For whom did Garlicov write children's choirs? Choir as a vocal organization

Pavel Chesnokov (1877–1944) also wrote secular music, but became famous primarily as an Orthodox church composer.

Last year, Russian music lovers celebrated the 135th anniversary of his birth, and in 2014 it will be 70 years since his death. For the second century now, his music has been inspiring souls and awakening hearts, and his encyclopedic work “The Choir and Its Management” is still a reference book for choral conductors. So, meet Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov

Hereditary Regent

The future composer was born in 1877 in the village of Ivanovskoye, Zvenigorod district, Moscow province, in the family of a local regent - conductor of a church choir. The Lord rewarded the boy with a ringing voice and an ear for music, thanks to which his singing “obedience” under the guidance of his father began at a very early age. At the age of seven, Pavel entered the Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing, where his mentors were the great choral conductors V.S. Orlov and S.V. Smolensky.

After graduating from college with a gold medal in 1895, the young regent worked in Moscow churches, gave singing lessons in gymnasiums and girls' boarding schools, and along the way studied composition with the master of polyphony S.I. Taneyev, who for many years was a professor and director of the Moscow Conservatory.

For about ten years, Chesnokov taught choral conducting at the Synodal School, at the same time holding the position of assistant regent of the Synodal Choir, and later conducted the chapel of the Russian Choral Society.

Under the leadership of Pavel Grigorievich, the choir at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Pokrovka became one of the best groups in Moscow: “They didn’t pay the singers, but the singers paid to be accepted into Chesnokov’s choir,” recalled the oldest Moscow choir director N.S. Danilov. In 1913, the magazine “Choral and Regency Affairs” enthusiastically wrote about the anniversary concerts dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the creative work of the famous maestro: “P.G. Chesnokov is a remarkable virtuoso in the matter of conducting a choir, and a most subtle artist. The choir sang simply and seriously, humbly and strictly.

...All shades are given as required by the inner feeling and musical beauty of each piece performed.”

Church of the Resurrection of the Word on Uspensky Vrazhek, where in the spring of 1944
The funeral service was held for the famous regent P.G. Chesnokova

Since the early 1900s, Pavel Chesnokov has become a recognized author of sacred music. He often goes on tours around the country, performing in concerts as a conductor, taking part in various regency courses and congresses.

Wide popularity in singing circles did not prevent the musician from continuing his education: in 1917, the 40-year-old composer and conductor received a diploma and a silver medal from the Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in the class of the legendary M.M. Ippolitova-Ivanov.

"Chorus and its management"

The revolution found the composer at the peak of his fame, in the prime of his life. The author of numerous spiritual and musical compositions, a regent who was honored to participate with his choir in the enthronement of Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Rus' in 1917, Chesnokov’s entire life and work were inextricably linked with the Church. The October events turned the page in the history of Orthodox Russia, and in its new, atheistic chapter, the work of the illustrious master became unnecessary and objectionable.

At first after the revolution, the works of Pavel Chesnokov were still heard in some places, but over the years the persecution of Church servants only intensified. The composer's creative activity is replaced by forced silence. Thoughts about emigration undoubtedly visited Chesnokov, especially after his younger brother Alexander moved to Paris, but Pavel Grigorievich, as a truly national artist, remained in Moscow.

From 1920 until the end of his life, Chesnokov taught choral conducting and dance studies at the Moscow Conservatory (from 1921 - professor), where he was invited by composer M.M. Ippolitov-Ivanov. In addition, he heads several amateur and professional groups, works as the chief choirmaster of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR, and directs the choir of the Moscow Philharmonic.

At the same time, during these years, the maestro was working on the book “The Choir and Its Management” - the most important theoretical work of his life. “I sat down to write a big book because, having worked for twenty years in the field of my favorite choral business, I realized that there is no science in our art, and I set myself a bold thought - to create, if not a science, then at least a true and solid foundation for it.” , he explained. The book was not published for a long time - the author was clearly not forgiven for composing sacred music and working as a regent! - and only in 1940 his fundamental research finally saw the light of day. The collection immediately became a bibliographic rarity: upon publication, the entire edition sold out in a matter of hours.

