Schwarzmeer-Kosaken

The Schwarzmeer-Kosaken-Chor is a male vocal ensemble whose history is rooted in the Russian émigré musical community in Germany. The choir’s own chronology dates its foundation under Boris Ledkovsky to 1938 and records early sound recordings in 1940. Reorganised after the Second World War, it performed church music under Nikolai Orloff and became associated with the synodal choir of the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany. Sergej Horbenko directed the ensemble during the 1950s. Peter Orloff joined in 1958, aged fourteen. Its singers have come from several Eastern European countries, and Ivan Rebroff was among its members. Ensembles touring Germany under the name of the Black Sea Cossacks sing the repertoire that German audiences have associated with émigré Russian choirs since the 1920s: Orthodox liturgical settings, folk song, soldiers' songs, all written low and scored for the weight of massed male voices. They work the circuit of parish churches and municipal halls in the smaller towns — Limburg an der Lahn among them — and appear from time to time on mixed gala bills.