Hryhory Alchevsky

Gregory Alchevsky (Ukrainian: Алчевський Григорій Олексійович; 1866–1920) was a Ukrainian composer. Alchevsky was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire, the son of the wealthy industrialist and banker Aleksey Alchevsky, and his wife Khrystyna Alchevska, a teacher who was a prominent activist for national education in Imperial Russia. Their six children were all musically gifted.

Alchevsky graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kharkiv University in 1887 and went on to study at the Moscow Imperial Conservatory. He was the friend of several Russian composers, including Sergei Rachmaninov, Alexander Scriabin and Alexander Goldenweiser. Alchevsky was a late Romantic movement composer. His most popular works were romances and settings of folk songs, which perpetuated the use of Ukrainian folk music into the 20th century. He worked as a music teacher and a singer, activities which acted to limit his output as a composer. He wrote a symphonic poem, , while his work Breathing Tables for Singers and their Application to the Development of the Basic Qualities of the Voice, first published in 1908, remains in print.

Biography Family

Gregory Oleksiiovych Alchevsky was born in 1866 in Kharkiv (then in Sloboda Ukraine in the Russian Empire, now in modern Ukraine). He was the son of a mining engineer, industrialist and banker Aleksey Alchevsky. was the daughter of a teacher,

There was an artistic atmosphere within the Alchevsky house. , son of the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko, once said: "to visit the salon of the Alchevskys is the same as a visit to the theatre" and observed that "the cream of the Russian Empire's intelligentsia gathered there", including pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninov during his visits to Kharkiv.

Gregory Alchevsky had five siblings—all six children were musically gifted. Their first music teacher was Lyubov Karpova, whom the family respected highly. Gregory's younger brother became an opera singer, an orchestral conductor, and a pianist.

Even when at the Conservatory, Alchevsky's compositions were noticed by the musical community. His friend Goldenweiser wrote of his fellow student as being "three heads above everyone else in terms of talent and instinct". According to Goldenweiser, his friend left the conservatory a month before graduating.

Career Alchevsky became increasingly well known in Russian musical circles. He was on friendly terms with Russian cultural figures such as the composer pianists Alexander Scriabin and Alexander Goldenweiser. His connections helped to popularise Ukrainian music. In Kharkiv, Alchevsky organized a balalaika orchestra and several amateur string orchestras.

Alchevsky's students included the singers Dmitry Aspelund, , and Sergei Yudin. He was also his younger brother Ivan's first vocal teacher.

Alchevsky's late Romantic movement compositions have a tendency towards Slavic-Ukrainian folk music. His most popular works were his settings of folk songs and his two cycles of romances, which were published privately in Moscow by the Kharkiv-born singer . In 1910, Grigory and Ivan Alchevsky created the Ukrainian musical and dramatic society "Kobzar" in Moscow. They and other artists wrote about and performed Russian and Ukrainian works. Apollon Maykov and Mikhail Lermontov. His work as a teacher reduced his output as a composer.

Publications Alchevsky's methodological teaching aids Vocal Technique in Daily Exercises (1907, Moscow) and Breathing Tables for Singers and their Application to the Development of the Basic Qualities of the Voice (1908, 1928, 1930, Moscow) have been used by musicians for over a hundred years.

Another work by Alchevsky, The most important wishes regarding voice education and conclusions from them, has not been studied.

(Vocal Technique in Daily Exercises) (1907); (Breathing Tables for Singers and their Application to the Development of the Basic Qualities of the Voice) (1908, republished in 1928 and 1930).