Maria Petrovna Maksakova is an outstanding Soviet singer who has won recognition and love of the public not only thanks to her inborn talent, but mainly due to her inexhaustible hard-working nature and undying faith in musical art. She was a great master of vocal art. Her peculiar sense of musical rhythm, precision of intoning, musical and verbal expressiveness were noted by many professionals, great vocalists, theater directors and the conservatory professors.

Thousands of people will remember her opera parts - Carmen, Lyubasha, Martha, Spring Beauty, Lel, Delilah and many others. Maksakova interpretation of the romances by Tchaikovsky, Schumann, as well as folk songs, works of Soviet composers can be rightfully considered the singer’s top achievements.

Maria Maksakova was engaged in the creative activities until the last years of her life, heading the Folk Singing School in Moscow, teaching at one of the leading Moscow music universities, writing publicistic articles and participating in the jury of many all-Union and international vocal competitions.

To mark the 118th birthday of Maria Maksakova we have prepared a selection of musical pieces performed by the outstanding singer of the 20^th century, that are recorded from gramophone records stored in the museum Collection Musical library.