Katuar, Georgii

Born Apr. 15 (27), 1861, in Moscow; died there May 21, 1926. Russian composer and music theoretician. Born into a Russianized French family.

Katuar graduated from the mathematics department at Moscow University in 1884. He studied composition for a time under N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov and A. K. Liadov in St. Petersburg. He is the composer of the Symphony in C minor (1899), the symphonic piece Mtsyri (The Novice; 1899, based on the M. Iu. Lermontov poem), a piano concerto (1909), quintets, quartets, trios, and sonatas for violin and piano. Katuar’s early compositions are stylistically close to the classics of Russian music, particularly to Tchaikovsky. Modernist traits are apparent in his later works, chiefly the chamber instrumental pieces. Katuar wrote the Theoretical Course in Harmony (parts 1–2, 1924–25) and Musical Form (parts 1–2, 1934–36). In 1917 he became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where he taught composition. Among his pupils were the composers and music critics V. A. Vlasov, S. V. Evseev, D. B. Kabalevskii, L. A. Mazel’, L. A. Polovinkin, and V. G. Fere.