When Tbilisi was marking her 15th centennial jubilee and all Georgia celebrated with her this anniversary, the "snowfall" of music paper came to Vake Park. A helicopter was flying over the park packed with people and the scores of the song that later almost everyone learned by heart fell from the sky. In those days, many people were probably humming the words of this song: "Tbiliso, the land of sun and roses, without you I live without my heart..."
In 2000 Revaz Lagidze's song "Tbiliso" became an official anthem of the Georgian capital...
In 2000 the Georgian society recognized Revaz Lagidze as the "composer of the century"...
"... Love is a wonder that is hard to render into words. Perhaps we avoid talking about it loud because it is such a gentle, delicate and pure feeling...", wrote Revaz Lagidze In a very humble and earnest letter which he dedicated to youth... But it is a long time since these feelings have been spoken of "loud"; it is a very long time since music critics and journalists, singers and composers, "a whole army of Revaz Lagidze's close friends" and his mere acquaintances have been talking so extensively and with so much emotion about these feelings that it is almost impossible to discover or add something new.

Revaz Lagidze - a man about whom you may know everything but still irresistibly desire to recall again and again the beautiful stories from his life. Or to be more precise, to remind yourself so you would never forget how people used to live at those times, how they thought and spoke, how they fought and worried and how they created and loved...
And there was the first encounter with music...
After many years, Revaz Lagidze talked about this period with great warmth and humor in his conversation with the devoted scholar of his work, musical critic Manana Ahmeteli.
Holidays, a village, a schoolyard and the introductory limes of "Daisi" pouring from the loudspeaker. The first unforgettable experience. Later was one of the musical schools of Tbilisi and a "dilemma" to choose between the ball and the violin (something that a boy always (eels very uncomfortable with); "a redundant box" abandoned for the fourth and last time; a firm decision to become an engineer or a doctor...
One day the students gave a school concert. Revaz Lagidze recalled his "difficult past" and performed a song called "A Little Steamer", very popular at that time. The director of the Fourth Musical School and a famous musician Larissa Kutateladze were attending the concert. Obviously a student of the musical school should not be playing "A little steamer is sailing and won't stop any more", but it was obvious also that an ordinary student of the musical school would not be able to perform like Revaz did, even a song like "A Little Steamer"...

Revaz's father was called to the Fourth Musical School and that very day the boy's fate was finally decided. There he met an extraordinary teacher, Luarsab Iashvili. After a while, he created his first miniatures for the string quartet. He himself took part in the quartet, playing the first violin. At the teacher's request Dimitri Arakishvili listened to these musical works and suggested that the future musician continue his studies at the Composition Faculty.
After graduating from the musical school, Revaz Lagidze entered the Conservatory and was enrolled in Andrea Balanchivadze's class. It was a time of war, a time of hardship. In the morning he played in the Symphony Orchestra and worked at the Radio Committee, while in the afternoon he attended lectures. He won the Chaikovski scholarship. In the Symphony Orchestra he was an assistant concertmaster. Here he studied reading from a score and orchestral art. Being a first year student, he wrote music for the string quartet, variations and two songs.
He has never felt the lack of time - neither at that time, nor later, in the course of his entire life. He had time for everything: for composing music, working at several places simultaneously, cross-crossing all Georgia on foot, communicating with his friends and being with members of his family...

Revaz Lagidze worshiped folk songs. He said that nothing equal to "Khasanbegura" and "Chakrulo" had ever been created In Georgia. "In spite of the great folk poetry and numerous grand monuments of architecture and monasteries that have been built, I can find nothing comparable with the Georgian song...". And today when all the borders are open, when you can say all you have to offer, when you are seen and listened to, you tend to think more and more about his words.
He has a unique way of understanding a folk song. Those who have heard "Lile" in Svaneti, "Chakrulo" In Kakheti or "Krimanchuli" in Guria - not in a concert hall but somewhere amidst the nature - at the river bank or at the edge of the forest or even at the Georgian table, will understand why Revaz Lagidze did not want youth to study Georgian folk songs from music and why he himself was always obsessed by wandering or going hiking. "I've never been a great singer but, honestly, I know the songs of almost all parts of Georgia. I've hiked a lot in the broadest sense of the word. I've wandered with a rifle, with a dog, with a fishing net; I've thrown the fishing net into every river of Georgia. I'm crazy about water. I love water desperately, probably because I am Lagidze ..." ("Lagidze" is a surname of a very famous Georgian businessman of the past century who produced very popular soft drinks in Georgia. Nowadays these waters are called "the Lagidze waters").
The time spent with Revaz Lagidze while hunting or fishing has become an indelible memory for many. This was because both fishing and hunting were a ritual - the ritual which was the means of becoming part of a fantastic and inimitable world; the world which only Revaz Lagidze was capable of creating.