The last years of the master's life were full of need and deprivation. The composer, whose work brought joy and light to life - it is on these that all Orthodox worship is built - died in the early spring of 1944 in war-starved Moscow. The funeral service was held in the church on Bryusov Lane, and Pavel Grigorievich was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

Song of the soul

The legacy of Chesnokov, whose name is mentioned next to such luminaries as Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, includes about five hundred choral works. About a fifth of them is secular music: arrangements of folk songs, choirs and romances based on poems by Russian poets, and children's songs. But the main part of his work is spiritual works: his own chants and transcriptions of traditional chants of Orthodox worship. Among them are complete cycles of the Liturgy and the All-Night Vigil, the opuses “Praise the Name of the Lord,” “Great Doxology,” “To the Most Holy Lady” and other works included in the golden fund of church musical culture. In addition to chants, the composer composed ekphonetics (chanted reading, one of the ways of voicing texts of the Holy Scriptures not intended for singing), as well as lithium prayers and litanies for the deacon and mixed choir.

Chesnokov’s music is deeply national and original; each of his melody helps to convey the words of prayer to believing hearts. Exquisitely beautiful harmonies, deepest emotional coloring, sincerity in the expression of religious feelings - the inimitable style of his choral writing cannot be confused with anyone else. “This wonderful composer interpreted church music as prayer wings on which our soul easily ascends to the throne of the Most High” - words from the obituary in memory of Pavel Chesnokov, published in the April issue of the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” for 1944, best characterize the unique gift of the largest author of spiritual music of the twentieth century.

That's what Chesnokov said

A choir is a collection of singers whose sonority has a strictly balanced ensemble, a precisely calibrated structure and artistic, clearly developed nuances.

The bad or good attitude of the regent towards the singers and the singers towards the regent has a corresponding influence on the performance. After all, what is performance? This is the closest spiritual communication, a complete merging of the souls of the singers with the soul of the regent. The regent at the moment of performance is the sun, the singers are flowers. Just as flowers open and reach out to the sun, absorbing its life-giving rays, so singers at the moment of performance open their souls, accepting the radiation of the regent’s inspiration and becoming inspired.

This is interesting

Polyphony, which is an integral part of modern Russian Orthodox sacred music, penetrated into Russian church singing only in the 17th century. And before that, from the moment of the Baptism of Rus' in 988, in our country there was a monophonic, or unison, performance that came to us, like Christianity itself, from Byzantium. Singing in unison, rich and expressive in its own way, was called znamenny - from the ancient Slavic word “znamya” (the sign with which the melody was recorded). Visually, these signs resembled hooks of various shapes, which is why Znamenny singing was also called hook singing. This recording of sounds had nothing in common with the usual musical notation - neither in terms of the recording principle, nor in appearance. The culture of ancient singing manuscripts, which existed for more than 500 years, has long sunk into oblivion, but among modern musicians there are sometimes enthusiasts who search for and decipher the rare hook art, little by little returning Znamenny singing to church use.

P.G. Chesnokov - on the 30th anniversary of creative activity

Thank you for the Orthodox story,

For the faith of our native antiquity,

For a song consonant, glorious,

In a vision of the coming Spring.

Thank you for the burning flame -

Their prayer lives in silence.

Thanks for all the pleasures

Our rapturous soul.

We welcome you for many years,

May genius live forever

And the Eternal to us, many years old,

He sings to the joy of Russia.

Clergy and parishioners of the St. Nicholas Church on Arbat

Concept of choir

Many people believe that any group of randomly gathered people singing together is a choir. From the point of view of choral science, this is incorrect. This kind of performance can be called everyday or mass singing. As an artistic group, the choir must have a number of specific characteristics.

In methodological manuals on choral singing, many different definitions of the concept “choir” are given. Of greatest interest are the definitions of famous choral conductors: P. Chesnokov, V. Sokolov, K. Pigrova, V. Krasnoshchekov.

P. Chesnokov - “A choir is a collection of singers, in the sonority of which there is a strictly balanced ensemble, a precisely calibrated structure and artistic, clearly verified nuances.”

V. Sokolov – “A choir in the full sense of the word can be called a group that sufficiently masters the technical and artistic and expressive means of choral performance necessary to convey those thoughts and feelings, the ideological content that is inherent in the work performed "

K. Pigrov - “A choir is an organized group of singers, a creative team, the main goal of whose performing activity is the ideological, artistic and aesthetic education of the masses.”

These formulations highlight the most significant and important points for the choir. However, the question remains unclear: how does choral singing differ from other forms of vocal ensemble performance?

The choir is the largest vocal ensemble in terms of number of participants. But this is not the only peculiarity of the choir. Trios, quartets, octets are ensembles of soloists: each singer performs an independent voice line. In a choir, each voice line is performed not by one singer, but by a group of singers singing in unison, that is, together, as one voice, matching in pitch, rhythm, timbre, volume, and pronunciation of words. The unison nature of choral singing determines the originality of the choral sound and the peculiarities of the technique of choral performance. The movement of good unison, unity in the sound of voice groups is the starting point in working with a choir.

