Arthur Lourié

Lourié played an important role in the earliest stages of the organization of Soviet music after the 1917 Revolution but later went into exile.

An admirer of van Gogh, from whom he derived the name 'Vincent', Lourié was partly self-taught, but also studied piano with Maria Barinova and composition with Glazunov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1913.

He was also acquainted with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Kulbin, Fyodor Sologub and Alexander Blok; and was deeply influenced by contemporary art.

After the October Revolution of 1917 Lourié served under Anatoly Lunacharsky as head of the music division (Muzo) of the Commissariat of Popular Enlightenment (Narkompros).

In 1922 he settled in Paris, where he became friends with the philosopher Jacques Maritain and was introduced to Igor Stravinsky by Vera Sudeykina.

[3] Lourié dedicated a number of his works to Maritain, including the Gigue from 4 Pièces Pour Piano (1928).

A man of very wide culture, who cultivated the image of a dandy and aesthete, he set poems of Sappho, Pushkin, Heine, Verlaine, Blok, Mayakovsky, Dante, classical Latin and medieval French poets.