The unsettlingly slow avantgardist Alexander Knaifel died today suddenly at the age of 80.
He made his living writing for Soviet movies and his reputation with two Eng-lit operas, operas The Ghost of Canterville and Alice in Wonderland. He was almost a minimalist, but too edgy to be classified.
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Is it ‘sudden’ when you die at 80?
I did my PhD on Knaifel’s music – the first person outside of Russia to do so. This news devastates me. He changed the way I listened to sound; he changed the way I thought about music. Studying his art has been a privilege. He was an extraordinary human being who gave me so much and so many hours of his time. Shurik: thank you.
I wish I could find his music online.
There is lots online. However, please contact me if you want something specific. During the course of my PhD, I collected a number of commercially available and private recordings.
I played Alice in Wonderland, the world première. As a instrumental solist. He was so kind and such a wonderful person. Always in Amsteram, although one of his kids was seriously sick. I’ll miss him.
The only child of fully Jewish parents who in late 1960s gradually became good friends of my parents, “Shurik” (as everyone called him) was promising enough cellist to be accepted as a student in the class of Mstislav Rostropovich (who later performed one or two of his former student’s pieces during Slava’s years as the MD of the National Symphony in Washington DC), but soon after that switched to composing. While in his 30s, AK apparently became such a devout Russian Orthodox Christian that when his mother (my musical theory teacher for a couple of years) died a couple of decades ago he buried her in a Christian cemetery – completely against her wishes to be forever next to her lifelong husband (my violin teacher for 11 years who died a few years before his wife) whose grave was of course in a Jewish one since his wife was still alive when he passed away and would not have it any other way. My family has never been able to forgive him for that selfish act.
To see how low we have sunk in classical music composers,
1975 – death of a Russian composer – Dimitri Shostakovich
2024 – death of a Russian composer – Alexander who???