Eduard Nikolaevich Artemyev (Russian: Эдуард Николаевич Артемьев, 1937-202… Read Full Bio ↴Eduard Nikolaevich Artemyev (Russian: Эдуард Николаевич Артемьев, 1937-2022) WAs a Russian composer of electronic music and film scores. Outside of Russia he is mostly known for his scores to films such as "Solaris", "Stalker", "Siberiade" and "Burnt by the Sun".

Artemyev was born in Novosibirsk and studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Yuri Shaporin. His interest in electronic music and synthesizers began after his graduation in the 1960, when electronic music was still in its infancy. He wrote his first composition in 1967 on one of the first synthesizers, the ANS synthesizer developed by the Soviet engineer Evgeny Murzin. He was thus one of the first composers and a pioneer of electronic music. His collaboration with the film director Andrei Tarkovsky in the 1970s made him well-known. He wrote the film scores of Tarkovsky's Solaris, Zerkalo and Stalker. Later he also wrote film scores for films by Andrei Konchalovsky and Nikita Mikhalkov. His film scores and his music received several awards, including three Nika Awards. Recently, he licensed several pieces from the Solaris soundtrack in order to use them in the upcoming Spanish production The Cosmonaut.

Nowadays Artemiev is an acknowledged leader of Russian electronic music. Many of his experiments and discoveries have been realized in the sphere of electronic synthesis, where he is a researcher of authority and a highly poetical master. The cultural trends of his time have been originally interpreted in the composer's creative evolution, with different facets of his individuality revealed in an alternation of stylistic orientations.

His compositions written in the 60s-the early 70s belong to the aesthetics of avant-garde. Thank to electronics, which enabled 'to enter a qualitatively different acoustical world, sound colour and timbre became the field where a search for new musical laws and relationship could be undertaken. "Sound is a palette with most subtle and lavish nuances of colours. Electronics lends some new qualities to it: peculiar acoustical sounding, unlimited duration, abundance of timbres". It is in electronics that Artemiev finds what most appeals to his gift. For him the synthesiser is a possibility to compose" sound, timbre, to sculpt it, to lend form, "colour", energy, duration. A most fascinating task for the musician with a creator's imagination, a colourist's talent and an inventor's intuition!

His findings in the sphere of colouring have expanded the limits of timbre perception. In the composition "Mosaic" (1967) "sonors" - timbres become independent means to express the motion of sounds in space. "Mosaic" won recognition at the festivals in Florence, Venice, Cologne, Bourges.

"The possibility of penetrating into the microcosm of timbre, of searching in the field of controlled-spaces creation" has been realised by Artemiev in his composition "Twelve Glimpses on the World of Sound" (1969). Here the unique technical conception - the creation of a series of acoustic "variations on one timbre" - symbolises the idea of the unity of micro- and macrocosm. Artemiev compares "the space of timbre" with perspective: "Such variations can be continued for as much time as one would like, for the given amount of overtones (as the one present in the timbre of temirkomuz - M.K.) can be combined indefinitely". "Mosaic" and "Twelve Glimpses" were included into LP record "Musical Offerings" (1990) & also were published on CD "Electroshock Presents: Electroacoustic Music Volume IV - Archive Tapes Synthesizer ANS 1964-1971" on Electroshock Records label in 1999.

Kindred to the aesthetics of avant-garde is his incidental music for films of Andrei Tarkovsky. The unordinary tasks set by the director required similar creative efforts on the part of the composer. Writing the music to "Solaris", "The Mirror", "Stalker" resulted in serious experiments in electronics and the specific sphere of audio-video contact.

From the mid-70s Artemiev's style underwent a change in the direction of "new simplicity". The dialogue between the academic tradition and rock-aesthetics tended to meet other, "more global tasks: to assimilate the styles, genres . Resonant with those tasks was also his desire to try his hand at an openly emotional, intuitive self-expression. "Polychromaticism of timbre" still preserved its significance for the composer, however, the traditional elements of writing were more actively introduced, accompanied with a new sense of melody, rhythm, harmony.

Those creative aspirations of his were embodied, though differently, in a number of compositions. Declaratively, in his cantata "Ode to Herald of Good" to the text of Pierre de Coubertin, written for the Olympic Games in Moscow decided to take the road not of a synthesis, but of a "symbiosis" of all expressive means at my disposal, and to write each movement of the cantata in a special technique and in different genres, with electronics' expressive possibilities as a unifving pivot"(the author's annotation to the phonograph record of "Ode" ("Ritual").

In a variety of proportions and combinations the synthesis of "musics" was realised in his quasi-symphonies "The Seven Gates into the World of Satori" and "Peregrini", in the poems to Lithuanian texts "White Dove", "Summer", "Vision", in the music for the films "Sibiriada", "Fox Hunting", "The End of Eternity", "Moon Rainbow", in the cantata "The Warmth of the Earth", in the opera "Crime and Punishment" based on F. Dostoyevsky's novel.

