Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky is a Russian composer, one of the founders of Russian classical music.
Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky was born on February 14 (February 2, old style) 1813, in the village of Troitskoye, now Belevsky district of the Tula region. He studied singing, playing the piano and violin. In the late 20s and early 30s of the 19th century, his first works (romances, piano pieces) were published. A decisive role in Dargomyzhsky’s musical development was played by his meeting with the Russian composer, the founder of Russian classical music, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (early 1835).
In 1837 - 1841, Alexander Sergeevich wrote his first opera - “Esmeralda” (based on the novel “Notre Dame de Paris” by the French romantic writer Victor Hugo, staged in 1847 in Moscow), which reflected the romantic tendencies characteristic of his early work. In the 40s created a number of the best romances, including “I Loved You,” “Wedding,” and “Night Zephyr.”
The composer's main work is the opera "Rusalka" (based on the dramatic poem of the same name by the Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, staged in 1856 in St. Petersburg).
Since the late 50s, Dargomyzhsky’s musical and social activities have expanded widely. In 1859 he was elected a member of the committee of the Russian Musical Society. At this time, he became close to a group of young composers, later known as. "The Mighty Handful"; participated in the work of the satirical magazine Iskra (later Alarm Clock).
In the 60s, Alexander Sergeevich turned to the symphonic genre and created 3 orchestral plays based on folk themes: “Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga” (1862), “Little Russian Cossack” (1864), “Chukhon Fantasy” ( 1867).
In 1864 - 1865 he made a trip abroad (he was abroad for the first time in 1844 - 1845), during which some of his works were performed in Brussels. In 1866, the composer began working on the opera “The Stone Guest” (after Pushkin), setting an innovative task - to write an opera based on the complete, unaltered text of a literary work. The work was not completed. According to the author's will, the unfinished 1st picture was completed by the Russian composer Cesar Antonovich Cui, and the opera was orchestrated by composer, conductor and musical and public figure Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov (staged in 1872, in St. Petersburg).
Alexander Sergeevich, following Glinka, laid the foundations of the Russian classical music school. Developing the folk-realistic principles of Glinka's music, he enriched them with new features. The composer's work reflected the trends of critical realism of the 40s - 60s of the 19th century. In a number of works (the opera “Rusalka”, the songs “The Old Corporal”, “The Worm”, “The Titular Councilor”) he embodied the theme of social inequality with great poignancy. The composer's lyrics are characterized by a desire for detailed psychological analysis, to expose complex mental contradictions. He gravitated primarily towards dramatic forms of expression. In “Rusalka,” according to the composer, his task was to embody the dramatic elements of the Russian people.
Dargomyzhsky’s penchant for dramatization often manifested itself in vocal lyrics (the romances “I’m Sad,” “Both Bored and Sad,” “I Still Love Him,” etc.). The main means of creating a specific individual image was to reproduce the living intonations of human speech. His motto was the words: “I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth." This principle is most radically implemented in the opera The Stone Guest, based almost entirely on melodic recitative.
Realistic innovation A.S. Dargomyzhsky, his bold presentation of the social problems of Russian reality, and humanism were highly appreciated by the younger generation of composers who emerged in the 60s of the 19th century. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, who was closest to Andrei Sergeevich in terms of creativity, called him a great teacher of truth in music.
Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky died on January 17 (January 5, old style) 1869, in St. Petersburg.
Alexander Dargomyzhsky, together with Glinka, is the founder of Russian classical romance. Chamber vocal music was one of the main genres of creativity for the composer.
He composed romances and songs for several decades, and if the early works had much in common with the works of Alyabyev, Varlamov, Gurilev, Verstovsky, Glinka, then the later ones in some ways anticipate the vocal work of Balakirev, Cui and especially Mussorgsky. It was Mussorgsky who called Dargomyzhsky “the great teacher of musical truth.”
Dargomyzhsky created more than 100 romances and songs. Among them are all the popular vocal genres of that time - from the “Russian song” to the ballad. At the same time, Dargomyzhsky became the first Russian composer who embodied in his work themes and images taken from the surrounding reality, and created new genres - lyrical and psychological monologues (“Both boring and sad”, “I’m sad” to the words of Lermontov), folk scenes (“The Miller” to the words of Pushkin), satirical songs (“The Worm” to the words of Pierre Beranger translated by V. Kurochkin, “Titular Councilor” to the words of P. Weinberg).
Despite Dargomyzhsky’s special love for the works of Pushkin and Lermontov, the circle of poets whose poems the composer addressed is very diverse: these are Zhukovsky, Delvig, Koltsov, Yazykov, Kukolnik, Iskra poets Kurochkin and Weinberg and others.
At the same time, the composer invariably showed particular demands on the poetic text of the future romance, carefully selecting the best poems. When embodying a poetic image in music, he used a different creative method compared to Glinka. If for Glinka it was important to convey the general mood of the poem, to recreate the main poetic image in music, and for this he used a broad song melody, then Dargomyzhsky followed every word of the text, embodying his leading creative principle: “I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth." Therefore, along with the song-aria features in his vocal melodies, the role of speech intonations, which often become declamatory, is so important.
The piano part in Dargomyzhsky's romances is always subordinated to the general task - the consistent embodiment of the word in music; therefore, it often contains elements of figurativeness and picturesqueness, it emphasizes the psychological expressiveness of the text and is distinguished by bright harmonic means.
“Sixteen years” (words by A. Delvig). Glinka's influence was strongly evident in this early lyrical romance. Dargomyzhsky creates a musical portrait of a lovely, graceful girl, using the graceful and flexible rhythm of the waltz. A brief piano introduction and conclusion frame the romance and build on the opening motif of the vocal melody with its expressive ascending sixth. The vocal part is dominated by the cantilena, although recitative intonations are clearly audible in some phrases.
The romance is constructed in three-part form. The light and joyful outer sections (C major) are clearly contrasted by the middle with a change of mode (A minor), with a more dynamic vocal melody and an excited climax at the end of the section. The role of the piano part is to provide harmonic support to the melody, and in texture it is a traditional romance accompaniment.
The romance “I'm Sad” (words by M. Lermontov) belongs to a new type of romance-monologue. The hero’s reflection expresses concern for the fate of his beloved woman, who is destined to experience “the insidious persecution of rumors” from a hypocritical and heartless society, and to pay “with tears and melancholy” for short-lived happiness. Romance is built on the development of one image, one feeling. Both the one-part form of the work - a period with a reprise addition, and the vocal part, based on expressive melodious recitation, are subordinated to the artistic task. The intonation at the beginning of the romance is already expressive: after the ascending second there is a descending motive with its tense and mournful sounding diminished fifth.
Of great importance in the melody of the romance, especially its second sentence, are frequent pauses, jumps at wide intervals, excited intonations and exclamations: such, for example, is the climax at the end of the second sentence (“with tears and melancholy”), emphasized by a bright harmonic means - deviation in the key of the second low step (D minor - E-flat major). The piano part, based on soft chord figuration, combines a vocal melody rich in caesuras (Caesura is the moment of division of musical speech. Signs of caesura: pauses, rhythmic stops, melodic and rhythmic repetitions, changes in register, etc.) and creates a concentrated psychological background, a feeling of spiritual self-absorption.
