Yulian Krein (1913 - 1996)

The composer and musicologist Yulian Grigor’yevich Krein was son of Grigory Abramovich Krein. He studied composition with Dukas at the Ecole Normale in Paris, graduating in 1932, and lived in Moscow from 1934. His compositions developed under the influence of French music, but he also drew upon nineteenth-century Russian tradition and on the innovations of Skryabin. As a result his music is complex and many-sided, its lyricism clearly expressed in melodic breadth and colourful harmony. The French connection is most evident in his orchestration, while the chamber pieces are more Romantic in style. A prolific composer and a noted musicologist, he also appeared frequently as a pianist.