There is a new quality perceptible in the works written in the late 80s: a blending of the democratic aspirations inherited from the aesthetics of the 70s with the ideas of avant-garde, of the rational with the intuitive. Here first mention should be made of his nostalgic cycle based on the music of Tarkovsky's films "Solaris", "The Mirror", "Stalker" (1989).

An international response has been gained by another work of the composer - "Three Glimpses on the Revolution" written for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution and commissioned from the organisers of the Electronic Music Festival in Bourges (1989). The review in the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Lisboa" ran: "... the work "Three Glimpses on the Revolution" by Russian composer Edward Artemiev has become a real discovery: his powerful music built with great skill is remarkable for outstanding accomplishment. This is a work of typically Russian composer brought up in the traditions of Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich… This is a music of great epical might and undoubted expression" (from Jorge Peixinho's article "Synthesis" and "the French Revolution", October 27th 1989).

A good deal of interesting music has been created by Artemiev for the cinema. He is one of the most acknowledged masters of film music. Film directors are hopeful of success if Artemiev is involved in the film. The composer's name on the poster or advertising announcement is a lure attracting cinema-goers. It is not a surprise that phonograph records containing his film music, in particular, the disc "Mood-Pictures" with fragments from several of his film scores & double CD "Music to Films of Nikita Mikhalkov" enjoy such popularity. Abroad there is a growing interest in Artemiev's film music. In France a record had been issued with his music to Andrei Konchalovsky's serial "Sibiriada". A compact disc has been released in the Netherlands containing his voluminous electronic cycle based on his music to Andrei Tarkovsky's films and also including the composition "Ocean" written in memory of the late film director (1989). This particular CD was re-issued by "Electroshock Records" in 1999.

Over 140 "scores for sound" created by him for the cinema impress with a diversity of themes, plots, genres and heterogeneity of artistic tasks, no matter whether they are solved by means of electronics or symphony orchestra. If necessary, the composer makes use of samplers, or acoustical instruments, or orchestra.

In creative communion much depends upon Artemiev's individuality as a composer. That was the way he collaborated with Nikita Mikhalkov when working on all the films and the stage production of "An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano" at Teatro di Roma: "When I first heard his music", recollected N. Mikhalkov, "the thing that most appealed to me was its wonderful melodiousness, At the same time the composer has a staggering sense of style".

"Artemiev has a wonderful sense of the screen", notes Vadim Abdrashitov. "He never writes illustrative music. His music is a counterpoint to the image, adding to and revealing the inner meaning of the sequence. He can cope with any most sophisticated task. I'm sure that his potentialities have not been fully realised so far". His music for the film "Fox Hunting" has been included into the first cycle of "Mood-Pictures".

"You ask why I invited Artemiev to work at the film "Homer and Eddie", reflected Andrei Konchalovsky. "Of course, first of all because he is a gifted man and I feel easy with him". The collaboration, which originated in the film "Sibiriada", in the opera "Crime and Punishment" (its stage conception belonging to Konchalovsky), has been going on at the stage of Theatre de l'Odeon in Paris in A. Chekhov's "Seagull", in the Hollywood studios, in the films "Duet for One", where "Credo" from Artemiev's electronic Requiem is sounding, and "Homer and Eddie" (1988).

Artemiev's music appealed to Andrei Tarkovsky with its audiovisuality, spatiality, with his ability to conceive intricate associative turns, to create generalised symbols-images. Artemiev contributed to three films of Tarkovsky, as well as to the stage production of "Hamlet" undertaken by Tarkovsky in Moscow in the 70s.

Feeling of ensemble is a valuable quality in a composer working in the cinema. Artemiev is fond of and knows how to create ensemble. His subtle understanding of the director's cinematographic language, manner and style is both his experience and his special gift. "The sequence on the screen has a miraculous effect on me. I'm always patiently waiting for whatever will be shown me by the director, and then his style, language, his imagery of thinking will evoke a response in me".

Following his path in the cinema, the composer encounters different historical styles. The traditions of 19th-century dramatic-lyrical symphonies may be discerned in this music for the film "Gobseck", while the lofty spiritualness of baroque has been achieved in the "old-style" music for Stradivari instruments ("A Visit to Minotaur"). A charmingly sensitive interpretation in retro style has been found for the film "A Slave of Love". A European tune of the 15th century, arranged in the manner and sounding typical of Zen Buddhists meditations, signifies the sophisticated interlacement of the cultures of the Orient and the West ("Stalker").

Usually it is the collaboration of the composer and the engineer that yields serious achievements in electronic and computer music. As for Artemiev, his amazing "technological versatility" makes it possible to combine them in a single person. He is the author of the composition and a programmer and also the man to find a technical realisation for his musical ideas. In addition, he is a performing artist and a sound producer.

Long periods of reclusion at his studio where Artemiev creates his compositions alternate with trips to electronic music festivals - to Baltimore to attend "Res musica" International Electroacoustic Music Festival, to Bourges to take part in "Synthese" Festival International de Musique Experimentale de Bourges, to recording companies or film studios, as well as to take part in the activities of the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (ICEM), UNESCO. Russian Association for Electroacoustic Music of which Edward Artemiev is President is comprised as a national section into this International infrastruction.