Lydia Davydova
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Lydia Anatolyevna Davydova (19 January 1932) is a Russian soprano and a chamber music performer. People's Artist of Russia (2001). Artistic director of the "Madrigal" early music ensemble. Lives in Moscow, Russia. Biography and career
Davydova’s father, a chemical engineer, and her mother, a singer,
had left their daughter an orphan when she was only 14. Her aunt, the
singer M. Hortik, and her mother’s cousin, the famous Russian pianist,
music teacher and composer Samuil Feinberg, played a crucial part in her life and upbringing.
As a child she studied piano at a music school in Leningrad, later at the music college associated with St. Petersburg Conservatory, and later yet at the college associated with Moscow Conservatory.
In 1957 she graduated from Moscow Conservatory, where she studied piano
performance with Nina Emelyanova (a former student of Feinberg's).
Despite her lifelong desire to become a singer and the lessons she took
with M. Hortik, for a long time Davydova’s vocal talent remained
unappreciated. Eight times she applied to vocal departments of the Conservatory and other music colleges in Moscow but was not admitted. While studying piano at the Conservatory
she took lessons with the legendary voice couch Dora Belyavskaya, who
also doubted that Davydova would ever become a professional singer.
The key role in "discovering” Davydova as a singer belongs to the composer Andrei Volkonsky. The first performance of his Mirror Suite
at the Moscow Conservatory (1962) became the debut and an astounding
success of the singer. In the following years she participated in
various concert projects of the composer. In 1965 Volkonsky
founded an early music ensemble, "Madrigal”, with Davydova as its
soloist. The ensemble has pioneered performance of the Renaissance and
Early Baroque vocal music in the USSR. After Volkonsky
had emigrated to France in 1972, Davydova directed "Madrigal” until
1983 and again returned as the ensemble’s artistic director in 1992.
During performances of the ensemble she often accompanies other
soloists on a harpsichord. Davydova remains the follower and one of the
principal keepers of Volkonsky’s artistic creed in Russia.
Davydova focuses primarily on performing the most difficult vocal
chamber music. In parallel with performing early music with "Madrigal”,
she performed works by the 20th century composers as a soloist. She was
the first to introduce Soviet listeners to vocal works of the
contemporary Western composers: Charles Ives, Béla Bartók, Luciano Berio, Anton Webern, John Cage, and Paul Hindemith. She also sang chamber music of contemporary Russian avant-garde composers. She has premiered works by Andrei Volkonsky (Mirror Suite, 1962, Laments of Shchaza, 1964?), Edison Denisov (Sun of the Incas, fp 1964) [1], Dmitri Smirnov (The Handful of Sand, fp 1971; The Sorrow of Past Days, fp 1977; The Seasons, fp 1980; Fearful Symmetry, fp 1981; Song of Destiny, fp 1981; Six Poems, fp 1986),[2] Sofia Gubaidulina (Roses, fp 1974), Alfred Schnittke (Three Scenes, fp 1981), and Vyacheslav Artyomov (Invocations, 1981?).
Personal life
Husband: Leonard Daniltsev (1931—1997), a writer and an artist. Children: Gleb Daniltsev (1968) and Mariana Daniltseva (1972).
Discography
CD
- 2003 — Andrei Volkonsky: Mirror Suite;
- 2003 — Edison Denisov: Les Pleurs;
- 2005 — Igor Stravinsky: Songs (Alexey Lubimov, piano);
- 2007 — Béla Bartók: Vocal Cycles (Alexey Lubimov, piano).
Notes
- ^ Edison Denisov by Yuri Kholopov and Valeria Tsenova. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995
- ^ "Dmitri Smirnov: A Complete Catalogue". http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dmitrismirnov/Smirnov_Catalogue.pdf.
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