the Kharkov School of Music in Ukraine, where his brothers Andrejs and Juris (1861–1940) were members of the teaching staff. He studied the French horn with Juris Jurjans, graduating in 1890, and for the following two years was a member of the orchestra performing in the opera house and various concerts in Kharkov. From 1892 to 1898 he studied singing and trained as choirmaster at the St Petersburg Conservatory. After graduating as a soloist, he was active in many fields in Riga: he taught singing, gave concert performances as a virtuoso French horn player and as a solo singer, conducted choirs, and was Principal Conductor at the Fifth Latvian National Song Festival in 1910. At the beginning of the century, he organized symphony concerts of Latvian music, and from 1904 to 1915 taught singing and headed the opera class at the Imperial School of Music in Riga. Gradually he organized, founded and then directed the Latvian Opera company, which marked the start of professional Latvian opera singing and theatre. From 1919 Jurjans headed the singing class at the LC.
As a composer, Pavuls Jurjans worked almost solely in the genre of folk song arrangement. Although the choral style of his arrangements is simple, he was able to avoid the stylistic discrepancies of his predecessors, making use of diatonic harmonies and developing textural techniques characteristically found in Latvian folk music, such as drone polyphony, contrasts between voice groups, and various variation techniques.

Login
draugiem.lv twitter.com facebook.com