The great Catherine
By Ignace Lilien
Details
Words by George Bernard Shaw
In the NMI archive only available the piano reduction. This work was originally published by Universal Edition.
First performance
1932 German version ‘Die grosse Katharina’
About Ignace Lilien
His hometown Lemberg, in the Ukraine known as Lviv, and in Poland as Lwów, has a history of occupation by shifting powers. This is why the Germans had trouble figuring out Ignace Lilien's real identity; he survived the war with forged documents. He worked as a chemical engineer, but that didn’t stop him from composing a large oeuvre. His life was as varied as his music, with influences ranging from Polish modernism to South American rhythms and timbres.
by Frans van Ruth