In the dramatic song “The Old Corporal” (words by P. Beranger translated by V. Kurochkin), the composer develops the genre of monologue: this is already a dramatic monologue-scene, a kind of musical drama, the main character of which is an old Napoleonic soldier who dared to respond to the insult of a young officer and condemned to death for it. The theme of the “little man” that worried Dargomyzhsky is revealed here with extraordinary psychological authenticity; the music paints a living, truthful image, full of nobility and human dignity.
The song is written in a varied verse form with a constant chorus; It is the harsh chorus with its clear march rhythm and persistent triplets in the vocal part that becomes the leading theme of the work, the main characteristic of the hero, his mental fortitude and courage.
Each of the five verses reveals the image of the soldier in a different way, filling it with new features - sometimes angry and decisive (second verse), sometimes tender and heartfelt (third and fourth verses).
The vocal part of the song is in a recitative style; her flexible declamation follows every intonation of the text, achieving complete fusion with the word. The piano accompaniment is subordinate to the vocal part and, with its strict and spare chord texture, emphasizes its expressiveness with the help of a dotted rhythm, accents, dynamics, and bright harmonies. A diminished seventh chord in the piano part - a volley of gunfire - ends the life of the old corporal.
Like a mournful afterword, the theme of the chorus sounds in E, as if saying goodbye to the hero. The satirical song “Titular Advisor” was written to the words of the poet P. Weinberg, who actively worked in Iskra. In this miniature, Dargomyzhsky develops Gogol’s line in musical creativity. Talking about the unsuccessful love of a modest official for a general’s daughter, the composer paints a musical portrait akin to literary images of the “humiliated and insulted.”
The characters receive accurate and laconic characteristics already in the first part of the work (the song is written in two-part form): the poor timid official is depicted with careful second intonations of the piano, and the arrogant and domineering general’s daughter is depicted with decisive fourth forte moves. Chord accompaniment emphasizes these “portraits”.
In the second part, describing the development of events after an unsuccessful explanation, Dargomyzhsky uses simple but very precise means of expression: 2/4 time signature (instead of 6/8) and staccato piano depict the erratic dancing gait of the reveling hero, and the ascending, slightly hysterical jump to the seventh in The melody (“and drank all night”) emphasizes the bitter climax of this story.
25. Creative appearance of Dargomyzhsky:
Dargomyzhsky, a younger contemporary and friend of Glinka, continued the work of creating Russian classical music. At the same time, his work belongs to another stage in the development of national art. If Glinka expressed the range of images and moods of Pushkin’s era, then Dargomyzhsky finds his own way: his mature works are consonant with the realism of many works by Gogol, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, and the artist Pavel Fedotov.
The desire to convey life in all its diversity, interest in the personality of the “little” person and the topic of social inequality, accuracy and expressiveness of psychological characteristics, in which Dargomyzhsky’s talent as a musical portraitist is especially clearly revealed - these are the distinctive features of his talent.
Dargomyzhsky was by nature a vocal composer. The main genres of his work were opera and chamber vocal music. Dargomyzhsky's innovation, his searches and achievements were continued in the works of the next generation of Russian composers - members of the Balakirev circle and Tchaikovsky.
Biography
Childhood and youth. Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2, 1813 on his parents’ estate in the Tula province. A few years later, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and from that moment on, most of the life of the future composer took place in the capital. Dargomyzhsky's father served as an official, and his mother, a creatively gifted woman, was famous as an amateur poetess. Parents sought to give their six children a broad and varied education, in which literature, foreign languages, and music occupied the main place. From the age of six, Sasha began to be taught to play the piano, and then the violin; later he also took up singing. The young man completed his piano education with one of the best teachers in the capital, the Austrian pianist and composer F. Schoberlechner. Having become an excellent virtuoso and having a good command of the violin, he often took part in amateur concerts and quartet evenings in St. Petersburg salons. At the same time, from the late 1820s, Dargomyzhsky’s bureaucratic service began: for about a decade and a half he held positions in various departments and retired with the rank of titular councilor.
The first attempts to compose music date back to the age of eleven: these were various rondos, variations and romances. Over the years, the young man shows more and more interest in composition; Schoberlechner provided him with considerable assistance in mastering the techniques of compositional technique. “In the eighteenth and nineteenth years of my age,” the composer later recalled in his autobiography, “a lot was written, of course not without errors, many brilliant works for piano and violin, two quartets, cantatas and many romances; some of these works were published at the same time...” But, despite his success with the public, Dargomyzhsky still remained an amateur; The transformation of an amateur into a real professional composer began from the moment he met Glinka.
The first period of creativity. The meeting with Glinka took place in 1834 and determined the entire future fate of Dargomyzhsky. Glinka was then working on the opera “Ivan Susanin,” and the seriousness of his artistic interests and professional skill made Dargomyzhsky for the first time truly think about the meaning of composer’s creativity. Music playing in the salons was abandoned, and he began to fill the gaps in his musical theoretical knowledge by studying notebooks with recordings of Siegfried Dehn's lectures, which Glinka gave him.
Acquaintance with Glinka soon turned into real friendship. “The same education, the same love for art immediately brought us closer, but we soon became friends and sincerely became friends, despite the fact that Glinka was ten years older than me. For 22 years in a row, we were constantly on the shortest, most friendly terms with him,” the composer later recalled.
In addition to in-depth studies, Dargomyzhsky, from the mid-1830s, visited the literary and musical salons of V. F. Odoevsky, M. Yu. Vielgorsky, S. N. Karamzina (Sofya Nikolaevna Karamzina is the daughter of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, a famous historian and writer, author of a multi-volume “ History of the Russian State"), where he meets with Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Kukolnik, Lermontov. The atmosphere of artistic creativity that reigned there, conversations and debates about the development of national art and the current state of Russian society shaped the aesthetic and social views of the young composer.
Following the example of Glinka, Dargomyzhsky conceived the idea of composing an opera, but in choosing the plot he showed independent artistic interests. The love of French literature brought up from childhood, his passion for the French romantic operas of Meyerbeer and Aubert, the desire to create “something truly dramatic” - all this decided the composer’s choice of the popular novel “Notre Dame de Paris” by Victor Hugo. The opera Esmeralda was completed in 1839 and presented for production to the Directorate of Imperial Theaters. However, its premiere took place only in 1848: “...These eight years of vain waiting,” Dargomyzhsky wrote, “and in the most ebullient years of my life, laid a heavy burden on my entire artistic activity.”
While waiting for the production of Esmeralda, romances and songs became the only means of communication between the composer and the audience. It is in them that Dargomyzhsky quickly reaches the pinnacle of creativity; like Glinka, he does a lot of vocal pedagogy. Musical evenings are held in his house on Thursdays, attended by numerous singers, singing lovers, and sometimes Glinka, accompanied by his friend Puppeteer. At these evenings, as a rule, Russian music was performed, and above all the works of Glinka and the owner himself.
