With the light hand of journalists, Alexandra Nikolaevna Pakhmutova is called "the woman who is sung" and "the daughter of the USSR." Her works can really be used to study the history of our country. And “The main thing, guys, is not to grow old in heart” is a song that became the fate of little girl Ali from Beketovka, who in the distant 30s traveled from the outskirts to the center of Stalingrad to a music school … on a cart.
In appearance, an incredibly fragile little woman and a talented composer Alexandra Nikolaevna Pakhmutova was able to take a big place in the life of a huge country and became a symbol of Soviet creativity. She has experienced both happy and difficult years, but has served and continues to serve exclusively music. Experts say that the fate of a popular song is estimated at three to five years. Pakhmutova's songs have been sung for decades. They are not destined to grow old, despite the change of generations, countries and eras.
Alexandra Nikolaevna met her future husband, the famous songwriter Nikolai Dobronravov in 1956. In the 9th studio of children's broadcasting of the All-Union Radio, it was necessary to record a children's song about the summer holidays "Motor boat", which the composer and poet were asked to compose for the competition. Since then, as many joke, on this boat together they sailed along the waves of life. For more than six decades, spouses have been experiencing joys and sorrows, having managed to preserve feelings filled with tenderness and respect for each other.
Pakhmutova says: “We don't have any special recipe for family happiness. We just try not to be principled and not to find fault with trifles. " Everyone around them says that the ideal “long-playing” married couple “has been writing one piece all their lives - a symphony of family life”: the wife is filled with music, the husband is scattered with poetry. Alechka and Kolechka - this is how they call each other from their very youth to this day. And the quintessence of their relationship is in the song: "We cannot live without each other."
The spouses never had either their own or adopted children. This topic is closed by both of them to all interviewers, publicists and biographers. But it never even occurs to anyone to discuss this aspect of the couple's personal life, since they decided to protect it from the unnecessary glances of strangers. Alexandra Nikolaevna and her husband realize their enormous parental potential in creativity, moreover, “one hundred percent” with a vengeance. These are texts and music of more than 400 songs composed by wartime children - a Leningrad resident Kolya Dobronravov and a girl from Stalingrad Alya Pakhmutova. And the huge creative work of the famous composer and poet with children's choir and orchestral groups, young talented soloists. The spouses are very attentive to promising children, they always take care of young musicians and singers. Therefore, for many of them, they became second parents.
The famous creative alliance and the married couple - Alexander Pakhmutov and Nikolai Dobronravov - have a family and are on the same level with their careers. Setting themselves the task of looking for talents and helping them start their way in art, they clearly understand that children taken "under the wing" need further training and creative development. The biggest project of the composer is the White Steamer charitable festival program. A large-scale social project supports musically gifted children with a difficult fate, aged 5 to 18, provides an opportunity to receive a professional musical education, promotes the rehabilitation of children with disabilities by means of art. Until his death, their friend, actor Sergei Yursky, helped Pakhmutova and Dobronravov in this.
Every summer for 3 weeks a ship traveling along the river becomes a home for the project participants. The result of the vocal school is a gala concert held at the end of each voyage of the White Steamer. The famous maestro Valery Gergiev, teachers of the Academy of Choral Art named after V. I. V. S. Popov. Acting classes are conducted by Honored Artist of Russia and Artistic Director of the "Theater in the South-West" Oleg Leushin. Soloists Nikolai Didenko and Sergei Radchenko, as well as the Quatro vocal group and other popular groups, help children master the subtleties of solo singing.
The geography of the charitable project, in which more than 800 children have already taken part, stretches from the Far East to the Kaliningrad region. Graduates of the "White Steamer" enter the leading musical educational institutions in Russia and abroad. One of the participants of the competition, Ilya Litvinov, performed in the show “Voice. Children”on Channel One, became an actor in the Moscow theater and has already played one of the main roles in“The Ballad of the Little Heart”. In social networks, the young man told how several years ago at the Vostochny cosmodrome he took part in the filming of the video for the song by Pakhmutova and Dobronravov “You know what kind of guy he was”. Performing it on the project in the presence of the authors was very exciting and responsible. Imagine the joy of the aspiring singer when he heard the opinion of Pakhmutova, who was on friendly terms with the first cosmonaut. “I did not expect that Alexandra Nikolaevna would have tears in her eyes and that she would say so many warm words. She said that if Gagarin was alive, he would like it,”he noted.
Pakhmutova supports performers in the Blue Bird television project. In a special edition of the program "Children of Russia - Children of Donbass" young singers performed to the accompaniment of the creator of the music they performed.
A tiny woman with such a great singing talent once managed, unknowingly, to help the little girl get rid of the complex. This is what Elena Klopova said in social networks: “My childhood is a music school, concerts, tours. I have never been a tall girl, especially there was no one. Therefore, in the choir, she took a place on the far left, in the first row (usually the small ones hang out there). The beginning of the important concert, in which we will be filmed. They arrange the choir and I understand that the little one will not be visible at all - the place in front of me is honorably occupied by the piano. I think, what kind of fate I have … Applause, Alexandra Pakhmutova comes on stage. And there is no limit to my surprise - we are of the same height! Well, having sat down at the instrument, she calmed me even more. And when the music sounded and I saw how she played, it seems to me that I sang the best))). Many years have passed since then, I have matured and am very grateful to my parents that I am who I am."