Based on this, V. Krasnoshchekov gives the following definition of the choir:

“The choir is a large vocal and performing group, which, through its art, truthfully, artistically, fully reveals the content and form of the works performed and, through its creative activity, contributes to the ideological and aesthetic education of the masses. As a musical performing “instrument,” the choir is an ensemble of vocal unisons.”

In the practice of choral singing, there are two forms of performance: singing without accompaniment (a cappella) and singing with accompaniment. Unaccompanied singing is considered to be the highest form of choral performance. Indeed, such singing requires great culture and technical skill from the choir. Independently, without the help of musical accompaniment, the choir must express the content of the work being performed. But it would be wrong to judge the skill and artistic maturity of a choral group solely on the basis of what percentage of its repertoire consists of unaccompanied works, or to judge the degree of difficulty of a choral work based on whether it is written unaccompanied or with accompaniment.

In works with accompaniment, accompaniment greatly facilitates performance. It helps the choir to intonate cleanly, maintain the correct rhythm, tempo, etc. But this is not the main meaning of the accompaniment. Accompaniment is one of the most important means of musical expression. In cases where the accompaniment lacks an independent image and basically duplicates the choral score, the work can be performed unaccompanied without losing its artistic qualities. There is no fundamental difference in working on one or another type of choral singing. In all cases, it is necessary to ensure that the choir sings purely, expressively, beautifully, so that it can sing any part of the work without accompaniment, even if it is not intended for performance without accompaniment.

“Not every gathering of singers can be called a choir.” These words are attributed to Pavel Chesnokov. He also composed secular music, but became famous primarily as an Orthodox church composer. His encyclopedic work “The Choir and Its Management” can be called the bible of choral conductors.

His name is mentioned along with the names of such luminaries as Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. Chesnokov's legacy includes about five hundred choral works. He wrote arrangements of folk songs, choruses and romances based on poems by Russian poets, and children's songs. But the main part of his work is spiritual works: his own chants and transcriptions of traditional chants of Orthodox worship. Among them are complete cycles of the Liturgy and All-Night Vigil, opuses “Praise the Name of the Lord,” “Great Doxology,” “To the Most Holy Lady” and other works included in the golden fund of church musical culture. Chesnokov’s music is deeply national and original; each of his melody helps to convey the words of prayer to believing hearts.

Of course, in the Soviet years, Pavel Grigorievich’s church music was not performed. But in the 80s, Chesnokov’s spiritual works began to penetrate the repertoire of academic choirs and stood the test of the strictest judgment - time.

Tatiana Klimenko

Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov is one of the largest representatives of Russian choral culture of the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries, a versatile choral figure - composer, conductor and teacher.

P.G. Chesnokov was born on October 24, 1877 in the village of Ivanovskoye, Zvenigorod district, Moscow province, in the family of an employee. The father combined his service with the work of a church regent in a small factory choir, where the boy’s musical development began. In 1886 he was assigned to the Moscow Synodal School, which he graduated brilliantly in 1895. In the same year, he began teaching at his native school (in 1901-1904 he was an assistant regent of the Synodal Choir and in 1895-1904 - a teacher at the Synodal School). Around the same years, the musician worked in two city primary schools for men, and later taught singing in women's educational institutions.

The choirmaster activity of P.G. Chesnokov began in 1900 in the Church of Cosma and Demyan in Shubin (near Tverskaya Street). From 1902 to 1914, he led the amateur choir at the Trinity Church on Mud, where he achieved significant results. Then, in 1915-1917, P.G. Chesnokov headed the Russian Choral Society (in 1916-1917 he also directed the choir of the Russian Choral Society), was invited to major cities of Russia to participate in concerts and to summer regency teacher courses in St. Petersburg (1911-1916 ).

During the Soviet era, the musician's performing activities reached new heights. Chesnokov led many professional choirs in Moscow: the Second State Choir (1919, 1921), the State Academic Choir (1922-1927), the working choir of Proletkult (1928-1932), worked as a choirmaster of the Bolshoi Theater, and directed the choir of the Moscow Philharmonic (1932-1933). ).

In the mid-1930s, Pavel Grigorievich worked in amateur choirs, achieving remarkable results in a number of cases (the choir of the Central Concert Hall and the Gorky Choir, etc.), conducted methodological courses for amateur performance leaders, and taught special choral disciplines at the School named after the October Revolution.

