Александр Лазаревич Локшин

An admirer of Mahler and Alban Berg, he created his own musical language; he wrote eleven symphonies plus symphonic works including Les Fleurs du Mal (1939, on Baudelaire's poems), Three Scenes from Goethe's Faust (1973, 1980), the cantata Mater Dolorosa (1977, on verses from Akhmatova's Requiem). Only his Symphony No 4 is purely instrumental; all his other symphonies include vocal parts. Symphony No 3 by Lokshin was written on Kipling's verses, and a ballet Fedra was staged to music from Symphony No 4. Lokshin also wrote a cycle of piano variations for Maria Grinberg (1953) and another one for Yelena Kushnerova (1982).