Mitrofan Yefimovich Pyatnitsky

Mitrofan Yefimovich Pyatnitsky – a musician, performer and collector of Russian folk songs, and the founder of a choir. Honored Artist of the Republic. He was born on 21 June (3 July) 1864 in the village of Aleksandrovka in the Voronezh Governorate into the family of a church clerk. After receiving his education at the Voronezh Theological School, Pyatnitsky simultaneously studied vocal technique with Lev Mikhailovich Obraztsov, and after moving to Moscow he refined his skills under the direction of Camillo Everardi. From 1899 he lived on Bolshoy Bozheninsky Lane and worked as a clerical officer at one of Moscow's hospitals.

 

In 1902 Pyatnitsky founded a folk song ensemble. In 1903 he became a member of the musical and ethnographic commission of the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography. During numerous trips to villages, Pyatnitsky collected an extensive repertoire of folk songs. He recorded around 400 melodies on the phonograph alone, some of which were published in 1904 and 1914.

 

During World War I Pyatnitsky worked in a Moscow hospital that treated wounded soldiers. From among these patients he organized a "choir of invalids." From 1921 to 1925 Pyatnitsky taught singing at the Third Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre (now the E. B. Vakhtangov Theatre) and remained the choir's permanent leader until his death. Mitrofan Yefimovich Pyatnitsky died on 21 January 1927 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.