In the late 30s and early 40s, Dargomyzhsky created many chamber vocal works. Among them are such romances as “I Loved You”, “Young Man and Maiden”, “Night Marshmallow”, “Tear” (to the words of Pushkin), “Wedding” (to the words of A. Timofeev), and some others are distinguished by subtle psychologism, searching for new forms and means of expression. His passion for Pushkin’s poetry led the composer to create the cantata “The Triumph of Bacchus” for soloists, choir and orchestra, which was later reworked into an opera-ballet and became the first example of this genre in the history of Russian art.
An important event in Dargomyzhsky’s life was his first trip abroad in 1844-1845. He went on a trip to Europe, with Paris as his main destination. Dargomyzhsky, like Glinka, was fascinated and captivated by the beauty of the French capital, the richness and diversity of its cultural life. He meets with composers Meyerbeer, Halévy, Aubert, violinist Charles Beriot and other musicians, and attends opera and dramatic performances, concerts, vaudevilles, and trials with equal interest. From Dargomyzhsky's letters one can determine how his artistic views and tastes are changing; he begins to put depth of content and fidelity to life's truth in first place. And, as had previously happened with Glinka, traveling around Europe intensified the composer’s patriotic feelings and the need to “write in Russian.”
Mature period of creativity. In the second half of the 1840s, serious changes took place in Russian art. They were associated with the development of advanced social consciousness in Russia, with increased interest in people's life, with the desire for a realistic reflection of the everyday life of ordinary people and the social conflict between the world of rich and poor. A new hero appears - a “little” man, and the description of the fate and life drama of a minor official, peasant, or artisan becomes the main theme of the works of modern writers. Many of Dargomyzhsky’s mature works are devoted to the same topic. In them he sought to enhance the psychological expressiveness of music. His creative search led him to the creation of a method of intonation realism in vocal genres, which truthfully and accurately reflects the inner life of the hero of the work.
In 1845-1855, the composer worked intermittently on the opera “Rusalka” based on Pushkin’s unfinished drama of the same name. Dargomyzhsky himself composed the libretto; he carefully approached Pushkin's text, preserving as much as possible the majority of the poems. He was attracted by the tragic fate of a peasant girl and her unfortunate father, who lost his mind after his daughter’s suicide. This plot embodies the theme of social inequality that constantly interested the composer: the daughter of a simple miller cannot become the wife of a noble prince. This theme made it possible for the author to reveal the deep emotional experiences of the characters and create a real lyrical musical drama, full of life’s truth.
At the same time, the deeply truthful psychological characteristics of Natasha and her father are wonderfully combined in the opera with colorful folk choral scenes, where the composer masterfully implemented the intonations of peasant and urban songs and romances.
A distinctive feature of the opera was its recitatives, which reflected the composer’s desire for declamatory melodies, which had previously manifested itself in his romances. In “Rusalka” Dargomyzhsky creates a new type of operatic recitative, which follows the intonation of the word and sensitively reproduces the “music” of living Russian colloquial speech.
“Rusalka” became the first Russian classical opera in the realistic genre of psychological everyday musical drama, paving the way for the lyrical-dramatic operas of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. The opera premiered on May 4, 1856 in St. Petersburg. The management of the imperial theaters treated her unkindly, which was reflected in the careless production (old, poor costumes and scenery, reduction of individual scenes). The capital's high society, infatuated with Italian opera music, showed complete indifference to “Rusalka.” Nevertheless, the opera was a success with democratic audiences. The performance of Melnik's part by the great Russian bass Osip Petrov made an unforgettable impression. Progressive music critics Serov and Cui warmly welcomed the birth of a new Russian opera. However, it was rarely performed on stage and soon disappeared from the repertoire, which could not but cause difficult experiences for the author.
While working on Rusalka, Dargomyzhsky wrote many romances. He is increasingly attracted by the poetry of Lermontov, whose poems are used to create the heartfelt monologues “I’m sad,” “Both boring and sad.” He discovers new sides to Pushkin’s poetry and composes an excellent comedy-everyday sketch “The Miller”.
The late period of Dargomyzhsky’s creativity (1855-1869) is characterized by an expansion of the composer’s range of creative interests, as well as the intensification of his musical and social activities. At the end of the 50s, Dargomyzhsky began to collaborate in the satirical magazine “Iskra”, where morals were ridiculed in cartoons, feuilletons, and poems and the order of modern society, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Herzen, Nekrasov, Dobrolyubov were published. The magazine's directors were the talented cartoonist N. Stepanov and the poet-translator V. Kurochkin. During these years, based on poems and translations of Iskra poets, the composer composed the dramatic song “Old Corporal” and the satirical songs “The Worm” and “Titular Advisor.”
Dargomyzhsky’s acquaintance with Balakirev, Cui, and Mussorgsky dates back to this time, which a little later would turn into close friendship. These young composers, together with Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin, will go down in music history as members of the “Mighty Handful” circle and subsequently enrich their work with Dargomyzhsky’s achievements in various areas of musical expression.
The composer's social activity was manifested in his work on organizing the Russian Musical Society (RMS - a concert organization created in 1859 by A. G. Rubinstein. It set itself the tasks of musical education in Russia, expanding concert and musical theater activities, organizing music educational institutions ). In 1867 he became chairman of its St. Petersburg branch. He also takes part in the development of the charter of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
In the 60s, Dargomyzhsky created several symphonic plays: “Baba Yaga”, “Cossack”, “Chukhon Fantasy”. These “characteristic fantasies for orchestra” (as defined by the author) are based on folk melodies and continue the traditions of Glinka’s “Kamarinskaya”.
From November 1864 to May 1865, a new trip abroad took place. The composer visited a number of European cities - Warsaw, Leipzig, Brussels, Paris, London. A concert of his works took place in Brussels, which was a great success with the public, received sympathetic responses in the newspapers and brought a lot of joy to the author.
Soon after returning home, the revival of “Rusalka” took place in St. Petersburg. The triumphant success of the production and its wide public recognition contributed to a new spiritual and creative upsurge of the composer. He begins work on the opera “The Stone Guest” based on Pushkin’s “little tragedy” of the same name and sets himself an incredibly difficult and bold task: to preserve Pushkin’s text unchanged and build the work on the musical embodiment of the intonations of human speech. Dargomyzhsky abandons the usual operatic forms (arias, ensembles, choirs) and makes the basis of the work recitative, which is both the main means of characterizing the characters and the basis for the end-to-end (continuous) musical development of the opera (Some principles of operatic dramaturgy of The Stone Guest, the first Russian chamber operas, found their continuation in the works of Mussorgsky (The Marriage), Rimsky-Korsakov (Mozart and Salieri), Rachmaninoff (The Miserly Knight))
At musical evenings in the composer's house, scenes from the almost finished opera were repeatedly performed and discussed in a friendly circle. Her most enthusiastic fans were the composers of the “Mighty Handful” and the music critic V.V. Stasov, who became especially close to Dargomyzhsky in the last years of his life. But “The Stone Guest” turned out to be the composer’s “swan song” - he did not have time to finish the opera. Dargomyzhsky died on January 5, 1869 and was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, not far from Glinka’s grave. According to the composer’s will, the opera “The Stone Guest” was completed according to the author’s sketches by Ts. A. Cui, and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov. Thanks to the efforts of friends, in 1872, three years after the composer’s death, his last opera was staged at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.
