Listopadov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich

Born Sept. 6 (18), 1873, in the stanitsa (Cossack settlement) of Ekaterininskaia, now in Krasnodonetskaia, Belaia Kalitva Raion, Rostov Oblast; died Feb. 14, 1949, in Rostov-on-Don. Soviet musician, folklorist, and choirmaster.

While a schoolteacher (1892–1902), Listopadov began to record Don Cossack songs. During 1903–07 he studied at the Moscow Conservatory and at Moscow University. He took part in the revolutionary events of 1905. Listopadov taught in schools in Saratov (including the conservatory) from 1907 to 1920, in music schools in Novocherkassk from 1920 to 1934, and in Dushanbe from 1934 to 1936. He lived in Rostov-on-Don, where he conducted a choir of Don Cossacks, from 1936 to 1948.

Listopadov compiled Songs of the Don Cossacks (vols. 1–5, 1949–53), a major contribution to Soviet musical folklore. Like the earlier Songs of the Don Cossacks (with S. Ia. Arefin; 1911), this work contained songs arranged for four voices and reconstructed from choral voices recorded separately and at different times. Listopadov was the author of the article “On the Structure of Northern and Don Byliny.” He recorded Russian, Tadzhik, Ukrainian, and Kalmyk folk songs.