A characteristic quality of the performing appearance of the choirs led by Chesnokov was a light, beautiful, flying sound. Choral groups under his direction were distinguished by their excellent ensemble, structure, and subtlety of performance. The theoretical work of P.G. Chesnokov is widely known - “The Choir and Its Management,” on which the author worked from 1918 to 1929 (published in 1940). The manual for choral conductors summarized the author’s performing and teaching experience.

As a composer, Pavel Grigorievich graduated from the conservatory in 1917 with a silver medal. In the fall of 1920, Chesnokov joined the teaching staff of the Moscow Conservatory, where he worked until the end of his days. At the conservatory, he taught classes in solfeggio and theory (1920-1924), led a choral class (1924-1926; 1932-1934), participated in opera class productions, and taught a choral studies course he created (1925-1928). In 1932, having become a professor, he taught a special conducting class. Among his students: I. Litsvenko, G. Luzenin, Yu. Petrovsky, A. Pokrovsky, S. Popov, A. Khazanov.

The composer is from Peru about 360 chants, 18 works for mixed choir a cappella , 21 works for women's choir with piano, 20 children's songs, 21 romances.

In the last years of his life, the composer made 22 arrangements of Russian folk songs for soloists, mixed and male choirs a cappella , created about 20 chants and 4 romances. Many choral works were widely known and loved by performers during his lifetime. Spiritual opuses of P.G. Chesnov - two Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom for women's choir, opus 9 and 16; Liturgy of the Pre-illuminated Gifts, opus 24; Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, opus 42; Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, opus 50-a and All-Night Vigil, opus 50-b; and individual chants are the brightest examples of Russian musical culture.

The Russian history of the past century shows us wonderful examples of standing up for the faith. In Russia, during the atheistic regime, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christians accepted torture and death for Christ. But there were people whom the atheistic authorities did not dare to openly persecute. Nevertheless, their life was a stoic profession of faith and they managed to remain faithful to God. Such people include Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov.

P.G. Chesnokov was born in 1877 in a working-class village in the Moscow province. His father was a regent in the local church - conductor of the church choir. From a very early age, when the father began to take his little son to the service, Chesnokov’s singing ministry began.

It is significant that Pavel Grigorievich was born on the day of remembrance of the Monk Cosmas of Maium, a hymn writer who, according to Archbishop Philaret (Gumilevsky), “composed sweet, harmonious songs for the Church, with tireless deeds presenting himself as a harmonious psalter to the Lord.”

The Lord endowed the boy with excellent hearing and voice, and at the age of eight he entered the Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing. Pavel finishes it in 1895 with a gold medal.

After this, he worked as a regent in many churches in Moscow, taught in gymnasiums and colleges, and at the same time continued his musical education. For several years he has been taking composition lessons from S.I. Taneyev, and in 1913 he entered the Moscow Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1917 with a silver medal in the free composition class.

Chesnokov works a lot: he leads a choral conducting class at the Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing, teaches choral singing in primary and secondary schools, in addition, he directs the choir of the Russian Choral Society and serves as a regent in several church choirs. The Regency was the main thing in his life.

Could he have imagined at a time when Russia was still an Orthodox state that the coming revolution would overturn all the foundations of life, and his noble cause would become objectionable in his own country?..

The revolution found Chesnokov at the peak of his creative and vital powers and, of course, was a strong blow for him. Regent, composer, teacher - all his activities were entirely devoted to the Church...

In the early 20s, concerts from Chesnokov’s works were still held in some places, but as the persecution of the Church and believers intensified, it became clear that the previous creative activity was impossible. And what could be more painful for a real artist than forced silence?

At this time, many artists emigrated, and even his brother Alexander went to Paris, but Pavel Grigorievich, who undoubtedly had such an opportunity, remained in Moscow, and this was natural for someone whose work was deeply national.

He directs the Moscow Academic Choir, works as a choirmaster at the Bolshoi Theater, and teaches at the Moscow Conservatory and its school. And, of course, writes music.

Chesnokov was dearly loved by Muscovites. To confirm this, one can cite a fragment of congratulations on the 30th anniversary of his creative activity, which he received from the clergy and parishioners of the St. Nicholas Church on Arbat:

...Thank you for the Orthodox story,

For the faith of our native antiquity,

For a song consonant, glorious,

In a vision of the coming Spring.

Thank you for the burning flame -

Their prayer lives in silence.

Thanks for all the pleasures

Our rapturous soul.

We welcome you for many years,

May genius live forever

And the Eternal to us, many years old,

He sings to the joy of Russia.

