Alexander Arkhangelsky

Alexander Arkhangelsky (1846 – 1924) was a Russian composer of church music and a conductor. He received his initial musical education at the Penza Theological Seminary. Later he taught singing in the Penza Seminary. From 1873, he served as conductor of a number of church choirs in St. Petersburg. In 1880, Arkhangelsky organized his own choir in St. Petersburg, replacing boys’ voices with women's. He toured with this choir in Russia and abroad, performing Russian and Western sacred music, secular choruses and arrangements of folk songs. Arkhangelsky made an important contribution to Russian choral and church singing: beginning with simple arrangements of church chants, which included the complete cycle of hymns for the entire year, he later enriched the so-called “St. Petersburg style” of church music with more complex free compositions, many of which are modelled after traditional Western European polyphony. Among his works are over 300 sacred compositions and arrangements of church chants, many of which are published in the form of complete liturgical cycles, (Divine Liturgy, the All-Night Vigil, the Memorial Service, etc.). Arkhangelsky also composed a number of secular choruses a cappella and arrangements of Russian folk songs.