Kushnarev, Khristofor

Born May 23 (June 4), 1890, in Simferopol’; died Jan. 25, 1960, in Leningrad. Soviet composer, music theorist, and teacher; Honored Art Worker of the Armenian SSR (1939) and the Uzbek SSR (1943).

Kushnarev graduated in 1925 from the Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied composition under A. M. Zhitomirskii. He became an instructor at the conservatory in 1925 and a professor in 1939 (courses in composition and polyphony); he contributed to the reform of the curriculum and the improvement in the methods of teaching music theory disciplines. From 1944 to 1949 he was a research worker and head of the section on music theory and history of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR.

Kushnarev investigated the elements of the style of Renaissance music, developed a theory of modes, and worked out the problem of monody and a method for the comprehensive analysis of the folk song. He contributed to the study of Armenian folk music and the music of other peoples of the East, and he collected folk songs. Kushnarev is the author of Problems in the History and Theory of Armenian Monodic Music (1958), the collection of articles On Polyphony (1971), and other studies. He also composed music. Kushnarev was awarded two orders and several medals.