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Dargomyzhsky Alexander Sergeevich was born on November 14, 1813 in the Troitskoye estate of the Belevsky district of the Tula province. From 1817 he lived in the capital, St. Petersburg. As a child, he received an excellent musical education. In addition to the basic piano, he played the violin well, had success in vocal performance. Contemporaries noted that the high hoarse voice of the boy "moved to tears."

The teachers of the future composer in different periods were Louise Wolgeborn, Franz Schoeberlechner and Benedikt Zeibig. In his youth, Dargomyzhsky follows in his father's footsteps, up the career ladder of the civil service, and for a while forgets about composition.

The key in the composer's work was acquaintance with. Since 1835, Dargomyzhsky has been studying music theory according to his notes, and has repeatedly traveled to European countries. By the age of forty, Dargomyzhsky's creativity reaches its peak. In 1853, a concert consisting only of his works was held with great success in St. Petersburg. In parallel with the composition, Dargomyzhsky is published in the popular satirical magazines Iskra and Alarm Clock, and takes an active part in the creation of the Russian Musical Society. Since 1867, he became the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Society.

"The Mighty Handful" and the work of Dargomyzhsky

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky is one of the inspirers and organizers of the Mighty Handful. Like other members of society, he professed the principles of nationality, national character and tone of music. His work is characterized by ardent sympathy for simple, "small" people, the disclosure of the spiritual world of man. Not only in music, but also in the life of A.S. Dargomyzhsky followed his principles. One of the first nobles in Russia, he freed his peasants from serfdom, left them all the land and forgave their debts.

The basis for the emergence of new techniques and means of musical expression was the main aesthetic principle of Dargomyzhsky: “I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth."

The principle of "musical truth" is most clearly seen in the recitatives of Dargomyzhsky's works. Flexible, melodic musical techniques convey all the shades and colors of human speech. The famous "Stone Guest" not only became the embodiment of the declamatory form of singing, but also played a significant role in the development of Russian classical music.

They were appreciated by both contemporaries and descendants. Another Russian musical classic, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, very accurately summarized the work of Alexander Sergeevich:

“Dargomyzhsky is a great teacher of musical truth!”

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky passed away on January 17, 1869, having made a long foreign tour before that (Berlin, Leipzig, Brussels, Paris, London). He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, not far from M. Glinka.

Dargomyzhsky.The most famous compositions:

  • opera "Esmeralda" (1838-1841);
  • the opera-ballet The Triumph of Bacchus (1848), The Mermaid (1856), The Stone Guest (1866-1869, completed after the death of the composer C. Cui and N. Rimsky-Korsakov in 1872);
  • unfinished operas Rogdan and Mazeppa;
  • fantasies "Baba Yaga, or from the Volga nach Riga", "Little Russian Cossack", "Chukhonian fantasy";
  • works for piano "Brilliant Waltz", "Tobacco Waltz", Two Mazurkas, Polka, Scherzo and others;
  • vocal works. Dargomyzhsky is the author of more than a hundred songs and romances, including “Both Boring and Sad”, “Sixteen Years Old”, “I'm Here, Inezilla”, “Melnik”, “Old Corporal”, etc., choral works.

A.S. Dargomyzhsky. "Stone Guest" Broadcast from the Mariinsky Theater

Where children get the opportunity for creative development. And who is Dargomyzhsky and how he is connected with the Vyazemsky land, you can find out by getting acquainted with his biography.

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869)- Russian composer, who left a significant mark on the development of music, creating one of the new directions - realistic. Dargomyzhsky Alexander Sergeyevich once wrote in his autobiographical letter: “I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth” and he did it very well, because it was not for nothing that Mussorgsky called him “teacher of musical truth”.

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky short biography

The life path of Dargomyzhsky and his short biography begins from birth. This happened in February 1913. It was then that the world saw a little boy who was born into a noble family, and they named him Alexander, whose glorious biography began in Troitskoye village, Tula region. As soon as Napoleon's troops were expelled from the territory of Russia, the Dargomyzhskys settled in the estate, which was inherited by Dargomyzhsky's mother, in the Tverdunovo estate, in the Vyazemsky district. The first four years of the future composer passed there, after which the whole family moved to St. Petersburg. There Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky is engaged in musical education. He learns to play the violin, piano, learns to sing, tried his hand at writing his first romances, pieces for the piano.

