Vasily Malyshev

He was born in Kostroma into a large family; his father was the choir director of the Ipatiev Cathedral. From childhood he was immersed in music and sang in the church choir.\nIn 1919–1922 he served in the Red Army.\nFrom 1922 to 1925 he briefly worked as an accountant at the Kostroma provincial union of workers’ and peasants’ consumer societies in Sormovo.\nIn 1929 he graduated by correspondence from the Nizhny Novgorod State Music College with a degree in “General Music Education”.\nBefore the war he worked for many years as a conductor of amateur choirs at factory clubs and houses of culture in the city of Gorky.

In the 1930s Vasily Pavlovich created many choral groups at factory clubs and houses of culture in Gorky. They were known for their repertoire and concert activity and were therefore very popular with the people. But the Great Patriotic War deprived the choirs of most of their male voices. Malyshev, however, did not stop his creative work for the good of the country.\nFirst he created a concert brigade serving army units and recruitment points. Then, from 1 January 1944, V. P. Malyshev became head of a new choir that he had organised, to which an orchestral and a ballet group were later added. In all, from the beginning of the war to Victory, 716 concerts were given!

From 1 July 1946 to 31 May 1960 he was director, artistic director and chief conductor of the Children’s Boys’ Choir Chapel under the Gorky City Department of Arts.

House No. 16 on Gruzinskaya Street (then the Chapel’s only building) became a second home not only for its founder, Vasily Pavlovich, but also for the pupils. The boys literally found refuge there from the hardships of the post-war years and received their first lessons in inner discipline, decency, honesty, devotion to the profession and humanity. Many of the boys had no fathers, and Vasily Pavlovich, despite all his strictness, became for them a spiritual father, teacher and older friend, to whom they felt warm filial attachment and gratitude to the end of their lives.

Vasily Pavlovich had the highest standards of talent and professional qualities in a musician, and therefore attached great importance to his pupils’ abilities and hard work.

He singled out the best graduates and helped them settle in life. His favourite pupil, Lev Sivukhin, was invited by Vasily Pavlovich to work as choirmaster immediately after graduating from the Chapel, and later Malyshev handed the artistic direction of the Chapel over to him. The talented pianist Nikolai Balykov was entrusted by the director with the post of accompanist while still in the upper grades and was taken along to important concerts.

Vasily Pavlovich lived with his family in the Kanavinsky district of Gorky, first at 27 Kommunisticheskaya Street, and later in a new flat at 7 Manufakturnaya Street. His grandson’s family lives there now.

An archive recording from 1966 with the voice of V. P. Malyshev can be heard in the radio programme “Sunny Voices”, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Gorky Boys’ Choir Chapel.

V. P. Malyshev’s grave is here.