Many of those who started their path to professional singing in the Big Children's Choir of the All-Union Radio and Central Television have long since grown up and have become artists, music and singing teachers. And also the parents of the children whom they brought to study at the Viktor Popov Choir Academy. Pakhmutova constantly replenishes the repertoire of this group. Among the completely new ones is a song for kids called "Primer".
Under the patronage of the composer are students of music schools from the small homeland of Alexandra Nikolaevna - "string players", "brass players" and "drummers" sitting at the music stands of the Volgograd Children's Symphony Orchestra. She devotes every visit to her native places to work with young colleagues. The orchestral scores of their new songs, which have practically never been heard anywhere, have become a recent gift to this group: the light, cheerful children's song "Auf-tact", as well as the composition "Volga-freeman," dedicated to the native land, which the author entrusts to perform to adult artists of Volgograd Philharmonic.
Pakhmutova has a compatriot and among the young vocalists performing her songs is Alexandra Golovchenko, who in 2007 represented Russia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Before going to Holland, Sasha, who studied at the same music school as Alya Pakhmutova, visited the famous composer for an audition. Alexandra Nikolaevna not only gave parting words to the young artist, but also presented the song "If you are wounded", which she wrote to the poetry of the poet Utkin, when she, like her namesake, was only 11 years old. The repertoire of subsequent performances by Katya Ryabova, a participant in the 2009 Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which took 2nd place, included Pakhmutova's song "Request".
I must say that Pakhmutova does not accept the current commercialization of the music industry. She never responds to requests to sell one or another of her songs: “How can we sit, talk and I say:“Pay”!? I can't even imagine it. I don’t trade in inspiration. Usually I just give it. " And when asked about earnings and royalties, she replies that it is quite enough for her that she receives from the Russian authors' community for songs that sound on television, on the radio, in re-singing of young performers: “Plus deductions from abroad are a good increase in pension ".
One cannot but pay attention to the fact that many musicians and singers have joint photos with the famous composer often taken not on stage or behind the scenes, but at Pakhmutova's house. Barely seeing people with bouquets of flowers, the locals smile: "I suppose to Alexandra Nikolaevna?" In a spacious, comfortable apartment on Komsomolsky Prospekt, there are high ceilings, antique parquet floors, modest furniture … In a small hallway there is a rack filled with nesting dolls, boxes and other souvenirs from all over the country. And everywhere - bookshelves from floor to ceiling. There is a desk by the window, a grand piano in the center of the living room.
Without officialdom and equivocation, completely homely Pakhmutova warmly welcomes guests, gives them tea and invites them to the instrument. The work is progressing, time passes imperceptibly and it seems that it is not difficult to comprehend the composer's musical and expressive semantics. And everything turns out to be easy and simple. But it is known how strict Alexandra Nikolaevna is to the performers of her songs, as she makes remarks “on the Hamburg score”, without making allowances for the age and regalia of the musicians. But everything is purely to the point and extremely benevolent. There are neither maxims or edification of a recognized authority in music, nor arrogance and arrogance inherent in the stars of the modern stage. This is probably why the current generation does not feel the 90-year-old age of the owners of this hospitable house.
The star couple (both creative and family) is called in youth slang just "Mega-people". Communicating on social networks, no one considers Pakhmutova with her music outdated or unfashionable. Those who have met her at least once say - "a sunny woman", an intelligent and cheerful interlocutor - she is so captivating with her sincerity, sincerity, ease and simplicity in communication, the ability to find contact. A person with a great love for life with his kind talent bestows upon everyone who is near.
On one of the anniversaries of a prominent Russian composer, V. V. Putin. As usual on this occasion, the President of the country has shown his willingness to fulfill any request or wish of the laureate of two State Prizes, Hero of Socialist Labor, Honorary Citizen of Moscow. Imagine the surprise of those present when, instead of talking about any preferences or putting in a word for her beloved nephews, Pakhmutova shrugged her shoulders: “We have everything you need”. There would be no need to ask for some presidential pension or a new apartment, and not to know worries. But for Pakhmutova, “everything” is not mansions, bank accounts, numerous servants and parties of the secular elite, but labor. And the recognition of people as a price for their work. And also - the realization of the talent given from above.
Despite her venerable age, Alexandra Nikolaevna does not reduce her life and musical tempo con anima. She regularly appears on stage in the format "at the piano - the author", is in the process of continuous creativity of different genres. The year of the 90th anniversary of the Russian composer, People's Artist of the USSR and Honored Artist of the RSFSR is marked by the fact that Alexandra Pakhmutova Square was created in her homeland. The green zone is laid out in the center of Volgograd, on the right slope of the Tsaritsa River floodplain, on the descent to Tsaritsyno Park. A total of 284 large trees and 1463 shrubs will be planted here. The steps are lined with black and white paving slabs in the form of piano keys.
On February 20, 1976, the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Center for Minor Planets of the Cincinnati Observatory (USA) testified that the minor planet No. 1889 between Mars and Jupiter, discovered by Soviet astronomers and an integral part of the solar system, is called Alexandra Pakhmutova. But a real star lit up in the Russian musical horizon on November 9, 1929, and to this day radiates the light of her talent. And in the distant 30s, she went from the outskirts to the center of Stalingrad to a music school … on a cart.