According to experts, Pavel Chesnokov was a brilliant choral conductor. After graduating from the conservatory, Chesnokov begins to write the main work of his life - the book “The Choir and Its Management.” At the end of 1917, he writes: “God gave me the idea that I should write a book...” By 1926, almost all the work was completed. But the joy over the creation of the book was premature.

In 1930, he wrote to his brother Alexander in Paris: “...You probably remember that in December 1917 I began writing a big book - “The Choir and Its Management.” I, who had never written two lines for publication, sat down for writing a big book because, having worked for twenty years in the field of my favorite choral business, I realized that there is no science in our art. Having realized this, I set myself a bold thought - to create, if not a science, then at least a true and solid foundation for it.

The work, which lasted continuously for thirteen years, was full of sorrows and joys, because to discover laws and their systems means to exert the greatest stress, not only physical, volitional, nervous, but also the strain of the entire spiritual essence... I will be brief - the book was rejected, print it from I can’t have us in the USSR.

Cause? Apolitical. But, of course, this is not the reason. Everyone who needed it knew that I was not a politician, that I was a choir specialist and was writing a scientific and technical book. The real reason, in my opinion, is that it was written by Chesnokov, a former church regent and spiritual composer. And so the thought came to me - if it’s not possible here, with us, then maybe, maybe it will be abroad?..”

Pavel Chesnokov had rather tense relations with the Soviet authorities, but representatives of official state atheism in the Soviet Union could not help but see his great talent as a composer and choirmaster, and in 1931 permission to publish the book was nevertheless given. True, another nine whole years passed before it was published, full of moral suffering and upheaval.

In 1940, the book was finally published, but with a disapproving preface. He was never forgiven for his permanent regency... Be that as it may, since then it has remained a reference book for the world's leading conductors.

Despite the unequivocal attitude of the authorities towards him, Pavel Grigorievich enjoys enormous authority among fellow musicians, and in 1920 M.M. Ippolitov-Ivanov invites him to teach at the Moscow Conservatory. Standing at the origins of the creation of the department of choral conducting at the Conservatory, Chesnokov was the founder of the national choral school. In the period from 1917 to 1933, he led several professional and amateur groups.

With Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov and other famous masters of choral art. Moscow Conservatory, mid-1930s.

It cannot be said that the repressions did not affect him in any way. One day (in the late 30s), coming home in the evening, he said to his wife Yulia Vladislavovna: “Yulechka, pack your things, they’ll probably take me away soon.” - "What's the matter?" “Today I was called to the Lubyanka and asked to write anti-religious ditties.” - "And you?" - “Naturally, he refused.” But the Lord was merciful, and after this incident Chesnokov was no longer remembered “there.”

Pavel Chesnokov died in 1944 in Moscow. It was the time of the Second World War. The Moscow Conservatory, where he taught, was evacuated, but the composer refused to evacuate. He did not want to part with the church, with the regency, which was not possible everywhere at that time. Pavel Chesnokov revered church service above his own life.

Creative heritage of P.G. Chesnokov extensively. He wrote both secular and church music, but, first of all, gained fame as a church Orthodox composer. The church hymns he created are practically all the most important prayers of Orthodox worship (often in several versions). From them we can trace the development of Chesnokov’s compositional language. His writings are very different.

The early ones, performed by the Synodal Choir in the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral, are quite simple in musical composition and inspired by strict ancient chants. Later works are based on the same chants, but appear before us in a completely new form, thanks to various harmonization techniques. However, each creation of the composer surprisingly easily conveys the words of prayer to the hearts of both the simple and the sage. Chesnokov's creativity is deeply national and original.

The works of Pavel Chesnokov are very advantageous in concert terms. They allow singers to best demonstrate their vocal capabilities, which is why Russian opera stars, for example, Irina Arkhipova, a former soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, often turn to Pavel Chesnokov’s spiritual chants.

But this is not always good from the point of view of the church, because worship does not require spectacular and brightly colorful sound. On the contrary, they interfere with the depth and severity of prayer, and therefore are little compatible with worship. But this is where the universality of Pavel Chesnokov’s talent was revealed. He was cramped within narrow limits and the composer, by the grace of God, argued with the director of the church choirs. And this dispute did not always end with an unambiguous solution to the issue.

The name of Pavel Chesnokov is mentioned next to such famous names as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Taneyev, Ippolitov-Ivanov. All of them belong to the so-called Moscow school of composers. The music of these composers is characterized by deep lyricism and psychology.