Among his acquaintances, there were many writers, among whom were Lev Pushkin, Zhukovsky Vasily, Pyotr Vyazemsky. An important role in the fate of Dargomyzhsky was played by the meeting and acquaintance with Glinka.

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky created music and his first major work was work on the opera Esmeralda, which was not immediately put on stage, but when the author achieved its release, after the premiere, she quickly left the stage and was rarely staged. Such a failure affected Dargomyzhsky's state of mind with pain and feelings, but he continues to create and writes a number of romances.

Mermaid creation story

Composer Dargomyzhsky goes abroad, so to speak, for inspiration. There he met musicologists, world composers, and upon returning to his homeland, Alexander became interested in folklore, whose echoes can be traced in many of his works, including his famous work, which brought great popularity to the author. And this is the work of Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky "Mermaid" on the plot of Pushkin's tragedy "Mermaid". If we talk about the work of Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky "Mermaid" and its history of creation, it is worth saying that it took about seven years to write the composer's work. He began to write it in 1848, and completed the work in 1855.

The next opera that Dargomyzhsky conceived was The Stone Guest, but it is being written slowly due to the author's creative crisis, which was caused by the exit from the theater repertoire of his work Mermaid. Again Dargomyzhsky goes abroad for inspiration. Upon arrival, he again takes on the "Stone Guest", but could not complete it.

Opera by A.S.Dargomyzhsky Mermaid

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky music

Dargomyzhsky - Melnik, sheet music

Melancholic waltz A. Dargomyzhsky

In 1869 Dargomyzhsky leaves our world. He was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts.

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky interesting facts from life

Studying the biography of Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky, one can note such an interesting fact of his life as the completion of the opera The Stone Guest, which was completed by Caesar Cui.
After himself, Dargomyzhsky left a lot of works, and these are operas, and chamber vocal works, and songs of social content, and romances, and works for the piano.

During his life, Dargomyzhsky never met the one with whom he would start a family and raise children. In Vyazma, next to the art school, A.S. A monument was erected to Dargomyzhsky, and recently appeared.

Well, we invite you to get to know the composer better. After looking at the photo of Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky, you can also touch the work of Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky, listening to his works.

Russian composer Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2 (14), 1813 in the village of Troitskoye, Belevsky district, Tula province, into an old noble family. Here he spent his early childhood. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, was a poor nobleman. Mother, Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, was a nee princess. She was well educated; her poems were published in almanacs and magazines. Some of the poems she wrote for her children were included in the collection: “A Gift to My Daughter” (“Children's Almanac”, St. Petersburg, 1827).

In 1817, the Dargomyzhsky family moved to St. Petersburg, where the future composer spent his childhood. Alexander did not speak at all until the age of 5, and his late-formed voice remained forever hoarse and squeaky, which, however, did not prevent him from subsequently touching him to tears with the artistry and expressiveness of his vocal performance.

Alexander Sergeevich never studied at any educational institution, but received a thorough home education, in which music occupied the main place. He showed his creative abilities at an early age. Music was his passion. In 1822, the boy began to learn to play the violin, and later the piano. Already at the age of eleven, Dargomyzhsky preferred his own plays. Having completed his studies in piano playing with the once famous musician F. Schoberlechner, at the age of seventeen Dargomyzhsky became known to the St. Petersburg public as a virtuoso musician. In addition, he studied singing with B.L. Zeibich and violin playing by P.G. Vorontsov, participating from the age of 14 in the quartet ensemble.

By the age of eighteen of his life, Dargomyzhsky was the author of many works in various genres. His earliest works - rondo, variations for pianoforte, romances to the words of Zhukovsky and Pushkin - were not found in his papers, but were published during his lifetime in 1824-1828. In the 1830s, Dargomyzhsky was known in the musical circles of St. Petersburg as a "strong pianist", as well as the author of several piano pieces in a brilliant salon style and romances: "I'm sorry, uncle", "The Maiden and the Rose", "Oh, ma charmante" and others, not much different from the style of romances by Verstovsky, Alyabyev and Varlamov, with an admixture of French influence. Many of the young composer's musical works were printed.

