Glinka Aragonese jota presentation. Spanish theme in the works of great composers

Municipal Autonomous General Educational Institution
secondary school with in-depth study of subjects of the artistic and aesthetic cycle No. 58 in Tomsk
Tomsk, st. Biryukova 22, (8-382) 67-88-78

Music lesson grade 9.

Topic: "Spanish motifs in the work of M.I. Glinka"

Type: (lesson-journey)

Target: To acquaint students with the works of M.I. Glinka

Tasks: to show the role of Spanish flavor in the composer's work; tell about the life and work of M.I. Glinka during a trip to Spain.

Literature: Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Musician (compiled by V. V. Medushevsky, O. O. Ochakovskaya).

Musicalrow: 1st part of the overture "Night in Madride" romances "I'm here, Inezilla ...", "I remember a wonderful moment .."spanish tarantella,"Aragonese jota","Andalusian dance" ).

Move atrock

I. Introduction to the topic.

Sounds like "Aragonese jota"

Teacher: Good afternoon! (musical greeting). You recognized the piece that was being played. In our lesson, music will be played that uses Spanish motives, but this music was written by our Russian composer - Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. And this music sounds because we will make a trip to the Spanish addresses of the great Russian maestro - M.I. Glinka.

(Sounds the 1st part of the overture "Night in Madri de")

Teacher: You had your homework to get acquainted with the biography of M.I. Glinka. (Presentation)

II. The story of Spanish motifs in the work of M.I. Glinka

Teacher: “Visiting Spain is a dream of my youth. My imagination will not cease to disturb me until I visit this curious land for me. I entered Spain on May 20 - the very day of my decision, and was absolutely delighted ... ".

These lines, like milestones marking the path from a dream to its realization, are given in the book “Spanish diaries of M.I. Glinka. To the 150th Anniversary of Glinka's Journey through Spain, published in Madrid. The luxurious edition, which was immediately appreciated by fans of the great Russian, includes the composer's travel notes, the so-called "Spanish Album", which contains recordings of folk songs, autographs and drawings of people with whom the composer spoke. And the letters about Spain are a subtle story about the country that inspired the musician's work, imbued with accurate observations.

Throughout Spain, there are hardly a dozen monuments erected in honor of foreign writers, artists, composers. A few of them are dedicated to representatives of the Slavic culture. And it is all the more gratifying that both in the Spanish capital and in the south of the country, in Grenada, memorial plaques have been erected in honor of our outstanding Russian - M.I. Glinka. They are a reminder of the touching and respectful attitude of the Spaniards to the composer, who, more than anyone else, did to bring our peoples closer together.

Glinka arrived in Spain in May 1845 and, captivated by her, spent almost 2 years here. He knew about this beautiful country before, which, however, is not surprising: Spain in those years was a kind of fashion in Russia. Glinka, of course, was most fascinated by the music of Spain, the rhythms of which he used. Sergeevich Pushkin "I'm here, Inezilla ...", written in the style of a Spanish serenade! (The romance "I'm here, Inezilla ..." sounds.)

student:1 Spanish motives stirred the soul of the composer, and while in Italy, he was going to come to Spain again and even began to learn Spanish. But then the trip did not take place, almost a decade and a half passed before his dream came true. Oddly enough, family troubles contributed to this: life with Maria Petrovna Ivanova, with whom Glinka became engaged on May 8, 1634, clearly failed. A grueling divorce process began. The existence was brightened up by love for Ekaterina Kern - the daughter of Anna Petrovna Kern. Ekaterina Ermolaevna, born in 1818, graduated from the St. Petersburg Smolny Institute in 1836 and remained there as a class lady. Then she met Glinka's sister and met the composer in her house.

student:2 “My gaze involuntarily rested on her. Clear, expressive eyes ... An unusually strict camp and a special kind of charm and dignity are poured into her whole person and attracted me more and more, - M. Glinka notes in his Notes. - Soon my feelings were shared with Ekaterina Ermolaevna. Our dates became more and more pleasurable ... ".

student:1 He dreamed of getting married, but could not, since the previous marriage had not yet been dissolved. In 1839 M.I. Glinka wrote a romance for Ekaterina Kern to the verses of A.S. Pushkin "Where is our rose ...", and later set to music "I remember a wonderful moment ..." (Romance sounds "I remember a wonderful moment...")

student:2 Thus, by the genius of the poet and composer, mother and daughter entered immortality.

student:1 And Glinka was looking for peace of mind.

