By Olga Fyodorova
…On a fine sunny day in autumn 1966 the streets leading to the Conservatory
Big Hall in Moscow were jam packed with people eager to get in. There was
a police cordon barring the way and inviting surprised gazes from he passers
by…
“What are the police doing there at the Conservatory entrance?” - one of
them wondered.
“There’s a historical thing they are having there tonight… Alexander Yurlov’s
choir singing Russian church music…”
“Oh, I see… Small wonder there’s such a throng out there! Gee, there are
priests coming in too! Jesus!…”
“There they are, filing in one by one all resplendent in festive church
vestments…”
“How come Yurlov managed to get permission, I wonder?! I haven’t
heard any church music played here in a lifetime!”
“It’s Yurlov we are talking about, don’t you remember? He’s more than just
a great musician, he’s a phenomenal organizer too! Really, it must have
taken a man of his stature to make those paper pushers in the Kremlin realize
that old Russian church music is our history, our culture, our national
heritage. Well, they outlawed the Church, because that’s where our operas,
symphonies and cantatas all come from. Tchaikovsky, Rakhmaninoff and other
Russian composers wrote church music and the Communists simply threw it
all out as if this music never existed. For a whole fifty years it
was under wraps and here comes Yurlov digging up the old scores, rehearsing
the old chants and now playing it in public...”
The performance was a deafening success drawing a standing ovation from
stunned audiences. It looked as if the legendary Atlantis was rising up
majestically from the deep wowing everyone with its fairy-tale beauty…
Alexander Yurlov had always dreamed of bringing up the long hushed up church
music. Attending a choir school under the Leningrad Chapel, he wanted to
lay his hands on the old scores no one was allowed to see. Intrigued,
the boy once hid behind one of the huge bookcases and, ignored by the bookkeepers,
spent the night in the depositary. There he could finally sift through
the old manuscripts containing Russian church music written in the 17th,
18th and 19th centuries. The would-be choirmaster avidly studied
the notation and, deep inside, he could already hear it all happening…
He knew that, some day, he would play it in big concert halls. 25 years
later this dream finally came true….
Alexander Yurlov’s way to success was long and arduous. Graduating with
honors from the Moscow Conservatory he went on to lead a big choir formed
by his teacher Alexander Sveshnikov. Quickly tiring of his second place
position there, he started looking for a project that would be all his
own…
Alexander was only 30 when he was offered to lead the Russian Choir. Despite
it’s grand name, the choir was a pretty mediocre outfit and previous conductors
had had little success in making it happen. Under Yurlov’s guard, the choir’s
was sounding better and better each day…
Concert after concert, they started filling the halls, each performance
coming as a revelation…
Three years later, Yurlov’s choir was already riding high as Russia’s very
best...
They were expanding their repertory all the time and had the country’s
leading composers writing for them, including Georgy Sviridov who wrote
his Kursk Songs lyrical cantata expressly for the Yurlov Choir.
The Yurlov Choir offered the best ever performance of Sviridov’s Oratorio
Pathetique. Looking for a very special, universal monumentality, Yurlov
often enlisted the help of additional choirs to materialize his longtime
dream of having the oratorio sung by thousands of voices in large squares
and at big stadiums. The resulting effect was absolutely astounding!
During his 14 years with the Russian Choir, Alexander Yurlov churned out
a total of 70 premieres of cantatas, oratorios, Masses and other major
compositions. Add to this a staggering 600-plus new miniatures and
thousands of pieces written at various times and in different styles and
you will be able to appreciate the sheer magnitude of this selfless effort!
Knowing all this it’s really hard to believe that Alexander Yurlov also
led the choir-conducting department at the Gnessins Music Institute in
Moscow where he set up a special department to train Russian folk choirmasters
thus encouraging the young musicians to face their national roots and the
tried and true folk traditions of their people. The department is hugely
popular these days…
Alexander Yurlov also headed the National Choir Society organizing all
kinds of choir and song festivals all across Russia. A born workaholic,
Yurlov never missed a beat and was always in the spotlight of public attention
awing everyone with his bubbling energy and hard to find talents of a musician
and organizer…
Alexander Yurlov was a man of unique character and inner strength – a real
powerhouse who never took “no” for an answer and always went all the way.
His phenomenal workability was absolutely unbelievable…
He was an envied man, no doubt about that, but there was absolutely no
way one could catch up with him…
Well, he might have looked too self-assured casually kicking open the doors
of high offices and quickly making deals with the most intractable officials.
What this really cost him only his loved ones knew though…
Each his day was an endless monotone of meetings, sittings, conferences,
teaching, rehearsals, concerts with the night hours normally reserved for
studying the news scores. He never slept more than five hours a day going
to bed late and getting up with the sun…
On February 2, 1973 he did not wake up in the morning. Fatigued by years
of overwork, his heart had stopped beating... Alexander was only 45… His
death was a bitter shock to millions of music lovers all across the nation…
The Russian Choir, now the Alexander Yurlov Choir, is no longer the one
it used to be under the great Master. The thrill is gone, just like the
amazing sound, which once made Russia’s best choir so special…
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