Mikhail Klimov
Mikhail Klimov (1881–1937) was a Russian conductor and choirmaster whose work shaped the artistic profile of the St. Petersburg Chapel in the twentieth century. He studied at the Moscow Synodal School from 1893 to 1900 and graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1908, where he studied composition theory with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and conducting with Nikolai Tcherepnin.
Klimov worked at the St. Petersburg Chapel as a senior singing teacher and conductor in 1904–1906 and 1913–1917, then as its principal conductor from 1917 to 1935. He was head of the institution from 1919 to 1921 and director from 1922 to 1930. At his initiative, an organ was moved from the Dutch Church to the Chapel in 1927. In 1921, he proposed a collection of Holy Week melodies to Mikhail Steinberg, who used it to create his Holy Week cycle.
In 1921, Klimov helped organize the St. Petersburg Conservatory Opera Studio and later led it. He served on the conservatory board in 1922–1923 and was director and artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic from 1925 to 1927. He also arranged works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Modest Mussorgsky for choir. His arrangements included Schumann’s Dreams, Tchaikovsky’s Neapolitan Song, Anatoly Lyadov’s Music Box, and Mussorgsky’s Song of the Flea.
Klimov taught theoretical subjects, opera ensemble, and choral studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1908, becoming a senior lecturer in 1911 and a professor in 1926. He also taught at the Chapel’s choral technical school and helped organize the People’s Conservatory in Leningrad. His educational publications included a guide to counterpoint, canon, and fugue; a collection of Russian folk songs for music schools and conservatories; and introductory materials on solfège and rhythm. He died in Leningrad in 1937 and was buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.