"With utmost clarity I remember the songs sung by Rezo, the sounds of percussion instruments imitated by him, his toasts. Seldom have I met a person so proud of his country", Rodion Schedrin, Maia Plisetskaia's husband recalls. The couple had come to spend a holiday in Sokhumi (Abhazeti).
One day Schedrin went fishing with Lagidze. This was followed by a ceremonial opening of a special vessel of wine, kvevri, in the yard of one of the Sokhumi fishermen. How far away all these events seem to be today...
Today many stories are told about how the Lagidze's popular musical masterpieces were eaten.
Lela Lagidze, the composer's daughter, recalls in one of the interviews: "He used to work when many kids were around. Sometimes, he would deep in thought as if separating himself from us, and suddenly, he would enter his study with shining eyes." Revaz Lagidze knew that the work is not judged by the amount of time spent on creating it: the song "Keep the Forest for Children" was written in one night. However, sometimes it takes you longer, you torment yourself and the outcome is "Sachidao". The place where you create your song is not essential: after an exhausting and intoxicating wander somewhere in Gudamakari, it might happen that you sit down beside a fire and the tunes of "The Elegy" will occur to you. You might stay awake all night in your study to leave it early in the morning with your eyes lit up for you've composed "A Hymn to the Mother Tongue". It is not important whether you're writing music to order or for your own desire: it might happen that someone calls you by telephone and instead of writing a song "Our Homeland Calls", you are required to compose "Glory to the Communist Party". But it doesn't matter. Good music is what matters. As a rule, time remedies everything. Today the original version is again being performed. It might also happen that you write a song for an ordinary movie and in the course of time it becomes an anthem of the national movement. "My Dear Land" was composed in the 60s.

Revaz Lagidze knows the value of the text. That is why me lyrics of his songs belong to such outstanding Georgian poets as Ilia Chavchavadze, Vazha-Pshavela, Akaki Tsereteli, Giorgi Leonidze, Ioseb Noneshvili, Murman Lebanidze, Petre Gruzinski and other well-known poets. He is very fond of Galaktion Tabidze. When he reads his poems, his "eyes are filled with tears as if he were a child". "The book of my most favorite poet to my dearest love" - this was the inscription that he wrote in Galaktion's book which he dedicated to his wife, Tinatin Shatberashvili, the year they got married. However, he never writes music to these poems, because he fears that with his intervention he might disturb the music of Galaktion's poetry.
In 1957 a "Song about Tbilisi" was specially composed for Irakli Kandelaki's documentary film. Film producers call Revaz Lagidze a cinema-composer. "Hevisberi Gocha", "A Young Man from Sabudara", "A Flower on the Snow", "A Khevsurian Ballad", "A Poor Man's Story" and many other movies are those where Revaz Lagidze's music sounds. His songs have been performed for years by David Gamrekelli, Zurab Anjaparidze, Nani Bregvadze and other eminent Georgian singers. Perhaps it is also to their credit that Revaz Lagidze's creative work has never needed to be rediscovered. His other works include: music for theatre performances and movies, musical comedies and a symphony poem, numerous songs and an opera called "Leia". For many years "Leia" has been staged in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi and Slovakia. There have been many successful guest performances and everywhere at the Georgian opera stage or abroad - popularity and love were his companions.

Due to illness, he was unable to go out and "wander or go hiking " as he used to. Shortly before his death he took Anzor Erkomaishvili, who came to see him, out on a balcony interwoven with the Adessa vine grapes and told him: "Let us sit here and it will seem to us that we are in Guria..."
Revaz Lagidze never experienced a shortage of love and recognition. It has been twenty years, however, that this love has been "spoken loud".
"He wanted to sing and he sang, he wanted to cry and he cried... and he was always sincere and just before the God of music, friends and foes, present and future,..", said Moris Potskhishvili. And Murman Lebanidze wrote: "He lived as a brave man and created as a poet".