Lydia Davydova

Lydia Anatolyevna Davydova was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1932. She studied piano from an early age, eventually graduating from Moscow Conservatory in 1957. Despite her wish to become a professional singer, she was unable to gain admittance to vocal courses at any school, though she took lessons with Dora Belyavskaya. She was eventually ‘discovered’ by composer Andrei Volkonsky, whose Mirror Suite she premiered in 1962 and before longs she was recognised as one of the foremost vocalists in Russia.

She specialised in modernist and avant-garde music, for which her accuracy and precision were ideal, but also was a pioneer in the promotion of early music from the Renaissance and early baroque periods. She became the soloist with the early music ensemble ‘Madrigal’ which had been founded by Volkonsky in 1965, and became its director from 1972 to 1982, returning again in 1992.

Davydovа was among the first to introduce much Western 20th century music to the Soviet Union, including the work of composers such as Charles Ives, Luciano Berio, Anton Webern, John Cage and Paul Hindemith. At the same time she championed the work of the more adventurous Russian composers, premiering major works by Volkonsky, Denisov, Smirnov, Gubaidulina, Schnittke and of course Vyacheslav Artyomov. Davydovа remained in Moscow for most of her life and in 2001 was decorated as a ‘People’s Artist of Russia’. She died on 2 March 2011.