In 1831, Dargomyzhsky entered the civil service in the Ministry of the Imperial Court. However, he does not forget about music lessons. In 1834 he met M.I. Glinka. This acquaintance played a decisive role in choosing a life path for Dargomyzhsky. It was Glinka who persuaded him to seriously study theory and handed over to him the theoretical manuscripts brought from Berlin from Professor Den, contributed to the expansion of knowledge in the field of harmony and counterpoint; then Dargomyzhsky began to study orchestration. Glinka's advice helped Dargomyzhsky master the technique of composing. The works written by him in the 1830s testify to the original implementation of the musical traditions of Glinka by him. In the 1830s and 1840s, many romances and songs were written, among them a number of romances based on poems by A.S. Pushkin: "Wedding", "I loved you", "Vetrograd", "Night Zephyr", "A tear", "Youth and Maiden", "The fire of desire burns in the blood" which were a great success with the public. In this regard, in 1843 they were issued by a separate collection.

In 1839 Dargomyzhsky wrote his first opera "Esmeralda". The opera turned out to be weak and imperfect. However, Dargomyzhsky's features were already noticeable in this work: the desire for expressiveness of the vocal style, drama. Esmeralda was staged only in 1847 in Moscow and in 1851 in St. Petersburg. “Those eight years of vain waiting and in the most ebullient years of my life laid a heavy burden on my entire artistic activity,” writes Dargomyzhsky. Not very bright in music, "Esmeralda" could not resist on stage. This failure suspended Dargomyzhsky's operatic work. He took up writing romances, which were published in 1844.

In 1844-1845, Dargomyzhsky made a great trip to Europe (Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Vienna), where he met J. Meyerbeer, J.F. Halevi and G. Donizetti. Personal acquaintance with European musicians influenced his further development. Having left as an adherent of everything French, Dargomyzhsky returned to Petersburg a much greater champion of everything Russian than before (as happened with Glinka).

After a trip abroad in 1844-1845, Dargomyzhsky lived in St. Petersburg. In the 1840s he wrote a large cantata with choirs to a text by Pushkin "The Triumph of Bacchus". It was performed at the Directorate's concert at the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg in 1846, but the author was refused permission to stage it as an opera, and only much later (in 1867) was it staged in Moscow. Disappointed by the refusal to stage Bacchus, Dargomyzhsky closed himself in a close circle of his admirers and admirers, continuing to compose small vocal ensembles (duets, trios, quartets) and romances, which were published at the same time and became popular.

Dargomyzhsky was engaged in a lot of private musical and pedagogical activities, taught singing. Among his students, L.N. Belenitsyna, M.V. Shilovskaya, Girs, Bilibina, Pavlova, Barteneva, A.N. Purholt, Princess Manvelova.

In 1848 Dargomyzhsky began work on a lyric-dramatic opera "Mermaid", to the text of Pushkin, and lasted 8 years. It is worth noting that he conceived this opera as early as 1843, but the composition progressed extremely slowly. This work opened a new page in the history of Russian music. It is distinguished by psychological depth, accuracy in the depiction of characters. Dargomyzhsky for the first time in Russian opera embodied not only the social conflicts of that time, but also the internal contradictions of the human personality. P.I. Tchaikovsky highly appreciated this work, believing that in a number of Russian operas it ranks first after Glinka's brilliant operas. In April 1853, in the hall of the Nobility Assembly in St. Petersburg, Dargomyzhsky gives a big concert of his works, enthusiastically received by the public, and in 1855 the Mermaid was completed.

