Lyubomir Pipkov

Returning from Paris in 1932, where he had studied at the École Normale de Musique with Paul Dukas and worked in the circle of Nadia Boulanger and Yvonne Lefébure, Pipkov took a post as répétiteur and choirmaster at the Sofia National Opera and was among the founders of the Contemporary Music Society, which became the Union of Bulgarian Composers. Born in Lovech in 1904 and taught first by his father, the composer Panayot Pipkov, he left four symphonies, three operas, string quartets, chamber and piano music, choral works, songs and film scores. His operas include Yana's Nine Brothers and Antigone '43. He wrote criticism and poetry as well, and taught a generation of Bulgarian composers. He died in 1974. The son of Panayot Pipkov, he is a representative of the so-called second generation of Bulgarian composers and one of the founders of the Contemporary Music society in 1933; he studied the piano with Ivan Torchanov and Henrich Wiesner. The Sofia Philharmonic biography dates his directorship of the Sofia Opera to 1944–1948, while his autobiographical account ends his work there in 1947. He chaired the Union of Bulgarian Composers from 1945 to 1954, and in 1948 he both founded the journal Bulgarian Music, as its first editor, and took a chair in vocal ensemble performance at the Music Academy. Momchil is his other opera, and the catalogue also holds concertos for violin and for piano and the vocal-orchestral Wedding, Oratorio for Our Time and Five Songs on Foreign Poets.