Pavel Chesnokov was a highly qualified master of polyphony. Russian Orthodox sacred music as it exists today is predominantly polyphonic. Polyphony began to penetrate Russian sacred music in the 17th century. And before that, for six centuries, from the moment of the baptism of Ancient Rus' in 988, there was monophonic church singing, which came to Rus', like Christianity itself, through Byzantium.

The element of monophony was rich and expressive in its own way. Such singing was called znamenny singing from the ancient Slavic word “znamya”, which means “sign”. The “banners” were also called “hooks”. In Rus', sounds were recorded with the help of “banners” or “hooks,” and these signs actually resembled hooks of different shapes. This recording of sounds had nothing in common with musical notation, not only in appearance, but even in the recording principle. It was an entire culture that existed for more than 500 years and then, due to historical reasons, seemed to disappear into the sand.

Among modern musicians there are enthusiasts who search for ancient manuscripts in archives and decipher them. Znamenny singing is gradually returning to church life, but for now it is perceived more as a rarity, exotic.

To the credit of Pavel Chesnokov, it should be said that he also paid tribute to Znamenny singing, and this showed his sensitivity as a musician who sensed the prospect of musical historical development. He harmonized znamenny chants, trying to connect the past with the present. But still, in his musical and artistic essence, he belonged to his era and practiced polyphony.

Chesnokov is one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called “new direction” in Russian sacred music. Typical for him are, on the one hand, excellent mastery of choral writing, excellent knowledge of various types of traditional singing, and on the other hand, a tendency towards great emotional openness in the expression of religious feelings, even to the point of direct rapprochement with song or romance lyrics. The latter is especially typical for sacred works for voice and choir that are now very popular.

Modern musicians note the interesting musical language of Pavel Chesnokov, who created over 500 choral pieces.

“There are a lot of garlic sounds in churches, and this is not by chance,” says Marina Nasonova, regent of the Church of the Holy Silverless Cosmas and Damian in Moscow, candidate of art history. - This is a unique figure among composers of church music, because he combined a very good academic composition education with the highest compositional technique. At the same time, coming from a family of hereditary regents, he had been in church since childhood, served as a chanter and knew very well the applied church tradition. He had a keen sense of worship. His music is extremely deep in its spirituality.”

Valentin Maslovsky, director of the church choir of the Moscow Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, says: “He was an extraordinary person. He was the last regent of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the former Moscow Cathedral that was blown up during Stalin's time. When the temple was destroyed, Pavel Chesnokov was so shocked by this that he stopped writing music. He took a kind of vow of silence.

As a composer, he died with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The most magnificent musician, Pavel Chesnokov very subtly felt every word, every verse, every prayer. And all this was reflected in the music.”

One of the composer’s best creations, “May my prayer be corrected...” became such a crystal-clear reflection.

CD cover Panikhida CD -

In the constellation of names of famous composers of Russian sacred music, there is one name, when uttered, many Russians feel warmth and bliss in their hearts. This name has not been overshadowed by others, sometimes very famous names; it has stood the test of the strictest court - the impartial Court of Time. This name - Pavel Grigorievich Chesnokov.

Chesnokov was born on October 25, 1877 in the village of Ivanovskoye, Zvenigorod district, Moscow province. Already in childhood, he discovered a wonderful voice and bright musical abilities. At the age of five, Pavel began singing in the church choir, of which his father was the choir director. This helped him enter the famous Synodal School of Church Singing, which became the cradle of many outstanding figures of Russian choral culture. Here his teachers were the great V.S. Orlov and the wise S.V. Smolensky. After graduating from college with a gold medal (in 1895), Chesnokov studied composition privately with S.I. for four years. Taneyev, simultaneously working as a teacher of choral singing in women's boarding schools and gymnasiums. In 1903, he became the choir director at the Church of the Trinity on Pokrovka (“on Gryazi”). This choir soon gained fame as one of the best in Moscow: “They didn’t pay the singers, but the singers paid to be accepted into Chesnokov’s choir,” one of the Moscow regents later recalled.

For many years, Chesnokov, while continuing to work in Moscow (during these years he also presided over the Church of Cosmas and Damian on Skobelevskaya Square), often traveled around Russia: he acted as a conductor of spiritual concerts, conducted classes at various regency and regency-teacher courses, and participated in the work of regency congresses. It was the regency business that was central to the life and work of the renowned master of church singing. But he himself was never satisfied with himself, and therefore in 1913, being already widely known throughout singing Russia, the 36-year-old composer of sacred music entered the Moscow Conservatory. Here he studied composition and conducting with M.M. Ippolitov-Ivanov and instrumentation with S.I. Vasilenko. Chesnokov marked his fortieth birthday in 1917 by graduating from the conservatory in the free composition class (with a silver medal), having in his creative portfolio about 50 opuses of sacred and secular music. And in the same year, it was Chesnokov and his choir who received the honor of participating in the enthronement of Patriarch Tikhon.

