Obituary, The Alexandrov Ensemble

News broke on Christmas Day of the tragic deaths of 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, including their conductor Valery Khalikov, in a plane crash off the Russian Black Sea coast.

The ensemble’s current name is taken from its founder, Alexander Alexandrov, but to most people it is far better known by the colloquial name under which it travelled the world throughout the Cold War – The Red Army Choir. The Choir was set up in the mid-1920s as a relatively small group centred around a vocal octet, but by 1933 it had grown to a full-sized male chorus with hundreds of instrumental and vocal musicians among its ranks.

Initially touring primarily within the Soviet Union (including numerous appearances at the front during World War II), the Choir began to perform in other countries on a large scale after 1948, and quickly became an instantly-recognisable symbol of Soviet musical culture to audiences on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Throughout the often strained political climate of the Cold War years their focus was always on cultural ambassadorship and on the unifying power of music; in 1990 they even participated in a concert marking the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The list of artists who have worked with the Choir is long and eclectic: Finnish rock group the Leningrad Cowboys, French singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman, Russian classical baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and many more (they also lent their distinctive sound to the soundtrack for the 1990 thriller The Hunt for Red October). Their popular recordings of Russian favourites such as Kalinka, Dark Eyes and Moscow Nights have helped cement their reputation around the world as an ensemble of the highest calibre.

To lose so many fine musicians at a stroke is a tragedy for music-lovers both in Russia and worldwide.

A selection of recordings by the Red Army Choir