Capyrin is a Russian composer who successfully combines a variety techniques, often using literary sources and motifs in his works. In several works (for example, the Sonata for Clarinet & Piano), Capyrin fluidly combines a variety of techniques, including traditional tonality, twelve-tone composition, and modality. Modality is an important element of Capyrin's compositional procedure: relying on Messiaen's concept of limited transposition, he also experiments with the tone-semitone scale, as exemplified by his Music from Silence, for chamber ensemble. While Capyrin treats structure as transformative within a single piece, which may create, at a superficial level, a feeling of uncertainty and ambivalence, his music conveys a clearly articulated message. In Music form Silence, for example, the texture may tend toward an undefined, almost chaotic, state, but the musical ideas, emerging from nothingness, as it were, in the guise of gentle harmonies, develop, each from the profound core of the previous idea, establishing a soulful, intimate atmosphere in which the composer's essential lyricism comes to the fore. A work clearly representing Capyrin's lyrical talent is Paysages tristes, inspired by Verlaine's poetic cycle. Following Verlaine's procedure, which consists in establishing correspondences between descriptions of nature and the states of the poet's soul, Capyrin seeks the illuminate those realms of the soul which defy verbal explanation.
Born in Moscow, in 1960, Capyrin is a graduate (1979) of the Moscow Music College. In 1984, he graduated from the Lviv Conservatory. In 1992, he attended master classes with Poul Rudders and Edison Denisov. Capyrin's music has been performed by numerous prominent ensembles and soloists, and has also been featured in a variety of concert and festival venues, including the Moscow Autumn (1999), the Paris Presences (1993), and the Zagreb Biennale (1993).