2.2.1. General characteristics of creativity
- Pekelis, M.S. A.S. Dargomyzhsky and his entourage. T. 1 / M.S. Pekelis. – M., 1966.
- Pekelis, M.S. Dargomyzhsky and folk song / M.S. Pekelis. – M., 1951.
- Dargomyzhsky, A.S. Selected letters / A.S. Dargomyzhsky. – M., 1959.
- Serov, A.N. Articles about Dargomyzhsky / A.N. Serov // Selected articles. In 2 volumes / A.N. Serov. – M.–L., 1950–1957.
- Cui, Ts. Articles about Dargomyzhsky / Ts. Cui // Selected articles / Ts. Cui. – L., 1952.
If Glinka personifies the appearance of Russian musical art at the time of its first heyday, then the work of Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky reveals new sides of it that have not yet developed in Glinka. Dargomyzhsky’s new quests were organically connected with the general trends in art of the 40s and 50s. XIX century, manifested in the literature and painting of these years. Dargomyzhsky – the first representative of critical realism in music.
Dargomyzhsky's innovation in the field of musical style is associated with a special emphasis onspeech expressiveness, in bringing music closer to speech intonation. In this, Dargomyzhsky is a direct predecessor of Mussorgsky.
Heritage:
– operas(4): “Esmeralda”, “The Triumph of Bacchus”, “The Mermaid”, “The Stone Guest”.
– chamber vocal genre: more than 100 romances and songs, over 20 chamber ensembles; 13 a cappella chamber choirs.
– symphonic music: “Bolero” for symphony orchestra, “Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga”, “Little Russian Cossack”, “Chukhon Fantasy”.
– chamber instrumental genre: pieces for piano and violin.
Aesthetic views:
- Until the mid-40s. During this period, the composer's aesthetics were complex and heterogeneous. Like many people of art, Dargomyzhsky visited art salons, where he communicated with Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Vyazemsky. He was fascinated by the lush French opera and the romantic plots of French literature. The turning point was meeting Glinka(1835). Glinka’s personality and his work were for Dargomyzhsky the standard of a creator and true art.
- From the second half of the 40s. Your path in art becomes one of typical representatives of Russian art of the post-Pushkin era. In literature, this is the “Gogol period” or the “natural school” (Nekrasov, Herzen, Turgenev, Grigorovich, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin). Characteristic features: attention to the “lower classes” of society, depiction of everyday reality, analysis and assessment of social phenomena.
With the mature works of Dargomyzhsky, he entered Russian music. social issues , which was still missing from Glinka. In the rendering of life scenes and in the depiction of human characters, notes of social denunciation and protest are heard.
Dargomyzhsky – outstandingmusical portrait painter. He was especially attracted to the depiction of human characters, the artistic rendering of the diverse and subtle processes of inner mental life, the expression of emotional states, nuances of thought and feeling. As a result, the composer’s romances contain a whole gallery of “musical portraits” of his contemporaries. A peculiar aspect of musical psychologism iscomic sphere: subtle irony, caustic mockery, evil sarcasm, much less often - good-natured humor.
Stylistic features:
- Dramaturgy . The sphere of historical themes and epic imagery was absolutely alien to Dargomyzhsky. His artistic strength lies in something else - in his innate talent. composer-playwright. He perceives and captures life in motion, in real-life contradictions, the characters of people in their clash and constant development.
- Origins . From Glinka - ardent love for folk song. But the concept of folk for Dargomyzhsky included not so much ancient peasant folklore as a historically younger layer of folk music, in which elements of peasant and urban song are fused. The composer's music grew on the soil genres of urban everyday music his time. Dargomyzhsky’s works present various social “cuts” of modern musical life. Hence the reliance on the stylistic features of urban songs and romances, everyday dance music, vaudeville couplets, and “gypsy romance.”
- Melody . Vocal melody of three types: song, aria, recitative. He appears as a bold innovator in recitative type. Widely developed new types of nationally characteristic recitative, introduced socially typical speech intonation into Russian music, created different types of recitatives: comic-characteristic, everyday, lyrical-psychological.
- Harmony . In general - traditional. But there are unusual techniques dictated by plot twists or features of “musical characterology.”
- Piano part and orchestral texture . Tool fabric has programmatic nature. It has a psychologically expressive or pictorial function. The instrumental accompaniment is dramaturgically directed and active. With a successful choice of texture and its changes, the composer highlights the meaning of the text and the development of figurative content.
In general, Dargomyzhsky’s analytical mindset of musical thinking, his characteristic taste for individually specific, detailed reflection of the phenomena of reality inform his music intimate features, at times a subtle sophistication of expression.
Control questions:
- What is the significance of Dargomyzhsky in the history of Russian music?
- List the composer's legacy.
- Trace the stages of evolution of Dargomyzhsky’s aesthetic views.
- What new did Dargomyzhsky bring to the field of musical imagery and themes?
- Describe the features of the composer's musical style.
- Reveal the essence of Dargomyzhsky's innovation in the field of recitative.
Dargomyzhsky created a vocal style that lies between cantilena and recitative, a special melodic or melodic recitative, elastic enough to be in constant accordance with speech, and at the same time rich in characteristic melodic bends, spiritualizing this speech, bringing into it a new, missing emotional element.
(2(14).2.1813, Troitskoye village, now Belevsky district, Tula region, -
5(17).1.1869, St. Petersburg)
Dargomyzhsky, Alexander Sergeevich - famous Russian composer. Born on February 14, 1813 in the village of Dargomyzhe, Belevsky district, Tula province. Died on January 17, 1869 in St. Petersburg. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, served in the Ministry of Finance, in a commercial bank.
Dargomyzhsky's mother, née Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, married against the will of her parents.
She was well educated; Her poems were published in almanacs and magazines. Some poems she wrote for her children, mostly of an edifying nature, were included in the collection: “A Gift to My Daughter.”
One of Dargomyzhsky’s brothers played the violin beautifully, participating in a chamber ensemble at home evenings; one of the sisters played the harp well and composed romances.
Until the age of five, Dargomyzhsky did not speak at all, and his late-formed voice remained forever squeaky and hoarse, which did not prevent him, however, from subsequently moving him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of his vocal performance at intimate gatherings.
Dargomyzhsky received his education at home, but thoroughly; he knew the French language and French literature very well.
While playing in the puppet theater, the boy composed small vaudeville plays for him, and at the age of six he began to learn to play the piano.
