The Maestro and His Boys

Photo by Nikolai Moshkov

On 13 December Nizhny Novgorod said farewell to one of its most significant and brilliant citizens. At the age of 66, People’s Artist of Russia Lev Konstantinovich Sivukhin, head of the boys’ and youth choir chapel of the Nizhny Novgorod Choir School, passed away.

We spoke a month before the fateful day. Carefully steering away from words about himself, Lev Konstantinovich each time turned the conversation to his boys, without whom he could no longer imagine his life and for whom he lived.

Background: Lev Konstantinovich SIVUKHIN was born on 9 May 1935 in the city of Gorky. One of the first graduates of the boys’ choir chapel, he graduated from the music college and received his professional education at the Glinka Gorky State Conservatory. \nIn 1952 Lev Sivukhin became a choirmaster, and later artistic director and chief conductor of the boys’ chapel. \nLev Sivukhin combined his work at the Chapel with work at the Glinka Gorky State Conservatory in various positions (senior lecturer, associate professor, professor, head of the Department of Choral Conducting, and rector). \nIn 1973 he organised the chamber choir “Nizhny Novgorod”, which received municipal status in 1997. \nFor more than 20 years Lev Sivukhin led the choir of the V. P. Chkalov Palace of Pioneers, and for about 10 years he worked as leader of the choral ensemble of the House of Culture of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Gorky regional executive committee. \nFor 10 years the professor was one of the leaders of the All-Russian Creative Laboratory of Choirmasters at the Russian Ministry of Culture, a regular participant and jury chairman at various reviews and competitions, chief conductor of the combined choir of the “Male Brotherhood” international competition, and chief conductor of the combined choirs of Nizhny Novgorod and of the combined choir of the All-Russian competition “Singing Russia”. \nWith the boys’ chapel Lev Sivukhin took part in numerous tours and festivals in Russia, the CIS countries and abroad. \nLev Sivukhin was a member of the Union of Composers of Russia, a laureate of six international competitions, a laureate of the Nizhny Novgorod Prize, Honorary Citizen of Nizhny Novgorod and a holder of the Order of Honour. (according to the Nizhny Novgorod Telegraph Agency)

- Lev Konstantinovich, this year the Chapel turned 55. Can you recall now what the chapel boys of 1946 were like? \n- Then, in ’46, the boys were mostly from the orphanage. Many had fathers killed at the front and mothers who had died. Naturally, their character was a handful, and the boys’ nervous system was then somewhat different; they reacted to everything stormily, with heightened intensity. Just imagine: these were boys who had been taken across Lake Ladoga along the Road of Life, who had seen their mother die beside them… That does not pass without a trace! So the boys were nervous, overexcitable and, perhaps, over-free. As a result, after the first year of study, 20 were expelled with a formula like “for violation of labour discipline”.

- What has not changed in 55 years, and how does the Chapel of 1946 differ from the Chapel of 2001? \n- We never sang vulgarity, cheap hits. We never had that in our repertoire and never will. Inner culture is cultivated through music. We went to America for a festival and saw that we are an organism performing the most serious music, affecting the minds and souls of the listeners in the hall, making them rejoice or weep. And awareness of this has a positive effect on the boys. I do not know what they will become when they grow up, but that they will listen with understanding to classical music, and that through it they will somehow educate themselves inwardly, is a certainty.

And what has changed… Well, first, we now have a school, a large men’s group. We can sing works of different directions. Second, we can do “combined” projects, when the chamber choir, in which professionals already sing, joins us. In musical development, especially connected with music literature, we have come very far. Now our repertoire includes all the examples of the highest artistic level. We have already sung almost all the requiems, at any rate the best known. For example Mozart’s and Verdi’s, and that is generally considered a peak of performing art, to have such works in one’s repertoire.

- Have the demands on discipline grown? \n- The demands of the repertoire policy make us spend much more effort. And if effort, then attention, and so discipline. Children are completely different now… In terms of their attitude to one another. The friendship that we had is no longer there. It has survived only among us, the old men. Wherever we are, we will certainly find each other, certainly meet, talk. We were like brothers. “Male brotherhood”.

- Many of the boys live here too. Are they not cut off from life and from peers at “non-musical” schools? \n- They are not cut off from life. They are aware of all events because they get information both from television and by talking to peers. Besides… All our boys, when they go into the army, find army life much easier than their peers “from the street”. They are better adapted to such a life because they can do everything for themselves. On tour they look after themselves, since there are no mum and dad around. Plus discipline since childhood, the ability to get along with each other, and that is generally a great thing.

- What is the greatest difficulty for you in working with the boys? \n– In everything connected with rehearsals I feel no difficulty. They do their job. And they do it quite seriously. He stood there, sang and suddenly fell, and you have to be quick to catch him! He gave everything, gave all of himself, and had no strength left even to stay on his feet. After a concert the boys can neither eat nor sleep properly for a long time. They are excited, they have given everything…

Children, if they have come to believe in you, are devoted to you completely. Then you can mould them into whatever you want, especially if there is already some technical equipment and they already know the repertoire. And what a tenacious memory they have, in the best sense! And, coming back after 40 years, they suddenly fall into their places and straight away sing each his own part, the one he once sang, for example the second treble! That is the memory they have!..

Lev Konstantinovich Sivukhin gave the chapel boys 50 years of his life. And he died during a rehearsal.