The master's subsequent activities were filled with painful attempts to find a place for himself in a new, radically changed life: conductor and artistic director of various Moscow choirs (but nowhere for a long time), teacher at a music school and the People's Choral Academy (formerly the Synodal School), professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Until 1931, he was regent at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and in 1932 he became the first head of the department of choral conducting at the conservatory. In 1933, Chesnokov’s book “The Choir and Its Management” was completed and in 1940 published (and sold out within a few hours) - the only major methodological work of the famous choral figure. It summarized the many years of invaluable experience of the author himself and his fellow synodals. For many years, this work (though without the chapter on regency practice removed by the author at the request of the publisher) remained the main manual for the training of domestic choirmasters. All this time he continued to compose sacred music, however, no longer for performance or publication, but only for himself.

The last years of the composer's life were the most dramatic: mental suffering was increasingly drowned out by alcohol, in the end his heart could not stand it, and one of the most soulful lyricists of Russian sacred music found his rest in the old Moscow Vagankovsky cemetery...

Assessing Chesnokov’s multifaceted, original talent, contemporaries noted in him a unique combination of various qualities, both musical and “great human”: strict professionalism and deep respect for his work, enormous musicality, brilliant artistic talent, a magnificent refined ear and, also, spiritual purity , sincerity, deep humanity and respect for people. And all these qualities were reflected in one way or another in his music, just as his characteristics as a choirmaster, conductor, and performer were reflected in it.

Among Chesnokov’s works there are romances and children’s songs (just remember the charming cycle “Galina’s Songs”), there is piano music, and among student works there are instrumental works and symphonic sketches. But most of the opuses were written in the genre of choral music: choirs a sarrella and with accompaniment, arrangements of folk songs, transcriptions and editions.

Chesnokov in his work turned to two directions of choral music: church and secular; in total, the composer created about 500 choral works. He wrote over 60 mixed choirs (secular) a cappella, the content of which is a complacent and contemplative perception of nature (Dawn is warming, August, Night, Winter, Alps), of a somewhat different nature - Dubinushka, but here too Chesnokov softens the socially pointed text of L. Trefolev . Some choruses are written in the folk spirit: Forest (lyrics by Koltsov), Beyond the fast river, Not a flower withers in a field (lyrics by A. Ostrovsky). Chesnokov made complex, concert-type arrangements of Russian folk songs (Hey, let's whoop, There was a birch tree in the field, Oh, you, birch, etc.), soloists often participate in them (Oh, you, the canopy, Kanava, A little girl walked, Luchinushka and Dubinushka and etc.). In connection with his teaching work in women's boarding schools, Chesnokov wrote more than 20 women's choirs with extensive piano accompaniment. (Green Noise, Leaves, Uncompressed Strip, Peasant Feast, etc.). Several male choirs of Chesnokov - arrangement of the same works with a mixed composition.

The most important part of his heritage is sacred music. In it the composer's talent and soul found the most perfect, deepest, most intimate embodiment.

Entering the galaxy of composers of the so-called new Moscow school of church music, Chesnokov is still noticeably different from them. Like Kastalsky, who constructed a special (partly speculative) “folk modal system” and used it in his secular and spiritual compositions, Chesnokov “built”, or rather, syntonized his own system, built on easily recognizable melodic and harmonic turns of Russian urban song and everyday romance of the late 19th century. Unlike Grechaninov, who created a special monumental temple-concert style of sacred music, based on the vocal-instrumental polyphony of orchestral writing, Chesnokov creates the no less rich polyphony of his compositions exclusively on the unique originality of the singing voices a sarella, imperceptibly dissolving the dome “echoes” into the choral sonority » temple acoustics. Unlike Shvedov, who imbued his spiritual compositions with the “delights” of romantic harmony and rational design of form, Chesnokov never succumbs to the temptation to compose for the sake of demonstrating authorship, but always follows his lyrical, sincere, childish, slightly naive musical instinct. Unlike Nikolsky, who often complicated the church-singing style by using brightly concert, purely orchestral writing techniques, Chesnokov always preserves in purity the unique, entirely Russian vocal-choral style of temple sonority. And yet he approaches the text like an astute playwright, finding in it monologues, dialogues, lines, summaries and many stage plans. Therefore, already in his Liturgy, Op. 15 (1905), he discovered and brilliantly applied all those dramatic techniques that Rachmaninov would use 10 years later in the famous “Vespers.”