His teacher, Adrian Danilevsky, not only did not encourage his student’s desire to compose from the age of 11, but destroyed his compositional experiments.
His piano training ended with Schoberlechner, a student of Hummel. Dargomyzhsky also studied singing with Tseybikh, who gave him information about intervals, and violin playing with P.G. Vorontsov, participating in a quartet ensemble from the age of 14.
There was no real system in Dargomyzhsky’s musical education, and he owed his theoretical knowledge mainly to himself.
His earliest works - rondos, variations for piano, romances to words by Zhukovsky and Pushkin - are not found in his papers, but during his lifetime "Contredanse nouvelle" and "Variations" for piano were published, written: the first - in 1824, the second - in 1827 - 1828. In the 1830s, Dargomyzhsky was known in the musical circles of St. Petersburg as a “strong pianist”, and also as the author of several piano pieces of brilliant salon style and romances: “Oh, ma charmante”, “The Virgin and the Rose”, “I repent, uncle”, “You're pretty” and others, not much different from the style of romances by Verstovsky, Alyabyev and Varlamov, with an admixture of French influence.
Meeting M.I. Glinka, who gave Dargomyzhsky the theoretical manuscripts he had brought from Berlin from Professor Dehn, contributed to the expansion of his knowledge in the field of harmony and counterpoint; At the same time, he began to study orchestration.
Having appreciated Glinka’s talent, Dargomyzhsky chose, however, for his first opera “Esmeralda” a French libretto compiled by Victor Hugo from his novel “Notre Dame de Paris” and only after the end of the opera (in 1839) did he translate it into Russian.
"Esmeralda", which remains unpublished (the handwritten score, clavier, Dargomyzhsky's autograph, are stored in the central music library of the Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg; a lithographed copy of the 1st act was also found in Dargomyzhsky's sheet music) - a weak, imperfect work that cannot be compared with "Life for the Tsar."
But Dargomyzhsky’s characteristics were already revealed in him: drama and the desire for expressiveness of the vocal style, influenced by familiarity with the works of Megul, Aubert and Cherubini. "Esmeralda" was staged only in 1847 in Moscow and in 1851 in St. Petersburg. “It was these eight years of vain waiting, even in the most intense years of my life, that laid a heavy burden on my entire artistic activity,” writes Dargomyzhsky. Until 1843, Dargomyzhsky served, first in control of the Ministry of the Court, then in the Department of the State Treasury; then he devoted himself entirely to music.
The failure of "Esmeralda" suspended Dargomyzhsky's operatic work; he began composing romances, which, together with earlier ones, were published (30 romances) in 1844 and brought him honorable fame.
In 1844 Dargomyzhsky visited Germany, Paris, Brussels and Vienna. Personal acquaintance with Ober, Meyerbeer and other European musicians influenced his further development.
He became close friends with Halévy and Fetis, who testifies that Dargomyzhsky consulted with him regarding his works, including “Esmeralda” (“Biographie universelle des musiciens”, St. Petersburg, X, 1861). Having left as an adherent of everything French, Dargomyzhsky returned to St. Petersburg much more than before, a champion of everything Russian (as happened with Glinka).
Reviews from the foreign press regarding the performance of Dargomyzhsky's works at private meetings in Vienna, Paris and Brussels contributed to some change in the attitude of the theater management towards Dargomyzhsky. In the 1840s, he wrote a large cantata with choirs based on Pushkin's text "The Triumph of Bacchus."
It was performed at a concert of the management at the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg in 1846, but the author was refused to stage it as an opera, completed and orchestrated in 1848 (see "Autobiography"), and only much later (in 1867) it was staged in Moscow.
This opera, like the first, is weak in music and not typical for Dargomyzhsky. Distressed by the refusal to stage Bacchus, Dargomyzhsky again closed himself in a close circle of his admirers and admirers, continuing to compose small vocal ensembles (duets, trios, quartets) and romances, which were then published and became popular.
At the same time, he took up teaching singing. The number of his students and especially female students (he gave lessons for free) is enormous. L.N. stood out. Belenitsyn (after her husband Karmalina; the most interesting letters to her from Dargomyzhsky were published), M.V. Shilovskaya, Bilibina, Barteneva, Girs, Pavlova, Princess Manvelova, A.N. Purholt (after her husband Molas).
The sympathy and worship of women, especially singers, always inspired and encouraged Dargomyzhsky, and he used to say, half-jokingly: “If there were no singers in the world, it would not be worth being a composer.” Already in 1843, Dargomyzhsky conceived a third opera, “The Mermaid,” based on Pushkin’s text, but the composition progressed extremely slowly, and even the approval of friends did not speed up the progress of the work; Meanwhile, the duet of the prince and Natasha, performed by Dargomyzhsky and Karmalina, brought tears to Glinka’s eyes.
A new impetus to Dargomyzhsky’s work was given by the resounding success of a grandiose concert of his works, staged in St. Petersburg in the hall of the Assembly of the Nobility on April 9, 1853, according to the thoughts of Prince V.F. Odoevsky and A.N. Karamzin. Taking up “Rusalka” again, Dargomyzhsky completed it in 1855 and arranged it into four hands (an unpublished arrangement is kept in the Imperial Public Library). In Rusalka, Dargomyzhsky consciously cultivated the Russian musical style created by Glinka.
What is new in “Rusalka” is its drama, comedy (the figure of the matchmaker) and bright recitatives, in which Dargomyzhsky was ahead of Glinka. But the vocal style of "Rusalka" is far from consistent; Along with truthful, expressive recitatives there are conventional cantilenas (Italianisms), rounded arias, duets and ensembles that do not always fit with the requirements of drama.
The weak point of "Rusalka" is also its technical orchestration, which cannot be compared with the rich orchestral colors of "Ruslana", and from an artistic point of view - the entire fantastic part is rather pale. The first performance of "The Mermaid" in 1856 (May 4) at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, with an unsatisfactory production, with old scenery, inappropriate costumes, careless execution, inappropriate notes, under the direction of K. Lyadov, who did not like Dargomyzhsky, was not successful .
The opera lasted only 26 performances until 1861, but renewed in 1865 with Platonova and Komissarzhevsky, it was a huge success and has since become a repertoire and one of the most beloved Russian operas. "Rusalka" was staged for the first time in Moscow in 1858. The initial failure of "Rusalka" had a depressing effect on Dargomyzhsky; according to the story of his friend, V.P. Engelhardt, he intended to burn the scores of “Esmeralda” and “Rusalka”, and only the formal refusal of the management to hand over these scores to the author, supposedly for correction, saved them from destruction.
The last period of Dargomyzhsky’s work, the most original and significant, can be called reformist. Its beginning, already rooted in the recitatives of "The Mermaid", is marked by the appearance of a number of original vocal plays, distinguished either by their comedy - or, rather, by Gogol's humor, laughter through tears ("Titular Councilor", 1859), or by their drama ("The Old Corporal", 1858; "Paladin", 1859), sometimes with subtle irony ("The Worm", based on the text by Beranger-Kurochkin, 1858), sometimes with the burning feeling of a rejected woman ("We parted proudly", "I don't care", 1859) and always remarkable for the strength and truth of vocal expressiveness.
