Today is the birthday of Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859-1935), and I’ve got Georgia on my mind.

A pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Ippolitov-Ivanov made his name as a musical spokesperson for the Caucasus. He spent his formative creative years in Georgia, as director of the music academy and conductor of the orchestra in Tblisi. Though he would return to Russia to become a professor at – and eventually director of – the Moscow Conservatory, as a well as a prominent conductor of the Russian Choral Society and at Bolshoi Theatre, clearly the music of Georgia had become deeply ingrained. He returned to Georgia in 1924 to reorganize the Tblisi Conservatory. His compositional output includes works on Georgian, Armenian, and Turkish themes.

Of course, his best-known piece is the “Procession of the Sardar,” from his “Caucasian Sketches.” It climaxes the Suite No. 1, which can be heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiF8JPARwCc

A composer born in Georgian of whose works I am particularly fond is Zakaria Paliashvili (1871-1933). Regarded as the Father of Georgian Music, Paliashvili studied composition at the Moscow Conservatory under Sergei Taneyev (a pupil of Tchaikovsky). He then returned home to collect folk songs, co-found the Georgian Philharmonic Society, and head the Tblisi Conservatory.

I discovered Paliashvili’s music online about 20 years ago, when I stumbled across a Georgian website that was selling CD-Rs of his operas. The posted excerpts from “Abeselom and Eteri” were especially gorgeous. Apparently, Deutsche Grammophon issued a recording on LP, back in the 1970s. Alas, it’s now long out of print.

For a long time, I hedged about sharing my credit card number with an unknown merchant in Georgia, but finally a few years ago, with no Paliashvili evidently forthcoming, I figured what the hell. I ordered all the available operas and managed to get one of them on the air, back when I was filling in for Sandy Steiglitz on her Sunday Morning Opera show on Princeton’s WPRB 103.3 FM.

I also managed to get my hands on a copy of Paliashvili’s “Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom,” on the Olympia label, and played that on my syndicated radio show “The Lost Chord” a number of years ago.

A quick search on YouTube reveals a nice sampling of Paliashvili’s music, including this highlight from “Abeselom and Eteri”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2xMzNxDcPQ

By Georgia, here’s the whole thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52FZLd7WARs

A staged performance from 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu_rm0FRUV0

And a film version from 1966! No English subtitles, but there’s a synopsis in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oQMgensnVE

His opera “Daisi”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmQg9Km7cz8

“Elegy” for piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZUHKlTIkoE

“Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y9dqrlZVCQ

Ah, internet, I knew you were good for something.

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PHOTO: Honorary Georgian Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov