Georgiy Antonovich Orvid

It is 82 years since the birth of Georgiy Antonovich Orvid (1904-1980) — the distinguished Soviet trumpeter, People’s artist of the Russian Federation and Professor at the Moscow State Conservatoire. A pupil of the outstanding Russian trumpeter M. I. Tabakov (1877-1956), Orvid became a renowned musician, teacher and public figure.

Orvid was born in the Ukraine, in the town of Voznesensk. His father was a bandmaster and it was he who aroused the boy’s interest in the trumpet and became his first teacher. From the first Orvid showed remarkable musical abilities and at the age of 13 he attracted the attention of many by his quick progress. During the Russian Civil War (1918-1926) Orvid was a bandsman in one of the regimental bands in the Red Army. After the war he became a student at the Kiev Conservatoire where along with mastering trumpet technique he studied military brass band instrumentation. He graduated in 1927 with a diploma in both subjects. The desire to perfect his playing technique led him to Moscow where he became a 3rd-year student at the Moscow State Conservatoire, studying with Tabakov. After he graduated in 1930 he was engaged in post-graduate studies for 2 years.

Orvid started teaching at the Moscow Conservatoire in the 1930s, later becoming Professor. At the same time he played in the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra, USSR State Symphony and Moscow Philharmonic. From 1939 to 1946 Orvid was engaged in training bandmasters for the Soviet Army. He spared no efforts to improve the performance of military bands. At the end of the 1940s and in the 1950s Orvid held important administrative posts: Pro-rector of the Moscow Conservatoire, director of the Bolshoi Theatre, USSR Deputy Minister of Culture. For a long time he held the chair of wind and percussion instruments at the Moscow Conservatoire.

Despite his versatile public activity Orvid never gave up the trumpet. A biography of his creative years falls into 2 periods — the 1930s and the 1960-1970s. Already in the 1930s his numerous concert performances revealed his bright and original creative personality. In 1941 Orvid won the All-Union Wind-Players’ Competition in Moscow. In the 1960s, after a break of almost 20 years, Orvid appeared on the concert platform again. His playing style was distinguished by fluent mastery of both the technical and the expressive resources of the trumpet, a wide compass with pure and steady sounds and evenness of timbre in every register. He had an excellent memory and played all the compositions by heart. He always played some new composition for the trumpet, which is why his every performance excited great interest among musicians and music lovers. In 1967 on the stage of the Little Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire he played 5 big sonatas for trumpet and piano by Soviet composers B. Asaf’ev, E. Golubyov, M. Mil’man, N. Platonov and Y. Aleksandrov. Orvid was often the first to play musical pieces hitherto unknown to Soviet trumpeters: “Legend” by Enescu, “Fairy-tales” by Absil, “Triptych” by Tomasi, “Intrada” by Honegger, “Triptych” by Desenclos etc. His performances stimulated musicians to bring new compositions into the repertoire.