1883–1946
○ Sudden death
From choirboy to Soviet anthem composer, founder of the Red Army Choir
26 June 1941: the first performance of 'The Sacred War' at Belorussky Railway Station. Soldiers listened in silence, then demanded it five times in succession.
Born to peasants in Ryazan, he began as a choirboy at Kazan Cathedral. He studied under Glazunov in St. Petersburg and Vasilenko in Moscow, becoming a Conservatory professor who shaped Soviet choral education. In 1928 he founded the Red Army Song and Dance Ensemble (the Alexandrov Ensemble) combining male choir, mixed orchestra and ballet into a unique military-cultural institution. Days into the 1941 German invasion he composed 'The Sacred War,' the unofficial battle hymn of the Red Army. In 1943 he adapted his 'Hymn of the Bolshevik Party' into the USSR State Anthem, adopted in 1944 and reinstated as Russia's anthem in 2000. From church liturgy to the most solemn musical emblems of the Soviet state, his trajectory was singular.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1900Graduated from Imperial Court Chapel regency classes, qualified as choirmaster (regent)
- 1913Graduated from Moscow Conservatory, composition (large silver medal)
- 1918–1922Choirmaster, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow
- 1922Professor, Moscow Conservatory
- 1928–1946Founder, music director, artistic director, chief conductor of the Red Army Ensemble
- 1940Dean of Conducting & Choral Faculty, Moscow Conservatory; Doctor of Arts
- 1943Promoted to Major General
- 1944Music of the USSR State Anthem officially adopted
Related historical events
Building and leading the Red Army Ensemble
Alexandrov was a founder and the first musical director of the Red Army Song Ensemble, whose inaugural concert took place at the Red Army Central House on 12 October 1928. Its initial twelve members comprised an eight-man vocal octet, two dancers and two musicians. Alexandrov envisaged a collective combining a male choir, orchestra and dance group; by the end of 1935 it had grown to 135 singers, musicians and dancers. In 1937 the ensemble made its first foreign tour at the Paris International Exposition, giving fifteen concerts, thirteen of them in Paris.
Soon after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Alexandrov set Vasily Lebedev-Kumach’s poem to music as “The Sacred War.” The ensemble first sang it for soldiers departing for the front at Moscow’s Belorussky railway station. During the war its strength grew to more than 300 performers, organized into four independent groups that could perform for troops on different fronts. The ensemble gave more than 1,400 wartime concerts, including 742 at the front. The new Soviet anthem, whose music Alexandrov composed, was first broadcast on New Year’s Eve 1944 and performed by the ensemble under his direction. After Alexandrov’s death in 1946, his son Boris succeeded him as its leader.