Said Rustamov
Encyclopedia
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
), was an Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
i composer and conductor.
Life and contributions
Said Rustamov was born in Erivan (now YerevanYerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
) where he spent his early years and went to primary school. He was the youngest of the family's four children. After his father's death and his mother's second marriage, he was taken in and brought up by his older brother who had been married by that time. In 1918, as a result of ethnic tensions in Erivan, his brother was murdered. Rustamov's sister-in-law fled with the rest of her family, including himself, to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. In 1919, they moved to Ganja
Ganja, Azerbaijan
Ganja is Azerbaijan's second-largest city with a population of around 313,300. It was named Yelizavetpol in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name—Ganja—from 1920–1935 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again and...
, then Agdash
Agdash
Agdash is a rayon in central Azerbaijan. Agdash rayon consists of Leki settlement and 72 villages. This rayon has a favorable economic and geographic location. Turyan River and Kura River along South-West border extend through the territory of the rayon. Upper Shirvan Channel also crosses Agdash...
and finally settled in Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
, where young Rustamov got admitted to a teachers seminary. As a teenager, he developed interest in music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
. His musical talent was noticed by one of his teachers, who introduced him to composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov
Uzeyir Hajibeyov
Uzeyir bey Abdul Hussein oglu Hajibeyov was an Azerbaijani and Soviet composer, conductor, publicist, playwright, teacher, translator, and social figure from Azerbaijan. He is recognized as the father of Azerbaijani classical music and opera...
. Hajibeyov arranged for the boy's enrolment in a tar
Tar (lute)
The tār is a long-necked, waisted Iranian instrument. It has been adopted by other cultures and Azerbaijan. The word tar itself means "string" in Persian, though it might have the same meaning in languages influenced by Persian or any other branches of Iranian languages like Kurdish...
class at a music academy. At the same time Rustamov further pursued his career in teaching and graduated from the Azerbaijani State Pedagogical Instutite in 1932. Around 1930 he married Bika, a nurse whom he had met while living in Agdash. Together they had four children (two sons and two daughters), all of whom would have been trained in professional music later in their lives.
Rustamov published textbooks on note
Note
In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....
acquisition and the instruction of tar. His monographs include Azerbaijani Folk Dances, Azerbaijani Folk Songs and Azerbaijani Ashig Songs. He also wrote children's poems, many of which became part of Azerbaijani school curricula. In 1935, he became the director and conductor of the newly-established and unique folk instrument ensemble and remained one for the next 40 years. In 1945, he was appointed director of the Fioletov Club Song and Dance Ensemble and in 1951, of the Azerbaijan State Song and Dance Ensemble. In 1948–1953, he was Chairman of the Composers Union of Azerbaijan. In 1951, he received the Stalin Prize, the highest-ranking award in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In 1957, he became People's Artist
People's Artist
People's Artist is a honorary title in the Soviet Union, Union republics, in some other Eastern bloc states , as well as in a number of post-Soviet states, modeled after the title of the People's Artist of the USSR....
of Azerbaijan.
During his career in music, Rustamov composed hundreds of musical pieces, including sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
for popular operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s and accompaniment for many theatrical plays, as well as suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
s, marches
March (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
, cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s, etc.