In May 1956, the first performance of The Mermaid took place at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg under the direction of K. Lyadov, but was not successful. The opera lasted only 26 performances until 1861, but resumed in 1865 with Platonova and Komissarzhevsky, it was a huge success and has since been considered one of the most beloved Russian operas. The Rusalka was first staged in Moscow in 1858. In this opera, Dargomyzhsky consciously cultivated the Russian musical style created by Glinka. It is known that after the initial failure of the "Mermaid" Dargomyzhsky fell into depression. According to the story of his friend, V.P. Engelhardt, he intended to burn the scores of "Esmeralda" and "Mermaid", and only the formal refusal of the directorate to give them to the author, supposedly for correction, saved the scores from destruction. During these years, Dargomyzhsky wrote a lot of romances based on Pushkin's poems. But other genres also appeared: romances of a lyrical monologue, comedy skits.

The last period of Dargomyzhsky's work was perhaps the most significant and original. Its beginning is marked by the appearance of a number of original vocal pieces, distinguished by their comicality ( "Titular Advisor" 1859), drama ( "Old Corporal", 1858; "Paladin", 1859), subtle irony ( "Worm", to the text of Beranger-Kurochkin, 1858) and always remarkable in terms of 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 on one of them a dedication to Dargomyzhsky - "the great teacher of musical truth." The comic vein of Dargomyzhsky also manifested itself in the field of orchestral composition. His orchestral fantasies belong to the same period: "Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga" (1862), "Little Russian Cossack"(1864), inspired by Glinka's Kamarinskaya, and "Fantasy on Finnish Themes" ("Chukhon fantasy", 1867).

The new vocal verse of Dargomyzhsky influenced the development of the vocal style of young composers, which especially affected the work of Cui and Mussorgsky. Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin were particularly affected by Dargomyzhsky's new opera techniques, which were the practical implementation of the thesis expressed by him in a letter (1857) to Karmalina: “I want the sound to directly express the word; I want the truth." These words of Dargomyzhsky became his creative credo.

In the early 1860s, Dargomyzhsky set to work on a magic-comic opera "Rogdan", but wrote only five numbers. A little later he conceived an opera "Mazepa", on the plot of Pushkin's "Poltava", but, having written a duet of Orlik with Kochubey ( "There you are again, despicable person"), and stopped there. I lacked the determination to expend energy on a large work, the fate of which I was not sure.

In the period from 1864 to 1865, Dargomyzhsky made another trip abroad. He visited Warsaw, Leipzig, Brussels, Paris. The concert performance of his works causes indescribable delight of the public. But the main impetus for the extraordinary awakening of creativity was given to Dargomyzhsky by his young comrades, the composers of the "Balakirev circle", whose talents he quickly appreciated. Dargomyzhsky played a very important role in their formation, had a great influence on their future work (especially MP Mussorgsky), becoming the "godfather" of the "Mighty Handful". Young composers, especially Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, discussed the ideas of operatic reform together. Their energy was communicated to Dargomyzhsky himself; he decided to boldly embark on the path of operatic reform and sang (in his words) the swan song, starting with extraordinary zeal to compose his last opera - "Stone Guest", setting an innovative task - to write an opera based on the full text of a literary work, without changing a single line of Pushkin's text and without adding a single word to it.

All the last years of his life, Dargomyzhsky worked on The Stone Guest. There are no arias or choirs in this opera, it consists exclusively of talented and original melodic recitatives. Their goal is not only to reproduce the psychological truth, but also in the artistic reproduction of human speech with all its shades with the help of music. Dargomyzhsky's disease (a rapidly developing aneurysm and hernia) did not stop creativity. In recent weeks he has been writing in bed with a pencil. Young friends, gathering at the patient's, performed scene after scene of the opera as it was being created, and with their enthusiasm gave new strength to the fading composer. Dargomyzhsky did not stop working, the opera was almost over. The death of the composer prevented him from completing the 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 Dargomyzhsky's young friends, members of the Mighty Handful, the opera The Stone Guest was staged in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky Stage on February 16, 1872 and resumed in 1876. The "Stone Guest" was received coldly, it seemed too complicated and dry. However, the significance of The Stone Guest, which logically completes the reformist ideas of Dargomyzhsky, cannot be overestimated.

