The Boys' Chapel

This choir has existed for thirty years.

It has its own history, its own traditions, its own creative face. Behind it are more than 500 performances, and over two hundred of its former members have “made their way in life” and become professional musicians. But the choir is still young, and the young singers enjoy the constant sympathy of listeners.

The Gorky boys’ chapel performs on its own, with its men’s section or with mixed adult choirs, with a symphony orchestra or an organ, and takes part in opera productions.

The choir’s repertoire is also extensive. The boys sing the music of Orlando di Lasso and Benjamin Britten, Russian songs and choral works by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Kodály and Shostakovich.

Of course, the largest number of works in the Chapel’s repertoire are connected with children’s themes, and among them are “its own”, written specially by Gorky composers. This creative partnership was begun by one of the oldest composers of Russia, A. A. Kasyanov, who created for the boys, to his own words, the charming choral miniature “A Family Song”. It was followed by “The Flywheel and the Cog” and “Two Rams” (to texts of fables by S. Mikhalkov) and “Autumn” to a poem by F. Tyutchev.

Many composers now collaborate with the Chapel. Its repertoire has been enriched not only in quantity but has become more varied. Works of civic resonance have appeared, such as G. Komrakov’s “So That War Never Happens Again” and Getselev’s “Pioneer Marching Song”, arrangements of Volga folk songs, and the a cappella cantatas, complex in texture, “Boys and the Sun” by A. Nesterov and “Merry Summer Stories” by B. Blagovidov. \n(These repertoire accumulations made up a considerable part of the collection “Boys”, prepared for publication by the publishing house “Sovetsky Kompozitor”.)

In parallel with the repertoire the Chapel developed its own performing style. Taking as their model the virtuoso “instrumentality” of the singing of the Moscow Choir School collective and the attractive softness of the sound of the similar Leningrad choir, the Gorky singers strive to combine these remarkable traditions. Persistent exercises to improve choral diction have strengthened the expressiveness of the singing. This was helped in particular by work on genre pieces by Gorky composers. In general, variety in the repertoire and its renewal as often as possible bring real benefit in developing stylistic flexibility in the young performers. Of course, in the creative formation of the collective the decisive role belongs to its artistic director and chief conductor L. K. Sivukhin, a former pupil of the Chapel, who has been conducting the choir’s concerts for two decades. \n(Incidentally, other pupils of the Chapel work successfully in many musical institutions of the country.)

The Gorky singers demonstrate the results of their performing achievements on a record issued by the “Melodiya” company. The live sound of the choir is familiar to music lovers in almost all the cities of the Volga region, in Moscow and Novosibirsk, in Krasnodar and Kirov, in Vologda and Cherepovets.

And at home, in Gorky, the boys’ chapel has long been one of the centres promoting choral singing. Besides other performances in which it takes part, the Gorky Philharmonic runs subscriptions of choral concerts that include a great number of varied works. The Chapel also plays an important role in the training of musical personnel. The special selection of small children in kindergartens and schools when recruiting a new intake for the Chapel, the specific nature of the musical studies, in which the main emphasis is on choral singing, the boys’ life together in the boarding school and frequent concert appearances all contribute to the rapid development of the children’s musical ear and artistic taste. It is no accident that in their preparation they stand out sharply among first-year students of music colleges and the conservatory.

Created a year after the end of the Great Patriotic War and having taken orphans and children of soldiers into its family, the Gorky Boys’ Choir Chapel became a kind of memorial to the great Victory over fascism. The Chapel’s collective piously honours the memory of its first teachers, V. P. Malyshev and M. V. Kiselev, who in the difficult years of the new institution’s formation laid the foundation for devoted service to choral art. Surrounded by the care of party and public organisations and enjoying the recognition and love of wide circles of listeners, the Chapel now has a qualified teaching staff and excellent premises and equipment. The serious successes achieved by the Chapel in its performing and educational work set it new tasks, for which, it seems to us, the time has come to transform it from an eight-year special music school into a choir college, the third in Russia.

V. KOLLAR, “Musical Life”, 1976

In the photos: a performance of the boys’ chapel and the head of the collective, L. Sivukhin.

Photo by R. Bogdanov