These vocal pieces were a new step forward in the history of Russian romance after Glinka and served as models for the vocal masterpieces of Mussorgsky, who wrote a dedication to Dargomyzhsky, “the great teacher of musical truth,” on one of them. Dargomyzhsky's comic streak also manifested itself in the field of orchestral composition. His orchestral fantasies date back to the same period: “Little Russian Cossack”, inspired by Glinka’s “Kamarinskaya”, and completely independent ones: “Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga” and “Chukhon Fantasy”.
The last two, originally conceived, are also interesting in terms of orchestral techniques, showing that Dargomyzhsky had taste and imagination in combining the colors of the orchestra. Dargomyzhsky's acquaintance with the composers of the "Balakirev circle" in the mid-1850s was beneficial for both parties.
Dargomyzhsky's new vocal verse influenced the development of the vocal style of young composers, which especially affected the work of Cui and Mussorgsky, who met Dargomyzhsky, like Balakirev, earlier than the others. Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin were especially influenced by Dargomyzhsky’s new operatic techniques, which were the practical implementation of the thesis he expressed in a letter (1857) to Karmalina: “I want the sound to directly express the word; I want the truth.” An opera composer by vocation, Dargomyzhsky, despite the failures with the state directorate, could not withstand inaction for long.
In the early 1860s, he began to write the magical-comic opera "Rogdana", but wrote only five numbers, two solo ("Duetino of Rogdana and Ratobor" and "Comic Song") and three choral (choir of dervishes to the words of Pushkin "Rise up" , fearful", of a stern oriental character and two women's choirs: "Quietly flow the streams" and "How the luminous morning star appears"; all of them were first performed in concerts of the Free Music School in 1866 - 1867). Somewhat later, he conceived the opera “Mazeppa”, based on the plot of “Poltava” by Pushkin, but, having written a duet between Orlik and Kochubey (“You are here again, despicable man”), he settled on it.
There was not enough determination to expend energy on a large essay, the fate of which seemed unreliable. Traveling abroad in 1864-65 contributed to the rise of his spirit and strength, as it was very successful artistically: in Brussels, bandmaster Hansens appreciated Dargomyzhsky’s talent and contributed to the performance of his orchestral works in concerts (overtures to “The Mermaid” and “Cossack Woman” "), which was a huge success. But the main impetus for the extraordinary awakening of creativity was given to Dargomyzhsky by his new young comrades, whose talents he quickly appreciated. The question of operatic forms then became another issue.
Serov studied it, intending to become an opera composer and being carried away by the ideas of Wagner's opera reform. Members of the Balakirev circle, especially Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, also worked on it, solving it independently, based largely on the features of Dargomyzhsky’s new vocal style. When composing his “William Ratcliffe,” Cui immediately introduced Dargomyzhsky to what he had written. Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov also introduced Dargomyzhsky to their new vocal compositions. Their energy was communicated to Dargomyzhsky himself; he decided to boldly embark on the path of operatic reform and began (as he put it) his swan song, setting about composing “The Stone Guest” with extraordinary zeal, without changing a single line of Pushkin’s text and without adding a single word to it.
Dargomyzhsky’s illness (aneurysm and hernia) did not stop his creativity; in recent weeks he wrote while lying in bed, using a pencil. Young friends, gathering at the patient’s place, performed scene after scene of the opera as it was created and with their enthusiasm gave the fading composer new strength. Within a few months the opera was almost finished; death prevented the completion of music only for the last seventeen verses. According to Dargomyzhsky’s will, he completed Cui’s “The Stone Guest”; he also wrote the introduction to the opera, borrowing thematic material from it, and orchestrated the opera by Rimsky-Korsakov. Through the efforts of friends, “The Stone Guest” was staged in St. Petersburg on the Mariinsky stage on February 16, 1872 and resumed in 1876, but it could not stay in the repertoire and is still far from being appreciated.
However, the significance of “The Stone Guest,” which logically completes Dargomyzhsky’s reform ideas, is undeniable. In The Stone Guest, Dargomyzhsky, like Wagner, strives to achieve a synthesis of drama and music, subordinating the music to the text. The operatic forms of The Stone Guest are so flexible that the music flows continuously, without any repetitions not caused by the meaning of the text. This was achieved by abandoning the symmetrical forms of arias, duets and other rounded ensembles, and at the same time by abandoning the solid cantilena, as it is not flexible enough to express the rapidly changing shades of speech. But here the paths of Wagner and Dargomyzhsky diverge. Wagner transferred the center of gravity of the musical expression of the psychology of the characters to the orchestra, and his vocal parts were in the background.
Dargomyzhsky focused musical expressiveness on vocal parts, finding it more appropriate for the characters themselves to speak about themselves. The operatic links in Wagner's continuously flowing music are leitmotifs, symbols of persons, objects, and ideas. The operatic style of The Stone Guest is devoid of leitmotifs; Nevertheless, Dargomyzhsky’s characteristics of the characters are vivid and strictly maintained. The words put into their mouths are different, but homogeneous for everyone. Denying the solid cantilena, Dargomyzhsky also rejected the ordinary, so-called “dry” recitative, little expressive and devoid of pure musical beauty. He created a vocal style that lies between cantilena and recitative, a special melodic or melodic recitative, elastic enough to be in constant accordance with speech, and at the same time rich in characteristic melodic bends, spiritualizing this speech, bringing into it a new, missing emotional element.
Dargomyzhsky’s merit lies in this vocal style, which fully corresponds to the peculiarities of the Russian language. The operatic forms of The Stone Guest, caused by the properties of the libretto and text, which did not allow the widespread use of choirs, vocal ensembles, or independent orchestral performances, cannot, of course, be considered immutable models for any opera. Artistic problems allow for more than one or two solutions. But the solution to Dargomyzhsky’s opera problem is so characteristic that it will not be forgotten in the history of opera. Dargomyzhsky had not only Russian followers, but also foreign ones.
Gounod intended to write an opera based on The Stone Guest; Debussy, in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande, implemented the principles of Dargomyzhsky's operatic reform. - Dargomyzhsky’s social and musical activities began only shortly before his death: from 1860 he was a member of the committee for reviewing compositions submitted to competitions of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, and from 1867 he was elected director of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Society. Most of Dargomyzhsky's works were published by P. Jurgenson, Gutheil and V. Bessel. Operas and orchestral works are named above. Dargomyzhsky wrote few piano pieces (about 11), and all of them (except for the “Slavic Tarantella”, op. in 1865) belong to the early period of his work.
