Isaac Dunaevsky - Silence (from the movie “Merry Stars“)

Dunaevsky (1900-1955) was a Soviet film composer and conductor of the 1930s and 1940s, who achieved huge success in music for operetta and film comedies, frequently working with the film director Grigori Aleksandrov. He is considered one of the greatest Soviet composers of all time. Many of his songs are very well known and held in high regard in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Dunayevsky wrote 14 operettas, 3 ballets, 3 cantatas, 80 choruses, 80 songs and romances, music for 88 plays and 42 films, 43 compositions for light music orchestra and 12 for jazz orchestra, 17 melodeclamations, 52 compositions for symphony orchestra and 47 piano compositions and a string quartet. He was one of the first composers in the Soviet Union to start using jazz. His music was accessible to the masses, with melodious and memorable tunes that secured his success. He wrote the music for three of the most important films of the pre-war Stalinist era, Jolly Fellows, Circus and the film said to be Stalin’s fav