Lyubomir Panaïotov Pipkov () (September 6, 1904 – May 9, 1974) was a
Bulgarian composer, pianist, and music educator. He is considered among the founders of
Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
's modern professional musical establishment and one of its most important composers.
Life
Pipkov was born to a musical family in
Lovech
Lovech (, ) is a city in north-central Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The city is located about northeast from the capital city of Sofia. Near Lovech are the towns of ...
,
Principality of Bulgaria
The Principality of Bulgaria () was a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.
After the Russo-Turkish War ended with a Russian victory, the Treaty of San Stefano was signed ...
, on September 6, 1904. His father,
Panayot Pipkov, was a composer and bandmaster; his grandfather, Hristo Pipkov, was a
clarinet
The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell.
Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
ist.
As a child, Pipkov demonstrated an interest in painting and poetry before turning to music. In 1919 he enrolled in the Sofia Music School (today the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music), where he studied under Ivan Torchanov, Heinrich Wiesner, and
Dobri Hristov.
Two years later he composed the
fight song
A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand, these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...
for
PFC Levski Sofia
PFC Levski Sofia () is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia, which competes in the First Professional Football League (Bulgaria), First League, the top division of the Bulgarian football league system. The club was ...
, an early composition which was subsequently lost. After graduation, Pipkov composed a number of works, among them his first major score, the 22 Variations for
piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
.
In 1926, Pipkov embarked to Paris, enrolling in the
École Normale de Musique
École or Ecole may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* Éco ...
.
During this period he was a composition pupil of
Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas ( 1 October 1865 – 17 May 1935) was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, having abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions. His best-k ...
and
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organis ...
; he also studied piano under
Yvonne Lefébure
Yvonne Lefébure (29 June 1898, Ermont – 23 January 1986, Paris) was a French pianist and teacher.
Born in Ermont, she studied with Alfred Cortot at the Conservatoire de Paris, taking a ''premier prix'' in piano and numerous other subjects. She ...
.
During this period he composed his String Quartet No. 1 and Piano Trio. The former work is credited as being the first ever string quartet composed by a Bulgarian.
Six years later he graduated with honors. In 1932, Pipkov decided to return to his native Bulgaria, where he would remain for the rest of his life.
Upon setting foot again in his native land, Pipkov took up work as a ''répétiteur'' and choirmaster for the
National Opera of Bulgaria. On January 23, 1933, Pipkov—along with
Pancho Vladigerov
Pancho Haralanov Vladigerov (or Wladigeroff, Wladigerow, Vladiguerov, Vladigueroff; ; 13 March 18998 September 1978) was a Bulgarian composer, pedagogue, and pianist.
Vladigerov is arguably the most influential Bulgarian composer of all time. He ...
,
Petko Staynov, and a number of other composers—became one of the founding members of the Contemporary Music Society, an organization which would eventually become the Union of Bulgarian Composers (SBK).
In 1937 Pipkov debuted his first opera, ''Yana's Nine Brothers''. Despite creating a stir at its premiere, the work was not performed again until 1961;
it was revived in
Sofia
Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...
in late summer and fall 2020.
The 1940s would see Pipkov establish himself at the head of Bulgaria's musical establishment. He began by completing his Symphony No. 1, the first of four, in 1940. Pipkov dedicated the score to the fighters of the
Republican cause in the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
.
Three years later, he was appointed head of the National Opera of Bulgaria, a post he would hold until 1948. From 1945 to 1954, Pipkov was the elected Chairman of the SBK.
He was also founder and first editor-in-chief of the magazine ''Muzika'' (later renamed ''BÅlgarska muzika'').
Despite his success, he also incurred the dislike and criticism of officialdom in the postwar
People's Republic of Bulgaria
The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; , NRB; ) was the official name of Bulgaria when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; ) together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agraria ...
, which forced his removal from these positions.
Aside from his work as a composer and teacher, Pipkov was also active as a poet, critic,
and representative for Bulgaria at international conferences of music educators. He was a board member of the
International Society for Music Education
The International Society for Music Education (ISME) is a professional organization of persons involved with music education. It was founded in Brussels in 1953 during the UNESCO-sponsored conference on "The Role and Place of Music in the Educat ...
. He remained a professor at the
National Academy of Music until his death on May 9, 1974.