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky is one of the founders of the Russian classical school of composers, the creator of the lyrical operatic drama. He died on January 5 (17), 1869 in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Dargomyzhsky created a vocal style that lies between cantilena and recitative, a special melodious or melodic recitative, elastic enough to be in constant correspondence with speech, and at the same time rich in characteristic melodic twists, spiritualizing this speech, bringing into it a new, lacking emotional element.

(2 (14) .2.1813, Troitskoye village, now the Belevsky district of the Tula region, -

5(17).1.1869, Petersburg)

Dargomyzhsky, Alexander Sergeevich - famous Russian composer. Born February 14, 1813 in the village of Dargomyzhe, Belevsky district, Tula province. He 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, nee Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, married against the will of her parents.

She was well educated; Her poems were published in almanacs and magazines. Some of the poems she wrote for her children, mostly of an instructive nature, were included in the collection: "A Gift to My Daughter."

One of the Dargomyzhsky 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 touching him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of vocal performance at intimate meetings.

Education Dargomyzhsky received home, but thorough; he knew the French language and French literature perfectly.

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 to compose from the age of 11, but exterminated his composing experiments.

Piano learning ended with Schoberlechner, a student of Hummel. Dargomyzhsky also studied singing, with Tseibih, who informed him of information about intervals, and violin playing with P.G. Vorontsov, participating from the age of 14 in the quartet ensemble.

There was no real system in Dargomyzhsky's musical education, and he owed his theoretical knowledge mainly to himself.

His earliest compositions - rondo, variations for piano, romances to the words of Zhukovsky and Pushkin - were not found in his papers, but even 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", as well as the author of several piano pieces in a brilliant salon style and romances: "Oh, ma charmante", "The Maiden and the Rose", "I confess, uncle", "You are pretty" and others, not much different from the style of romances by Verstovsky, Alyabyev and Varlamov, with an admixture of French influence.

Acquaintance with M.I. Glinka, who handed over to Dargomyzhsky the theoretical manuscripts he had brought from Berlin from Professor Den, contributed to the expansion of his knowledge in the field of harmony and counterpoint; at the same time he began to study orchestration.

Assessing Glinka's talent, Dargomyzhsky for his first opera "Esmeralda" chose, however, the 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 (handwritten score, clavieraustsug, Dargomyzhsky's autograph, are stored in the central music library of the Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg; found in the notes of Dargomyzhsky and a lithographed copy of the 1st act) - a work weak, imperfect, unable to be compared with "Life for the king."

But the features of Dargomyzhsky were already revealed in it: drama and a desire for expressiveness of the vocal style, under the influence of acquaintance with the works of Megul, Aubert and Cherubini. Esmeralda was staged only in 1847 in Moscow and in 1851 in St. Petersburg. “Those eight years of vain waiting and in the most ebullient years of my life laid a heavy burden on my entire artistic activity,” writes Dargomyzhsky. Until 1843, Dargomyzhsky was in the service, first in the control of the Ministry of the Court, then in the Department of the State Treasury; then he devoted himself entirely to music.

The failure with "Esmeralda" suspended Dargomyzhsky's operatic work; he took up writing romances, which, together with earlier ones, were published (30 romances) in 1844 and brought him honorable fame.

In 1844 Dargomyzhsky traveled to Germany, Paris, Brussels and Vienna. Personal acquaintance with Aubert, Meyerbeer and other European musicians influenced his further development.

He became close friends with Halévy and with Fetis, who testifies that Dargomyzhsky consulted with him regarding his compositions, including "Esmeralda" ("Biographie universelle des musiciens", Petersburg, X, 1861). Having left as an adherent of everything French, Dargomyzhsky returned to Petersburg a much greater champion of everything Russian than before (as happened with Glinka).

Reviews of the foreign press about the performance of Dargomyzhsky's works at private collections in Vienna, Paris and Brussels contributed to a certain 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 the directorate's concert at the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg in 1846, but the author was refused permission 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 of Dargomyzhsky. Disappointed 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, then published and made popular.