Dargomyzhsky is especially prolific in the field of small vocal pieces for one voice (over 90); He wrote 17 more duets, 6 ensembles (for 3 and 4 voices) and “Petersburg Serenades” - choirs for different voices (12 ©). - See letters from Dargomyzhsky ("Artist", 1894); I. Karzukhin, biography, with indexes of works and literature about Dargomyzhsky ("Artist", 1894); S. Bazurov "Dargomyzhsky" (1894); N. Findeizen "Dargomyzhsky"; L. Karmalina "Memoirs" ("Russian Antiquity", 1875); A. Serov, 10 articles about “Rusalka” (from a collection of critical works); C. Cui "La musique en Russie"; V. Stasov “Our music for the last 25 years” (in collected works).
G. Timofeev
Russian Civilization
Back forward
Attention! Slide previews are for informational purposes only and may not represent all the features of the presentation. If you are interested in this work, please download the full version.
Purpose of the event (lesson): acquaintance with the main life stages and major creative achievements of the great Russian composer A.S. Dargomyzhsky.
Equipment: computer, projector, audio equipment.
Progress of the event
Slide 3
“I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth,” wrote A.S. Dargomyzhsky in one of his letters. These words became the composer's creative goal.
Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky is an outstanding Russian composer, whose work had a huge influence on the development of Russian musical art in the 19th century, one of the most notable composers of the period between the work of Mikhail Glinka and the “Mighty Handful”. He is considered the founder of the realistic movement in Russian music, whose followers were many composers of subsequent generations. One of them is M.P. Mussorgsky called Dargomyzhsky “a great teacher of musical truth.”
Slide 4
The father of the future composer, Sergei Nikolaevich Dargomyzhsky, was the illegitimate son of a wealthy nobleman Vasily Alekseevich Ladyzhensky and owned lands in the Smolensk province.
If fate had not played a cruel joke on the family of Alexander Dargomyzhsky, then the famous composer would have bore the surname Ladyzhensky or Bogucharov.
This story of the Dargomyzhsky family begins with the composer's grandfather, nobleman Alexei Ladyzhensky. A brilliant young man, a military man, he was married to Anna Petrovna. The couple had three sons. It so happened that Alexey Petrovich fell passionately in love with his children’s governess, Anna von Stofel, and soon they had a son, Seryozha, Dargomyzhsky’s future father. He was born in 1789 in the village of Dargomyzhka, then Belevsky district (currently Arsenyevsky district).
Having learned about her husband’s betrayal and not forgiving the betrayal, Anna Petrovna left him. A little later she married nobleman Nikolai Ivanovich Bogucharov. Alexey Ladyzhensky could not (or maybe did not want) to give the boy either his last name or even his patronymic. He was a military man, was practically never at home and was not involved in raising the boy. Little Seryozha grew up like a blade of grass in a field until he was 8 years old.
In 1797, Anna Ladyzhenskaya and Nikolai Bogucharov committed an act that is rare in our time: they adopted the unfortunate Seryozha.
After the death of Nikolai Ivanovich, his brother, Ivan Ivanovich Bogucharov, became Seryozha’s guardian.
In 1800, when Seryozha was 11 years old, Alexey Ladyzhensky, being a retired lieutenant colonel, together with Ivan Bogucharov went to the Noble boarding house at Moscow University with the goal of finding a place for Seryozha to study. Together with the boarding house inspector, they came up with the boy’s middle name Nikolaevich (after his first stepfather), and the surname Dargomyzhsky - after the village of Dargomyzhka, in which he was born. This is how Sergei Nikolaevich Dargomyzhsky appeared. So the surname Dargomyzhsky is made up.
In 1806, Sergei Nikolaevich Dargomyzhsky completed his studies at a boarding house and got a job at the Moscow post office. In 1812, he wooed Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya and received a refusal from the bride’s parents: although he was a nobleman, he had no fortune! Then, Sergei Nikolaevich, without thinking twice, stole his Mashenka and took her to the Kozlovsky estate in the Smolensk province. Thus, the mother of Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky, née Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, married against the will of her parents. She was well educated, wrote poetry and short dramatic scenes, published in almanacs and magazines in the 1820s and 30s, and was keenly interested in French culture.
A.S. Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2 (14), 1813 in the village of Troitsky, Tula province. The Dargomyzhsky family had six children: Erast, Alexander, Sophia, Victor, Lyudmila and Erminia. All of them were raised at home, in the traditions of the nobility, received a good education and inherited a love of art from their mother.
Dargomyzhsky's brother, Erast, played the violin (a student of Boehm), one of his sisters (Erminia) played the harp, and he himself was interested in music from an early age. Warm friendly relations between the brothers and sisters remained for many years. Thus, Alexander, who did not have his own family, subsequently lived for several years with the family of Sophia, who became the wife of the famous cartoonist Nikolai Stepanov.
Until the age of five, the boy did not speak; his late-formed voice remained forever high and slightly hoarse, which did not prevent him, however, from subsequently moving him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of his vocal performance.
In 1817, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where his father received a position as the head of the office in a commercial bank, and he himself began to receive a musical education. His first piano teacher was Louise Wolgeborn, then he began studying with Adrian Danilevsky.
He was a good pianist, but did not share the young Dargomyzhsky’s interest in composing music (his short piano pieces from this period have been preserved). Finally, for three years Sasha’s teacher was Franz Schoberlechner, a student of the famous composer Johann Hummel. Having achieved a certain skill, Alexander began performing as a pianist at charity concerts and in private gatherings. At this time, he also studied with the famous singing teacher Benedikt Zeibig, and from 1822 he mastered playing the violin (he was taught by the serf musician Vorontsov). Dargomyzhsky played in quartets as a violinist, but soon lost interest in this instrument. By that time, he had already written a number of piano works, romances and other works, some of which were published.
Listening to a fragment of one of the early piano works, for example, “Melancholic Waltz”
In the fall of 1827, following in his father’s footsteps, he entered the civil service and, thanks to his hard work and conscientious attitude to work, quickly began to move up the career ladder. During this period, he often played music at home and visited the opera house, whose repertoire was based on the works of Italian composers.
In the spring of 1835 A.S. Dargomyzhsky met Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, with whom he played four-hand piano and analyzed the works of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Glinka helped Dargomyzhsky with the study of musical theoretical disciplines, giving him notes from music theory lessons that he received in Berlin from Siegfried Dehn.
Having attended the rehearsals of Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar,” which was being prepared for production, Dargomyzhsky decided to independently write his first major stage work. The choice of plot fell on Victor Hugo's drama “Lucretia Borgia”. However, the creation of the opera progressed slowly and in 1837, on the advice of Vasily Zhukovsky, the composer turned to another work by the same author, which in the late 1830s was very popular in Russia - “Notre Dame Cathedral”. The composer used the original French libretto, written by V. Hugo himself for Louise Bertin, whose opera “Esmeralda” had been staged shortly before. By 1841, Dargomyzhsky completed the orchestration and translation of the opera, for which he also took the title “Esmeralda” and handed over the score to the directorate of the Imperial Theaters. The opera, written in the spirit of French composers, waited for its premiere for several years, since Italian productions were much more popular with the public. Despite the good dramatic and musical design of “Esmeralda,” this opera left the stage some time after the premiere and was almost never staged in the future.
