Alexander Alexandrov
A previous tour to East Germany had been cancelled due to the sudden death of Alexander Alexandrov in 1946 in Potsdam, when in his bed was found an annotated copy of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, showing that A. Alexandrov had been preparing the final chorus for a performance. Now Boris, his son, was ready to follow his father's plan. The 1948 peace concert was to consist of German opera extracts and Russian folk songs ("Nightingales", "Zemlyanka" and "Roads"); and after an intervention by the tenor Victor Nikitin, some German folk songs were also included. The people joined in, singing "Heidenröslein", and Nikitin sang Kalinka three times in a row. The concert was very successful, and very moving.