Pavel Ivanov-Radkevich 1878-1972
IVANOV-RADKEVICH, Pavel Iosifovich—b. 4 (16) March 1878, St. Petersburg, Russia; d. 1 December 1942, Moscow, Russia. After receiving his early musical training as a resident chorister at the Kazan Cathedral, where Alexander Fateyev was the chief precentor, he was enrolled in 1894 into the choir school of the Imperial Court Chapel, where he studied until 1897. The Director of the Chapel’s school at the time was the composer Arensky, and members of the faculty included Liapunov, Liadov, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Upon completing music courses at the Chapel, rather than entering the St. Petersburg Conservatory, as everyone had expected him to do, Ivanov-Radkevich took a position as music teacher in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia (approximately halfway between Novosibirsk and Irkutsk), teaching and conducting at the Krasnoyarsk Teacher’s Seminary, the Krasnoyarsk Theological Seminary, the Railway Workers’ School, and the small military garrison church. His musical and pedagocical activities in Krasnoyarsk resulted in the formation of several choirs, a musical theater, and an orchestra, eventually culminating in the formation of the Krasnoyarsk People’s Conservatory in 1920 (now known as the Ivanov-Radkevich College of the Arts, named after its founder).
As a music educator and choral conductor, Ivanov-Radkevich’s compositional activity ranged from collections of sacred music arranged for village schools to complex cathedral-style compositions and chant arrangements reminiscent of the “new Russian choral style,” employing the full range of a large mixed choir. While his early works were published under the pseudonum P. Ivanov, his more mature works—approximately 20 known titles—were published by P. Jurgenson of Moscow, using his full surname Ivanov-Radkevich. Other works composed after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 remain unpublished and still await their discovery.