At the same time, he took up teaching singing. The number of his students and especially his female students (he gave lessons for free) is enormous. L.N. Belenitsyn (by Karmalin's husband; Dargomyzhsky's most interesting letters to her have been published), M.V. Shilovskaya, Bilibina, Barteneva, Girs, Pavlova, Princess Manvelova, A.N. Purholt (by 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, Rusalka, based on a text by Pushkin, but the composition moved extremely slowly, and even the approval of friends did not speed up the work; meanwhile, the duo of the prince and Natasha, performed by Dargomyzhsky and Karmalina, caused tears in Glinka.

A new impetus to the work of Dargomyzhsky was given by the resounding success of a grandiose concert from his compositions, arranged in St. Petersburg in the hall of the Nobility Assembly on April 9, 1853, according to the idea of ​​Prince V.F. Odoevsky and A.N. Karamzin. Taking up the "Mermaid" again, Dargomyzhsky finished it in 1855 and transferred it to 4 hands (an unpublished arrangement is kept in the Imperial Public Library). In Rusalka, Dargomyzhsky consciously cultivated the Russian musical style created by Glinka.

New in "Mermaid" is its drama, comedy (the figure of a matchmaker) and bright recitatives, in which Dargomyzhsky was ahead of Glinka. But the vocal style of "Mermaid" is far from sustained; next to truthful, expressive recitatives, there are conditional cantilenas (Italianisms), rounded arias, duets and ensembles that do not always fit in with the requirements of the drama.

The weak side of the "Mermaid" is still technically its orchestration, which cannot be compared with the richest orchestral colors of "Ruslan", and from an artistic point of view - the whole fantastic part, 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 performance, inappropriate cuts, conducted by K. Lyadov, who did not like Dargomyzhsky, was not successful .

The opera lasted only 26 performances until 1861, but resumed in 1865 with Platonova and Komissarzhevsky, it was a huge success and has since become a repertoire and one of the most beloved of Russian operas. In Moscow, "Mermaid" was staged for the first time in 1858. The initial failure of "Mermaid" 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 "Mermaid", and only the formal refusal of the directorate to give 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 reformatory. Its beginning, already rooted in the recitatives of The Mermaid, is marked by the appearance of a number of original vocal pieces, distinguished either by their comicality - or, rather, by Gogol's humor, laughter through tears ("Titular Counselor", 1859), then by drama ("Old Corporal", 1858; "Paladin", 1859), then with subtle irony ("Worm", on the text of Beranger-Kurochkin, 1858), then with a burning feeling of a rejected woman ("We parted proudly", "I don't care", 1859) and always remarkable in 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 on one of them a dedication to Dargomyzhsky, "the great teacher of musical truth." The comic vein of Dargomyzhsky also manifested itself in the field of orchestral composition. His orchestral fantasies belong to the same period: "Little Russian Cossack", inspired by Glinka's "Kamarinskaya", and quite independent: "Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga" and "Chukhonskaya 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 in the mid-1850s with the composers of the "Balakirev circle" was beneficial for both sides.

The new vocal verse of Dargomyzhsky 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 rest. Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin were particularly affected by Dargomyzhsky's new opera techniques, which were the practical implementation of the thesis expressed by him 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 failures with the government administration, could not endure inaction for a long time.

In the early 1860s, he began to work on the magic-comic opera "Rogdan", but wrote only five numbers, two solo ones ("Duetino of Rogdana and Ratobor" and "Comic Song") and three choral ones (chorus of dervishes to Pushkin's words "Arise , timid", of a harsh oriental character and two women's choirs: "Quietly flow brooks" and "As the luminiferous daylight appears"; all of them were first performed in concerts of the Free Music School in 1866 - 1867). Somewhat later, he conceived the opera "Mazepa", based on the plot of Pushkin's "Poltava", but, having written a duet between Orlik and Kochubey ("Again you are here, despicable person"), he stopped at it.

There was not enough determination to expend energy on a large work, 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, Kapellmeister Hanssens appreciated Dargomyzhsky's talent and contributed to the performance of his orchestral works in concerts (overture to "Mermaid" and "Cossack "), which was a huge success. But the main impetus to the extraordinary awakening of creativity was given to Dargomyzhsky by his new young comrades, whose talents he quickly appreciated. The question of opera forms then became another.

