Alexander Vasilyevich Pavlov-Arbenin (Pavlov-Arbenin, Alexander) |

Pavlov-Arbenin, Alexander

… One day in the summer of 1897, the St. Petersburg pianist-accompanist Pavlov-Arbenin came to the summer cottage Strelna to listen to Gounod’s Faust performed by the artists of the Mariinsky Theater. Suddenly, just before the start, it turned out that the performance was being canceled because the conductor had not appeared. The confused owner of the entreprise, seeing a young musician in the hall, asked him to help out. Pavlov-Arbenin, who had never picked up a conductor’s baton before, knew the score of the opera very well and decided to take a chance.

The debut was successful and brought him a place as a permanent conductor of summer performances. So, thanks to a happy accident, the conductor’s career of Pavlov-Arbenin began. The artist had to immediately master an extensive repertoire: “Mermaid”, “Demon”, “Rigoletto”, “La Traviata”, “Eugene Onegin”, “Carmen” and many other operas he led for several seasons. The conductor quickly acquired practical experience, professional skills and repertoire. The knowledge gained even earlier, during classes with well-known professors – N. Cherepnin and N. Solovyov, also helped. Soon he is already gaining considerable fame, regularly leads performances in the opera houses of Kharkov, Irkutsk, Kazan, directs symphonic seasons in Kislovodsk, Baku, Rostov-on-Don, tours throughout Russia.

Petersburg, however, remained the center of his activity. So in 1905-1906, he conducts performances here with the participation of Chaliapin (Prince Igor, Mozart and Salieri, Mermaid), directs the production of The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the People’s House Theater, which aroused the approval of the author, replenishes his repertoire “Aida”, “Cherevichki”, “Huguenots”… Continuing to improve, Pavlov-Arbenin studies with Napravnik’s assistant E. Krushevsky, then takes lessons in Berlin from Professor Yuon, listens to concerts of the world’s largest conductors.

From the very first years of Soviet power, Pavlov-Arbenin devoted all his strength, all his talent to serving the people. Working in Petrograd, he willingly helps peripheral theaters, promotes the creation of new opera companies and symphony orchestras. For several years he has been conducting at the Bolshoi Theater – The Snow Maiden, The Queen of Spades, The Mermaid, Carmen, The Barber of Seville. In symphony concerts under his direction, which are held in Leningrad and Moscow, Samara and Odessa, Voronezh and Tiflis, Novosibirsk and Sverdlovsk, the symphonies of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, the music of the romantics – Berlioz and Liszt, orchestral fragments from the operas of Wagner and colorful canvases by Rimsky-Korsakov.

The authority and popularity of Pavlov-Arbenin were very great. This was also explained by the captivating, extraordinarily emotional manner of his conducting, captivating by the excited passion, depth of interpretation, artistry of the musician’s appearance, his huge repertoire, which included dozens of popular operas and symphonic works. “Pavlov-Arbenin is one of the major and interesting conductors of our time,” composer Yu. Sakhnovsky wrote in the Theater magazine.

The last period of activity of Pavlov-Arbenin took place in Saratov, where he headed the opera house, which then became one of the best in the country. The brilliant productions of Carmen, Sadko, The Tales of Hoffmann, Aida, and The Queen of Spades, staged under his direction, have become a bright page in the history of Soviet musical art.

Lit .: 50 years of music. and societies. activities of A. V. Pavlov-Arbenin. Saratov, 1937.

L. Grigoriev, J. Platek