Alexander Knaifel

Alexander Aronovich Knaifel (Russian: Алекса́ндр Аро́нович Кна́йфель, (also Knayfel', Knayfel, or Kneifel); born 28 November 1943 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) is a Russian (by nationality, of Russian Jewish ethnicity) composer known for his operas The Ghost of Canterville and Alice in Wonderland as well as for his music for cinema.

Knaifel studied cello with Mstislav Rostropovich at Moscow Conservatory from 1961 to 1963, then composition with Boris Arapov in Leningrad from 1964 until 1967.

From the very beginning of his composing career he associated himself with the group of so to say "avant-garde" Soviet composers that include Andrey Volkonsky, Edison Denisov, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Leonid Hrabovsky, Arvo Pärt, Tigran Mansuryan, and others. The works of the 1990s and 2000s were strongly influenced by religious themes and showed dramatic changes of his musical language.

He wrote more than 80 compositions in various genres and also more than 40 scores for features films and documentaries.

His music often surprises by its extravagant ideas, strange combination of the instruments or incredibly long duration. For example, his very slow and quiet Agnus Dei (1985) written for four instrumentalists (each of them plays several instruments including keyboards, percussion, electronics, saxophones and double bass) lasts exactly 120 minutes.[2] Another two hours long piece Nika (72 fragments after Heraclitus and Dante 1973–1974), is written for 17 double basses; and the piece titled Solaris (1980) is scored for 35 Javanese gongs.

In 1979 Knaifel was blacklisted as one of the "Khrennikov's Seven" at the Sixth Congress of the Union of Soviet Composers for unapproved participation in some festivals of Soviet music in the West.

Norman Lebrecht explains Knaifel and his music as follows: "Russian iconoclast, writing slow, quiet and unsettling music that passes from one instrument to another when it is good and ready... Many of his scores are unperformed, perhaps unperformable."[3]

Alexander Knaifel had a performance dedicated to his music in Ireland on 1 May 2009 as part of the Drogheda Arts Festival. The event entitled The Rest is Noise : the music of Alexander Knaifel featured the world premiere of a new work To EF and the three calling cards of the poet.