Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin (May 4, 1914April 4, 1990) was a Soviet

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, author of numerous popular songs (many of which were co-written with poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky) and musical scores for forty films. In 1979, Mark Fradkin received the USSR State Prize and, in 1985, he was granted the status of the People’s Artist of the USSR.

Biography

Mark Fradkin was born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus), to a family of doctors. In the 1920s, having graduated from the technological secondary school, Mark joined a clothing factory in Vitebsk. After two years there, he joined the Third Belorussian Theatre as an actor (later musical administrator). In 1934, he enrolled in the Leningrad Theatre Institute where he started writing music. In 1938-1939, he studied in the Belorussian Conservatory under the guidance of Professor Aladov while working as an actor in the Minsk Children Theater (ТЮЗ). In 1939, Fradkin was mobilized into the Soviet Army. As a conductor of the Kiev Red Army orchestra, he started co-writing songs with poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. In 1943, still on an endless front-line tour performing for Soviet fighters, Fradkin was awarded the

Order of the Red Star The Order of the Red Star () was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 1930 but its statute was only defined in decree of the Presidium of the ...

. In 1944, he became a member of the Soviet Union of Composers and moved to Moscow. Among his popular war-time songs were "The Dnieper Song", "Chance Meeting Waltz", "A Street in Bryansk". After the war, he had a string of hits ("Welcome to Saratov", "The Waiting", "Birches", "We Were Just Neighbours", "Beyond the Factory Gate", "Komsomol Volunteers", "The Song of Tenderness", "As Years Fly By", "Farevell You Doves", "As Volga Flows") performed by the stars of the Soviet popular music, like Mark Bernes, Lyudmila Zykina, Ruzhena Sikora, Eduard Hil, Iosif Kobzon. One of the better known Fradkin songs of the 1970s, a war-themed epic, "For Another Guy" (lyrics by Robert Rozhdestvensky), brought Lev Leshchenko the First Prize at the 1972 Sopot International Song Festival. In 1979, Mark Fradkin was awarded the USSR State Prize and, in 1985, the prestigious

People's Artist of the USSR People's Artist of the USSR, also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to artists of the Soviet Union. The term is confusingly used to translate two Russian language titles: Народный арти ...

status. His book of memoirs, ''My Biography'', was published in 1974. Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin died on April 4, 1990. He was buried at the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow.

Family

Mark Fradkin's father, Grigory Konstantinovich Fradkin, a medical doctor in

Kursk Kursk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur (Kursk Oblast), Kur, Tuskar, and Seym (river), Seym rivers. It has a population of Kursk ...

, was executed by the White Army troops retreating from the city in 1920. His mother, Yevgenya Mironovna Fradkina (née Shagalova), also a medical doctor, was murdered during the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, along with many other Vitebsk Jews, by the Nazis.

Selected filmography

* '' They Were the First'' (1956) * '' A Simple Story'' (1960) * '' Songs of the Sea'' (1970)

Notes

References

External links

Mark Fradkin. In Memoriam
Romantika Romansa. TV Kultura, Russia * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fradkin, Mark 1914 births 1990 deaths People from Vitebsk People from Vitebsky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Jews from the Russian Empire category:Soviet Jews Soviet composers Soviet male composers Soviet classical musicians Jewish composers 20th-century male composers People's Artists of the USSR People's Artists of the RSFSR Recipients of the USSR State Prize Recipients of the Order of the Red Star