{{Short description|Russian music scholar (1848–1909)}} '''Stepan Vasil'evich Smolensky''' (Russian: Сте́пан Васи́льевич Смоле́нский; 15 October 1848 – 1 August 1909) was a choir director and scholar of ancient Russian chant.
Smolensky was a graduate of the Faculties of Jurisprudence and Philology of Kazan University; during his studies, he had also taken private lessons on violin and piano.<ref name=Dunlop47>Dunlop (2000), p. 47</ref> From the early 1870s he made a study of ancient church chant, publishing several books on znamenny chant and a catalogue of the musical manuscripts held in the library of the Solovetsky Monastery.<ref name=Dunlop47/>
In 1889 he settled in Moscow, becoming professor of history and theory of church music at the Conservatory after the death of Dmitri Razumovsky.<ref name=Dunlop47/> Simultaneously he became director of the Synod choir and the Moscow Synodal School, succeeding Vasily Sergeevich Orlov:<ref>Morosan (1994), p. 102</ref> his success in these posts resulted in his being appointed director of the Saint Petersburg Court Capella on 6/19 May 1901,<ref name=Dunlop47/> a post he held until 1903.<ref>Zvereva (2003), p. 320</ref>
The 1915 choral composition ''All-Night Vigil'', by Sergei Rachmaninoff, was dedicated to Smolensky.
==References== ===Citations=== {{Reflist}}
===Sources=== {{refbegin}} * Dunlop, Carolyn C (2000). ''The Russian Court Chapel Choir 1796-1917''. Harwood Academic Publishers. *Morosan, Vladimir (1994). ''Choral Performance in Pre-Revolutionary Russia''. Musica Russica. {{ISBN|0-9629460-2-8}} *Zvereva, Svetlana (2003). ''Alexander Kastalsky: His Life and Music''. Ashgate. {{ISBN|0-7546-0975-8}} {{refend}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Smolensky, Stepan}} Category:1849 births Category:1909 deaths Category:Russian choral conductors Category:Russian male conductors (music) Category:Russian musicologists Category:Burials at Arskoe Cemetery Category:19th-century musicologists