Karetnikov studied at the Central Musical School (1942–1948) and the
Moscow Conservatory (1948–1953) where his teachers were
Vissarion Shebalin (composition),
Tatiana Nikolayeva (piano), Igor Sposobin and Viktor Tsukkerman (theory). He also studied privately with
Philip Herschkowitz, a pupil of
Berg and
Webern. He was influenced by music of the New Viennese school and was a firm supporter of
twelve-tone technique. His ballets
Vanina Vannini and
The Geologists were performed at the
Bolshoi Theatre with choreography by
Natalia Kasatkina and
Vladimir Vasiliev. However, the authorities found the music unacceptable. It was criticized, and then banned from the performances in the
Soviet Union for decades. His
Symphony No. 4 (1963) received its first performance in 1968 in
Prague, just before the Soviet army invasion to suppress the
Prague Spring. His third ballet
Little Zaches Called Zinnober was performed at the
Hanover Opera House (1971) in the composer's absence, because he was not given permission to travel abroad. His main activity at that time was writing incidental music for theatre, film and television. He continued to compose and publish his serious works in secrecy. He wrote two large scale operas
Till Eulenspiegel (1965–1985) and
The Mystery of Apostle Paul, (1970–1987). Having no opportunity to perform these works in public, he persuaded the Moscow Cinema Orchestra to make the recording for him privately, section by section over the years. When the tape was ready, the vocal parts were added. This was, perhaps, the only examples of a
samizdat (underground) opera. Finally,
Till Eulenspiegel was premiered by the
Bielefeld Opera in
Germany conducted by
Geoffrey Moull in 1993, and
The Mystery of Apostle Paul was premiered in concert on August 4, 1995,
Hanover after the composer's death. Karetnikov was also the author of a collection of autobiographical stories called
Темы с вариациями (
Themes with Variations), published in
Russia in 1990 (A French translation was published in the same year by Editions Horay). ==Works==