Aleksandra Pakhmutova

Alexandra Nikolaevna Pakhmutova was born on November 9, 1929 in the village of Beketovka near Stalingrad. Early, at the age of three and a half, she began to play the piano and compose music. The war that began in June 1941 interrupted her studies at the Stalingrad Music School. Despite all the difficulties of wartime, Pakhmutova went to Moscow in 1943 and was admitted to the Central Music School at the Moscow State Conservatory (then called the School of Gifted Children). This world-famous school gave a start in life to many outstanding masters of musical art. In the same class with Alexandra Pakhmutova, future laureates of international competitions E. Malinin, L. Berman, I. Bezrodny, E. Grach, Kh. Akhtyamova studied.

After graduating from a music school in 1948, A. Pakhmutova entered the Moscow State Conservatory, where she studied with the outstanding composer and unique teacher, Professor Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin. In 1953 she graduated from the conservatory, and in 1956 she completed her postgraduate studies with a dissertation on the score of M. I. Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila.

Alexandra Pakhmutova has been working in different genres all her life. She also wrote works for the symphony orchestra (Russian Suite, Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, Overture Youth, Concerto for Orchestra, Ode on Lighting a Fire, Music for the Bell Ensemble and Orchestra Ave Vita), and compositions of the cantata-oratorio genre (Vasily Terkin, Beautiful as youth country, cantatas for children's choir and symphony orchestra Red Pathfinders, Detachment Songs). The ballet Enlightenment was staged to the music of A. Pakhmutova at the State Academic Bolshoi Theater and at the Odessa State Opera and Ballet Theater.

Alexandra Pakhmutova wrote music for films: The Ulyanov family, On the other side, Girls, The apple of discord, Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman, Three poplars on Plyushchikha, Closing of the season, My love in the third year, Wormwood is bitter grass, Ballad about sports, Oh sport, you are the world! (official picture, commissioned by the International Olympic Committee, dedicated to the Olympics-80 in Moscow), as well as to the films Battle for Moscow, Son for Father.

Of particular, one might say, exceptional importance is the work of Alexandra Pakhmutova in the song genre. Raising lofty humanistic themes, the composer embodies them lyrically. Pakhmutova has her own individual intonation, which has a great impact on listeners. In the composer's songs there is that melodic "zest", which, as Evgeny Svetlanov noted, "immediately falls on the heart, remains in the mind for a long time." She always writes all the scores of her songs herself - whether it is a symphony orchestra or pop, an orchestra of folk instruments or a modern computer. Pakhmutova wrote: “Undoubtedly, without melodic talent, the composer has nothing to do in the song. It's a cruel law, but it's a law. But talent is not a guarantee. How the idea of ​​the song will be embodied, how its thematic grain will develop, how the score will be made, how the recording will be carried out in the studio - all these are not the last questions, and the image is also formed from all this.

Among almost four hundred songs created by the composer, the following are widely known: Song about disturbing youth; Geologists; The main thing, guys, is not to grow old with your heart!; The girls are dancing on deck; Power Line-500; Song-tale about Mamaev Kurgan; Farewell to Bratsk; Tired submarine; hugging the sky; We teach airplanes to fly; Tenderness; Eaglets learn to fly, Constellation Gagarin; You know what kind of guy he was; Smolensk road; My beloved; old maple; Good girls, Hot snow; Let us bow to those great years; Belarus; Bialowieza Forest; Sports heroes; Coward does not play hockey; Our youth team, Goodbye, Moscow! (farewell song of the Olympics-80); And the battle continues again, Melody; Hope; We cannot live without each other; How young we were; Vine; I stay; Love me; Russian waltz; Mother and son, Song about gentlemen and mistress and many others.

Among the authors of the lyrics of Alexandra Pakhmutova's songs are outstanding poets: L. Oshanin, M. Matusovsky, E. Dolmatovsky, M. Lvov, R. Rozhdestvensky, S. Grebennikov, R. Kazakova, I. Goff. But the most fruitful and constant is the creative union of A. Pakhmutova with the poet N. Dobronravov, which gave our song genre many bright, creatively original songs.

Pakhmutova's songs were performed and are performed by such talented and very diverse singers as L. Zykina, S. Lemeshev, G. Ots, M. Magomaev, Yu. Gulyaev, I. Kobzon, L. Leshchenko, E. Khil, M. Kristalinskaya, E. Piekha, V. Tolkunova, A. Gradsky, T. Gverdtsiteli, Julian, N. Mordyukova, L. Senchina, P. Dementiev, M. Pakhomenko, A. German, Yu. Bogatikov, V. Obodzinsky, V. Mulerman, I .Brzhevskaya, N.Babkina, G.Belov, V.Leontiev, S.Rotaru, L.Gurchenko, D. and N.Gnatyuk, R.Gareev, S.Belikov, M.Boyarsky, Biser Kirov. Her songs were and remain in the repertoire of such renowned groups as the Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble of the Russian Army named after A.V. Alexandrov, the State Russian Folk Choir named after Pyatnitsky, the Children's Choir of Gostelerad io under the direction of V. Popov, as well as the ensembles Pesnyary, Gems, Nadezhda, Verasy, Syabry, Flame, Hello, song!, Good fellows, Stas Namin's group, Living Sound group (Great Britain) and many others.

Several dozen author's records of the composer have been released. Among them are Gagarin's Constellation, Embracing the Sky, Taiga Stars, My Love is Sports, Bird of Happiness, Chance, records of music for films. A. Pakhmutova - the owner of the "golden" disc of the Melodiya company for the phonograph record of Alexandra Pakhmutova's Songs. In 1995, a CD was released with a recording of symphonic works performed by the State Academic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov (Melodia firm). In the same year, a CD with Pakhmutova's songs, How Young We Were, was released, and in 1996, the CD Glow of Love was released.

Not only songs, but also symphonic works of the composer are successfully performed abroad. Most often, foreign symphony orchestras include the Trumpet Concerto and the Russian Suite in their repertoire.

The active creative activity of A. Pakhmutova has always been successfully combined with social activities. For many years she was the chairman of the All-Union Commission of Mass Musical Genres. For more than twenty years, since 1968, she headed the jury of the International Red Carnation Song Contest. From 1968 to 1991 she was Secretary of the Board of the Union of Composers of the USSR, from 1973 to 1995 - Secretary of the Board of the Union of Composers of Russia. From 1969 to 1973 she was a deputy of the Moscow City Council, from 1980 to 1990 she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, she was elected a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. Public activity of A. Pakhmutova is not only work in the governing bodies of the Union of Composers and the Supreme Council, it is also hundreds, and maybe thousands of sponsored performances and meetings with workers, soldiers, students and sports youth, not registered by anyone, not counted by anyone.

A.N. Pakhmutova - People's Artist of the USSR (1984), laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1967), laureate of the State Prizes of the USSR (1975, 1982), Hero of Socialist Labor (1990). In 1976, a minor planet No. 1889, discovered by Crimean astronomers, was named after her and officially registered at the Planetary Center in Cincinnati (USA).

Lives and works in Moscow. Honorary citizen of Lugansk (1971), Ust-Ilimsk (1979), Volgograd (1993), Bratsk (1994), Moscow (2000).