Alexander Vasilyevich Svechnikov |

Alexander Svechnikov

Russian choir conductor, director of the Moscow Conservatory. Born in Kolomna on August 30 (September 11), 1890. In 1913 he graduated from the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, and also studied at the People’s Conservatory. From 1909 he was the director and taught singing in Moscow schools. In 1921–1923 he directed the choir in Poltava; in the first half of the 1920s – one of the most famous church regents in Moscow (the Church of the Assumption on Mogiltsy). At the same time, he was in charge of the vocal part of the 1st studio of the Moscow Art Theater. In 1928-1963 he directed the choir of the All-Union Radio Committee; in 1936-1937 – the State Choir of the USSR; in 1937-1941 he headed the Leningrad Choir. In 1941 he organized the State Russian Song Choir (later the State Academic Russian Choir) in Moscow, which he led until the end of his days. Since 1944 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory, in 1948 he was appointed its director and remained in this post for more than a quarter of a century, continuing to lead the choral class. Among the conservatory students of Sveshnikov are the largest choirmasters A.A. Yurlov and V.N. Minin. In 1944 he also organized the Moscow Choral School (now the Academy of Choral Music), which admitted boys aged 7-8 and which had the prototype of the pre-revolutionary Synodal School of Church Singing.

Sveshnikov was a choirmaster and leader of an authoritarian type, and at the same time a true master of choral conducting, who deeply embraced the old Russian tradition. His numerous arrangements of folk songs sound excellent in the choir and are still widely performed today. The repertoire of the State Russian Choir at the time of Sveshnikov was distinguished by a wide range, including many large forms of Russian and foreign authors. The main monument of the art of this choirmaster is the magnificent, deeply ecclesiastical in spirit and still unsurpassed recording of Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, made by him in the 1970s. Sveshnikov died in Moscow on January 3, 1980.

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