Serov was engaged in it, intending to become an opera composer and carried away by the ideas of Wagner's operatic reform. Members of the Balakirev circle, especially Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, also dealt with it, solving it on their own, based largely on the features of Dargomyzhsky's new vocal style. 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 sang (as he put it) the 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.

Did not stop creativity and Dargomyzhsky's disease (aneurysms and hernia); in the last weeks he had been writing in bed with a pencil. Young friends, gathering at the patient's, performed scene after scene of the opera as it was being created, and with their enthusiasm gave new strength to the fading composer. Within a few months the opera was almost finished; death prevented him from completing the 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 did not stay in the repertoire and is still far from appreciated.

However, the significance of The Stone Guest, which logically completes the reformist ideas of Dargomyzhsky, is beyond doubt. In The Stone Guest, Dargomyzhsky, like Wagner, seeks 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 that are not caused by the meaning of the text. This was achieved by the rejection of the symmetrical forms of arias, duets and other rounded ensembles, and at the same time the rejection of a continuous cantilena, as insufficiently elastic to express 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 expedient for the actors themselves to speak about themselves. Opera links in the continuously flowing music of Wagner are leitmotifs, symbols of persons, objects, ideas. The operatic style of The Stone Guest is devoid of leitmotifs; nevertheless, the characteristics of the characters in Dargomyzhsky are bright and strictly sustained. Different speeches are put into their mouths, but they are the same for everyone. Denying a solid cantilena, Dargomyzhsky also rejected the ordinary, so-called "dry" recitative, which has little expressiveness and is devoid of purely musical beauty. He created a vocal style that lies between cantilena and recitative, a special melodious or melodic recitative, elastic enough to be in constant correspondence with speech, and at the same time rich in characteristic melodic twists, spiritualizing this speech, bringing into it a new, lacking emotional element.

This vocal style, which fully corresponds to the peculiarities of the Russian language, is the merit of Dargomyzhsky. The operatic forms of The Stone Guest, caused by the properties of the libretto, the text, which did not allow for the widespread use of choirs, vocal ensembles, and independent performance of the orchestra, cannot, of course, be considered immutable models for any opera. Artistic problems allow not one, not two solutions. But the resolution of Dargomyzhsky's operatic 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 on the model of The Stone Guest; Debussy in his opera "Pelléas et Mélisande" implemented the principles of Dargomyzhsky's operatic reform. - Dargomyzhsky's social and musical activity began only shortly before his death: from 1860 he was a member of the committee for the consideration of 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", composed 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 the letters of Dargomyzhsky ("Artist", 1894); I. Karzukhin, biography, with indexes of works and literature about Dargomyzhsky ("Artist", 1894); S. Bazurov "Dargomyzhsky" (1894); N. Findeisen "Dargomyzhsky"; L. Karmalina "Memories" ("Russian Antiquity", 1875); A. Serov, 10 articles about "Mermaid" (from a collection of critical essays); C. Cui "La musique en Russie"; V. Stasov "Our music for the last 25 years" (in collected works).

G. Timofeev

Russian Civilization

Alexander Dargomyzhsky had a great influence on the development of Russian musical art. Sitting down at the piano, this man was completely transformed. He delighted everyone with his passion for music and easy playing, although in everyday life he did not make a vivid impression on people.

Music is exactly the area where he revealed his talent, and then gave the world great works.

Childhood

Alexander was born in the village of Troitskaya in 1813 on 2/14.02. His family was large, in addition to him there were five more children. Until the age of five, little Sasha did not speak. His voice developed late. For the rest of his life, he remained tall with a slight hoarseness, which was not considered a disadvantage, but helped him touch the hearts of listeners while singing.

In 1817 the Dargomyzhskys moved to Petersburg. His father got a position in the office there. And Alexander begins his musical education. Then he sat down at the piano for the first time. Passion for various types of art was instilled in him at home. His mother, Maria Borisovna, was in close contact with literature. The atmosphere in the house was conducive to creativity. In the evenings, the children put on performances, and during the daytime they were engaged in humanitarian subjects: poetry, foreign languages, and history.