student:2 “... It is necessary for me to stay in a new country, which, satisfying the artistic requirements of my imagination, would distract thoughts from those memories, which are the main cause of my current suffering, ”he writes to his friend A. Bartenyeva, and in a letter to his mother he admits that“ only Spain is able to heal the wounds of my heart. And she really healed them: thanks to the journey and my stay in this blessed country, I begin to forget all my past sorrows and sorrows.

student:1 It seemed symbolic to the composer that he came to Spain on his birthday. He is 41 years old.

student:2 “... I lived at the sight of this delightful southern nature. Almost all the way I admired the charming and delightful views. Oak and chestnut groves... Poplar alleys... Fruit trees all in bloom... Huts surrounded by huge rose bushes... It all looked more like an English garden than simple countryside. Finally, the Pyrenees, with their snow-capped peaks, struck me with their majestic appearance.”

Teacher: Mikhail Ivanovich carefully prepared for the trip, resumed his studies in Spanish and, according to eyewitnesses, by the end of his stay in this country he was well versed in it. He determined in advance the range of his interests, putting Spanish folk music in the first place: through its prism, Glinka studied the life and customs of ordinary Spaniards, although he enthusiastically visited palaces and museums, tried not to miss premieres in the capital's theater, met with famous musicians.

(Spanish tarantella sounds performed by guitars).

Teacher: To Spain M.I. Glinka arrived in a halo of glory - the author of the first Russian operas "Ivan Susanin" ("Life for the Tsar") and "Ruslan and Lyudmila". But unlike other eminent Europeans who traveled around Spain at the same time, he communicated only with friends, avoided any noise around his person and any honors. He even refused to perform his "Jota of Aragon" in one of the capital's theaters - it was enough for him that it sounded for the Spaniards very close to him.

Glinka's Spanish life was very different from the recent Italian life, connected mainly with professional musicians. Now the circle of his acquaintances were muleteers, artisans, merchants, gypsies. He visits the homes of ordinary people, listens to guitarists and singers.

student:3 The composer reflected his first Spanish impressions in the famous "Jota of Aragon", or "Brilliant Capriccio", as the author himself called this play. Connoisseurs rank it among the best and most original works of Glinka. The melody that served as its basis, he recorded in the summer of 1845. The rhythm of the dance, which served Glinka so many times for his best instrumental works, did him the same service in the present case.

student:4 “And from the melody of the dance, a magnificent fantastic tree has grown, expressing in its wonderful forms both the charm of the Spanish nationality and all the beauty of Glinka's fantasy,” noted the famous critic Vladimir Stasov.

student:3 And the no less famous writer Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky, after the first performance of the Jota of Aragon in 1850, wrote:

“A miracle day involuntarily takes you to a warm southern night, surrounds you with all its ghosts. You hear the rattling of a guitar, the cheerful sound of castanets, a black-browed beauty is dancing before your eyes, and the characteristic melody is now lost in the distance, then again appears in full swing.

student:4 By the way, it was on the advice of V. Odoevsky that Glinka called his “Jota of Aragon” a “Spanish Overture”.

(Sounds "Jota of Aragon").

Teacher: The fate of "Memories of a Summer Night in Madrid" is also interesting. The composer conceived it in 1848 in Warsaw and even wrote a potpourri of 4 Spanish melodies - "Memories of Castile". But they are, alas! - not saved. And on April 2, 1852, a new edition of "Memories ...", now known as "Night in Madrid", was first performed in St. Petersburg.

student:5 “There was not a single listener who was not carried away to the last degree of delight by the dazzling flashes of the mighty genius of Glinka, shining so brightly in his second “Spanish Overture,” wrote Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

A.S. Rozanov wrote: “In Madrid, he found the necessary conditions for life - complete freedom, light and warmth. He also found the beauty of clear summer nights, the spectacle of festivities under the stars in the Prado. The memory of them was the Spanish Overture No. 2, known under the titles "Remembrance of Castile" or "A Night in Madrid". Just like the Aragonese Jota, this overture is a deeply poetic reflection in the music of Glinka's Spanish impressions.

(A fragment of the overture "Night in Madrid" sounds).

Teacher: With the assistance of Glinka, Spanish boleros, Andalusian dances came to the work of Russians. He presents Spanish themes to the then young Mily Alekseevich Balakirev. The themes of Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Dargomyzhsky, Tchaikovsky were scooped from the "Spanish Album", dotted with recordings of folk melodies.

"I want to compose something similar to Glinka's Spanish Fantasies",- