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Lisitsyn, Archpriest Mikhail
LISITSYN, Mikhail Alexandrovich (b. December 13, 1872, Dukhovshchina, Smolensk province; died June 3, 1918, Petrograd [?]) — Archpriest, author of religious literature, music critic, church composer. Graduated from the Theological Seminary in Smolensk, where he also served as choirmaster. In 1888-1889. studied music theory with S. Vorobyov, the assistant inspector of the Free Music School under the direction of. Mily Balakirev and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He then entered the Kiev Theological Academy (1893), where he also directed the choir. In 1897 he defended his dissertation in theology under the supervision of the eminent church historian and liturgist Alexei Dmitrievsky. From the end of the 1890s Lisitsyn lived in St. Petersburg, where he met Semyon Panchenko, whose advice influenced the formation of Lisitsyn as a composer.
Lisitsyn authored over 130 articles on church music in various periodicals (Music and Singing, the Russian Musical Gazette, the Musical Worker, etc.). In his writings, he touches on a wide range of issues: the history of sacred music, the analysis and critique of new compositions, programs of sacred concerts, the vocation of church singers and choir directors, and issues of ecclesial censorship. Lisitsyn was one of the first to critically assess the sacred of Mikhail Glinka, Archpriest Pyotr Turchaninov, Grigory Lvovsky, Peter Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Anton Arensky, Panchenko, Nikolai Kompaneisky, Alexander Kastalsky, Alexander Grechaninov, Pavel Chesnokov and others. In his seminal article "The New Direction in Russian Church Music" (1909) he articulated the aesthetic principles of the movement that came to be called New Direction.
His creative work in the area of church music—his compositions and arrangements of early chants—Lisitsyn stived to realize his theoretical ideas, but his works did not always display an internal stylistic consistency: in them one finds combined features of early examples of Russian polyphony, the Italian concert style of the late 18th—early 19th centuries, as well as elements of German late romantic harmony. Among Lisitsyn’s most interesting musical compositions are: the Demestvenny Cherubic Hymn, his hymns for the Hierarchal service, "Praise the name of the Lord" (No. 14), "Christ is Risen" to an Abyssinian melody (No. 16), the Hymn to the Theotokos for Easter (No. 11), and "Open the doors of repentance" ( No. 13).
External link
https://www.pravenc.ru/text/2110556.htmlhttps://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/prot-m-a-lisitsyn-ideolog-novogo-napravleniya-duhovnoy-muzyki