Music and honors
Pipkov composed in a diverse array of genres.
These included three operas, four symphonies, and three string quartets (the last of which includes a part for timpani ''
obbligato
In Western classical music, ''obbligato'' (, also spelled ''obligato'') usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking '' ad libitum''. It can also be used, more specifically, to ind ...
''); as well as various
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...
and piano works,
oratorio
An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble.
Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguisha ...
s,
mass song
Mass song ( ''Massovaya pesnya'') was a genre of Music of the Soviet Union, Soviet music that was widespread in the Soviet Union. A mass song was written by a professional or amateur composer for individual or chorus singing and intended for "br ...
s, and
film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
s.
For his services to Bulgarian music, Pipkov was made a Hero of Socialist Labor and People's Artist of Bulgaria, and was thrice awarded the Dmitrov Prize. In later life he was awarded the Order of the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the
Order of Georgi Dimitrov
The Order of Georgi Dimitrov (or Order of Georgy Dimitrov, ) was the highest award of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. It was instituted on 17 June 1950 and awarded to Bulgarians and foreigners for outstanding services to the defence and freedom ...
.
He was posthumously inducted into
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
's
Akademie der Künste der DDR
The Akademie der Künste der DDR was the central art academy of the German Democratic Republic (DDR). It existed under different names from 1950 to 1993. Then it merged with the "Akademie der Künste Berlin (West)" to become the Academy of Arts, ...
and made an honorary citizen of Lovech.
Bulgaria commemorated the 100th anniversary of Pipkov's birth by issuing a postage stamp in his honor. The
Pipkov Glacier
Pipkov Glacier (, ) is the 11 km long in east-northeast to west-southwest direction and 3.2 km wide glacier on the west side of Havre Mountains in northern Alexander Island, Antarctica. The glacier is situated south and southwest of L ...
in Antarctica is named after his father and him.
Legacy
In his homeland, Pipkov is considered among Bulgaria's greatest composers.
Shortly after Pipkov returned to Bulgaria from France, Petko Staynov praised his colleague's "expressive" language, with its "bracing, heartfelt, sincere melodies" and "violent and unrestrained rhythms".
In the early 1940s, Tamara Yankova held up his work as an example of an artist who resisted the "modernomania" of the times, instead reaching into the "Bulgarian spirit" to create original music.
Pipkov himself said that he sought to draw inspiration for his music "from life itself, not theoretical problems":
I want to do what pulses through my blood, to feel the simple life, the sun, the natural.
In contrast to his renown in Bulgaria, Pipkov's music is rarely performed internationally and its reception has been muted. Reviewing a performance of a Pipkov work for string quartet at the 1953
Prague Spring Festival
The Prague Spring International Music Festival (, commonly , Prague Spring) is a classical music festival held every year in Prague, Czech Republic, with symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles from around the world.
The first festival ...
, Malcolm Rayment called the unidentified score "attractive" and "light".
Edward Greenfield called the composer the "most interesting" of Bulgaria's "middle generation" of composers, specifically singling out ''Yana's Nine Brothers'' for orchestration that was "masterly in its beauty". Boris Yarustovsky praised the "daring musico-dramaturgic innovation" and "democratic quality" of the composer's final opera, ''Antigone '43''. The "jaunty, lyrical, somewhat Frenchified" Clarinet Concerto was appraised warmly by
Claire Polin
Claire Polin (January 1, 1926 – December 6, 1995) was an American composer of contemporary classical music, musicologist, and flutist.
Education
She obtained three degrees in music from the Philadelphia Conservatory: a Bachelor, Masters and Doc ...
, who focused on the composer's handling of the "complex rhtyhmic problems" in the score. On the other hand,
Stephen Walsh dismissed Pipkov's Symphony No. 1 as "an amiably nondescript work which might have been written to cool
Comrade Zhdanov's heated brow".
Speaking to American interviewers in 1973,
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer.
Shostak ...
named Pipkov, along with
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''. , group=n ( – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who l ...
and
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...
, as among those who contributed "excellent" symphonic works in the later 20th century.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pipkov, Lyubomir
1904 births
1974 deaths
Bulgarian classical pianists
Bulgarian music educators
People from Lovech
20th-century Bulgarian classical composers
Bulgarian male classical composers
20th-century classical pianists
Male classical pianists
20th-century Bulgarian male musicians