And there is, among many others, one fundamental feature of Chesnokov’s vocal-choral writing. Whether a soloist sings or a choral part sounds, this statement is always personal, i.e., essentially, solo in nature. Chesnokov's melodic talent is not characterized by developed melodies (with the exception of quoting everyday tunes), his element is a short motive, less often a phrase: sometimes of a recitative-ariot nature, sometimes in the spirit of an urban romance song. But any melody requires accompaniment, and the role of such accompaniment is played by all other choral voices. Their task is to highlight, interpret, decorate the melody with beautiful harmony - and it is precisely admiring the beautiful, “spicy”, romantically refined harmony that is characteristic of Chesnokov’s music. All these features indicate that Chesnokov’s music belongs to the genre of lyricism - often sentimental, expressive in its improvisational and everyday origins, and personal in the nature of the statement.

Most of all, this statement becomes romantically moving and artistically convincing when the composer uses the concerto genre by entrusting the solo part to a separate voice. Chesnokov's legacy includes many choral concerts for all types of voices. Particularly notable among them is the six-concert opus 40 (1913), which brought the author truly boundless fame and glory (especially thanks to the unique concert for bass-octavist accompanied by a mixed choir). At the same time, much more often one can observe in Chesnokov’s works diverse manifestations of the principle of concert performance, based on the maximum identification of the group performing capabilities of the parts that make up the choir. Opus 44, “The Most Important Hymns of the All-Night Vigil” (1913), can be classified as works of this kind. It is significant that both of these opuses, completed in the year their author began studying at the Moscow Conservatory, not only demonstrate a new level of Chesnokov’s compositional skills, but also testify to his unique attitude to the genres of sacred music, built on the creative combination of domestic church singing traditions and the latest achievements musical art.

His unsurpassed knowledge of the nature of the singing voice, the peculiarities of the expressive means of individual choral parts and the choir as a whole gave him the richest opportunity to create works in which the richness of timbre colors and the captivating beauty of choral singing were maximally revealed. Characteristic of Chesnokov's works is the mastery of choral writing, the identification of the colorful possibilities of the choir, the desire for acoustic euphony; his choirs are distinguished by the breadth of their range, the use of low basses (octavists), and the use of divisions. Chesnokov uses bright harmonic means, comparison of tonalities, imitation, and complementary rhythm.

A remarkable feature of Chesnokov’s music is its simplicity and accessibility, its recognition and heartfelt closeness. She delights and elevates, cultivates taste and corrects morals, awakens souls and inspires hearts. Having gone through a long and difficult path together with the land that gave birth to it, this music still sounds bright and sincere today. Because, as it was said in the obituary of the composer’s memory, published in the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” in April 1944, “without striving for any external effects, Chesnokov inspired the words of prayer petitions and doxologies with the simplest melodies, sounding from the depths of pure and perfect harmony. (...) This wonderful composer conceptualized church music as prayer wings on which our soul easily ascends to the throne of the Most High.”

His name is mentioned next to such famous names as P. Tchaikovsky, S. Rachmaninov, S. Taneev, M. Ippalitov-Ivanov, all of them belong to the so-called Moscow school of composers. The music of these composers is characterized by deep psychologism and lyricism, love of nature, and the ability to recreate its unique features through the language of art (in this case, through musical means). Many musical theorists compare Pavel Chesnokov with wonderful Russian landscape painters: Savrasov, Levitan. Currently, many of P. Chesnokov’s compositions are widespread in concert and pedagogical practice.

In style Vic. Kalinnikova two main trends clearly emerge: the first - melodic, coming from Tchaikovsky, in particular from his romances, is clearly felt in the composer’s landscape lyrics (“Elegy”, “Winter”, “Autumn”, “Lark”, etc.), and the second - epic, coming from Borodin (“Forest”, “On the Old Mound”, “Condor”, “Oh, what honor to the fellow”, etc.). The melody of Kalinnikov's choirs is close to urban and sometimes peasant songs. The choral texture is very varied: an incomplete choir is occasionally used; the melody is often carried out in different parts in the form of “roll calls”; the organ point is used not only in the lower, but also in the upper voices, at different degrees of the scale. Among other characteristic features of his choral writing, one can note a pronounced desire for strophicity, that is, for the design of each stanza of the text with new musical material, and the intense melodization of voices with a generally harmonic texture.

Already from these very sketchy characteristics it is clear that in Russian choral music of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Not only collective, but also individual styles are quite clearly visible.