His first music teacher was Louise Wolgenborn. After studying with him for two years, she gave him little knowledge in this field. Therefore, the teacher had to change. Since 1821, Alexander began classes with A.T. Danilevsky, already a well-known person in musical circles. After several sessions with him, Dargomyzhsky is making progress. In addition to regular lessons with a teacher, the boy tried to compose melodies himself.

Creative activity did not arouse approval from a strict teacher. He considered it indecent for a nobleman to devote time to writing. At the same time, the future composer had a second teacher - the serf Vorontsov, who taught the boy to play the violin. Unlike Danilevsky, he encouraged Alexander's creative experiments. To add concert practice to their son, his parents invited the pianist Franz Schoberlechner. They worked from 1828 to 1831. During this time, Dargomyzhsky honed his skills to such an extent that already in the 30s he was famous throughout St. Petersburg. In addition to playing musical instruments, Alexander had a passion for singing. He studied with vocal coach Benedikt Zeibich, who became the composer's last teacher. After classes with him, Dargomyzhsky independently continued his musical path.

mature years

In 1827, Alexander begins to work in the office. In the service, he had significant success. However, his life is still inextricably linked with music and writing. In 1835, M. Glinka became his close acquaintance, with whom he studied music. The opera of this composer - "Life for the Tsar" - inspired Dargomyzhsky to write his own great work.

He took the plot for the opera from Hugo's book Lucrezia Borgia. However, he subsequently abandoned this drama and turned to the Notre Dame Cathedral. In 1841 he finished the work, calling it "Esmeralda". However, the opera was not a success. First, she lay for a long 8 years in the composer's desk, and then, after a couple of years of productions at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, she completely forgot. The depressed musician, meanwhile, did not give up and continued to write romances, as well as give vocal lessons.

In 1843, he retired and went on a trip to Europe, where he met famous musicians. Two years later, he returns to his homeland, and devotes all his time to studying folklore and writing works based on it. The main musical creation, in which folklore elements were clearly traced, was "Mermaid". It was shown for the first time on stage in 1856. She has been in the theater repertoire for a long time.

In society, he approached the circle of writers who adhered to democratic views. He even participates in the issue of the Iskra magazine. In 1859 Alexander became one of the leaders of the Russian Musical Society. At the same time, he is looking for a new plot. Having rejected several of Pushkin's "tragedies", he settles on "The Stone Guest". However, the creative crisis that arose in him, due to the neglect of young composers towards him, interfered with writing music. Then Dargomyzhsky again goes abroad.

A big discovery for him was that his works are popular with foreigners. Inspired by this, he regains faith in himself and returns to Russia to finish his Stone Guest. But numerous failures and non-recognition have already played their part. The composer's health is undermined. Alexander does not have time to finish the opera and instructs Caesar Cui to finish it. Dargomyzhsky dies in 1869 5/17.02. at the age of 55, alone: ​​the famous composer had no wife and children.

Creativity Dargomyzhsky

Unusual musical decisions made Alexander an innovator in classical music. So, for example, his opera "Mermaid" was the first psychological drama of its kind with elements of folklore. And the famous "Stone Guest" was based on "melodic recitatives" set to music. The composer considered himself a writer of "dramatic truth" and tried to reproduce the singing of a person in such a way that it reflected all sorts of emotional shades.

If the early works of the musician are full of lyrical beginnings, then in later works there is more and more drama and bright passion. In his works, he tried to display exceptionally tense moments, conflicts of human life, filled with both positive and negative emotions. Calmness in music was alien to him.

Famous works of Dargomyzhsky

  • "Esmeralda" (1841)
  • "The Triumph of Bacchus" (1848)
  • "Mermaid" (1855)
  • "Cossack" (1864)
  • "Stone Guest" (1869)
  • After the abolition of serfdom, he was one of those landowners who set the peasants free.
  • He was not married, but there were rumors in society about his romantic relationship with his student Lyubov Miller.
  • He taught vocals to singers for free.
  • He lived all his life with his parents.
  • During his lifetime, the works of the composer showed little interest. Only decades after his death, Dargomyzhsky's music was appreciated by descendants. As the founder of realism in music, he had a huge impact on musicians of subsequent generations.