The composer’s worries about the failure of “Esmeralda” were further aggravated by the growing popularity of Glinka’s works. The composer begins to give singing lessons (his students were exclusively women) and writes a number of romances for voice and piano. Some of them were published and became very popular, for example “The fire of desire burns in the blood...”, “I am in love, beauty maiden...”, “Lileta”, “Night Zephyr”, “Sixteen Years” and others.
Listening to a fragment of one of the vocal compositions, for example the romance “Sixteen Years”
In 1843, the composer retired, and soon (1844) he went abroad, where he spent several months in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Vienna. He meets the musicologist François-Joseph Fety, the violinist Henri Vieutan and the leading European composers of the time: Auber, Donizetti, Halévy, Meyerbeer. Returning to Russia in 1845, the composer became interested in studying Russian musical folklore, elements of which were clearly manifested in romances and songs written during this period: “Darling Maiden”, “Fever”, “Miller”, as well as in the opera “Rusalka”, which the composer began writing in 1848.
In 1853, a gala concert of his works was held to coincide with the composer’s fortieth birthday. At the end of the concert, all his students and friends gathered on the stage and presented Alexander Sergeevich with a silver conductor’s baton inlaid with emeralds with the names of admirers of his talent.
In 1855, the opera “Rusalka” was completed. It occupies a special place in the composer’s work. Written on the plot of the tragedy of the same name in verse by A.S. Pushkin, it was created in the period 1848-1855. Dargomyzhsky himself adapted Pushkin's poems into a libretto and composed the ending of the plot (Pushkin's work is not finished). The premiere of “Rusalka” took place on May 4 (16), 1856 in St. Petersburg. The largest Russian music critic of that time, Alexander Serov, responded to it with a large-scale positive review in the “Theater Musical Bulletin” (its volume was so large that it was published in parts in several issues). This article helped the opera to remain in the repertoire of leading theaters in Russia for some time and added creative confidence to him.
After some time, the composer became close to the democratic circle of writers, took part in the publication of the satirical magazine Iskra, and wrote several songs based on poems by one of its main participants, the poet Vasily Kurochkin. In 1859, he was elected to the leadership of the newly founded St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Musical Society. He meets a group of young composers, the central figure among whom was Miley Alekseevich Balakirev (this group would later become the “Mighty Handful”).
Dargomyzhsky is planning to write a new opera. However, in search of a plot, he first rejects Pushkin’s “Poltava”, and then the Russian legend about Rogdan. The composer's choice stops at the third of Pushkin's “Little Tragedies” - “The Stone Guest”. Work on the opera, however, is proceeding rather slowly due to the creative crisis that has begun for the composer, associated with the withdrawal of “Mermaids” from the theater repertoire and the disdainful attitude of younger musicians.
In 1864, the composer again traveled to Europe: he visited Warsaw, Leipzig, Paris, London and Brussels, where his orchestral play “Cossack”, as well as fragments from “Rusalka”, were successfully performed. Franz Liszt speaks approvingly of his work.
Returning to Russia, inspired by the success of his compositions abroad, Dargomyzhsky took up the composition of “The Stone Guest” with renewed vigor. The language he chose for this opera - almost entirely built on melodic recitatives with simple chord accompaniment - interested the composers of the “Mighty Handful”, and especially Cesar Cui, who at that time was looking for ways to reform Russian operatic art.
Listening to a fragment of the opera “The Stone Guest”, for example, the second song of Laura “I am here, Inesilla” from 2 scenes of 1 acts
However, the composer’s appointment to the post of head of the Russian Musical Society and the failure of the opera-ballet “The Triumph of Bacchus,” which he wrote back in 1848 and had not seen the stage for almost twenty years, weakened the composer’s health.
On January 5 (17), 1869, he died, leaving the opera “The Stone Guest” unfinished. According to his will, it was completed by Cui and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1872, the composers of the “Mighty Handful” achieved the production of the opera “The Stone Guest” on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.
Dargomyzhsky is buried in the Necropolis of Art Masters of the Tikhvin Cemetery, not far from Glinka’s grave.
For many years, the composer's name was associated exclusively with the opera “The Stone Guest” as a work that had a great influence on the development of Russian opera. The opera was written in a style that was innovative for those times: it contains neither arias nor ensembles (not counting two small insert romances by Laura). It is entirely built on “melodic recitatives” and recitation set to music. As the goal of choosing such a language, Dargomyzhsky set not only the reflection of “dramatic truth”, but also the artistic reproduction with the help of music of human speech with all its shades and bends. Later, the principles of Dargomyzhsky’s operatic art were embodied in the operas of M. P. Mussorgsky - “Boris Godunov” and especially vividly in “Khovanshchina”.
Another opera by Dargomyzhsky - “Rusalka” - also became a significant phenomenon in the history of Russian music - it is the first Russian opera in the genre of everyday psychological drama. In it, the author embodied one of the many versions of the legend about a deceived girl, turned into a mermaid and taking revenge on her offender.
Two operas from a relatively early period of the composer’s work - “Esmeralda” and “The Triumph of Bacchus” - waited for their first production for many years and were not very popular with the public.
Dargomyzhsky's chamber vocal compositions enjoy great success. His early romances are in a lyrical spirit, composed in the 1840s - influenced by Russian musical folklore (later this style will be used in the romances of P. I. Tchaikovsky), finally, his later ones are filled with deep drama, passion, truthfulness of expression, appearing as such thus, the harbingers of the vocal works of M. P. Mussorgsky. In a number of works of this genre, the composer’s comic talent was clearly demonstrated (“The Worm”, “Titular Advisor”, etc.).
The composer created four works for the orchestra: “Bolero” (late 1830s), “Baba Yaga”, “Cossack” and “Chukhon Fantasy” (all early 1860s). Despite the originality of the orchestral writing and good orchestration, they are performed quite rarely. These works are a continuation of the traditions of Glinka's symphonic music and one of the foundations of the rich heritage of Russian orchestral music created by composers of later times.
Listening to a fragment of one of the symphonic works, for example, “Cossack” (main theme)
In the 20th century, interest in music was revived: A. Dargomyzhsky’s operas were staged in the leading theaters of the USSR, orchestral works were included in the “Anthology of Russian Symphonic Music”, recorded by E.F. Svetlanov, and romances became an integral part of the singers' repertoire. Among the musicologists who made the greatest contribution to the study of Dargomyzhsky’s work, the most famous are A.N. Drozdov and M.S. Pekelis, author of many works dedicated to the composer.
List of information resources used
- Kann-Novikova E. I want the truth. The Tale of Alexander Dargomyzhsky/Stories about music for schoolchildren. – 1976. – 128 p.
- Kozlova N. Russian musical literature. Third year of study. - M.: “Music”, 2002.- p.66-79.
- Shornikova M. Musical literature. Russian musical classics. Third year of study. – Rostov-on-Don: “Phoenix”, 2008. – p.97-127.
- Dargomyzhsky Alexander Sergeevich. Wikipedia. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/
