Alex Alex (Александр Александров; 1883 – 1946) was a Soviet Russian composer best known for the founding of the Red Army Choir and for the tune of the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, which is now used in the National Anthem of Russia. He also composed the Soviet marches "The Sacred War" and the "Song of the Soviet Army". His works include a number of settings of various Russian folk songs.
Biography[]
Also known as Sasha, he was born on 13 April 1883 in Plakhino, near Moscow. As a boy, his singing was so impressive that he traveled to Saint Petersburg to become a chorister at Kazan Cathedral. A pupil of Medtner, he studied composition at Saint Petersburg and in Moscow, where he eventually became professor of music in 1918 and choirmaster at Christ the Savior from 1918 to 1922.
Alexandrov founded the Alexandrov Ensemble, and spent many years as its director, in which role he gained favor with Joseph Stalin, the country's ruler during the last two decades of Alexandrov's life. His choir participated successfully in the Universal Exposition of 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, Stalin commissioned him and lyricists Sergey Mikhalkov and Gabriel El-Registan to create a new Soviet national anthem, which was officially adopted on 1 January 1944 and was used by the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. It later became the National Anthem of Russia in December 2000, with Mikhalkov writing the new lyrics.
On 8 July 1946 at the age of 63, he died of a heart attack caused by incessant smoking, while on tour in Berlin; some records say he had been returning from Germany.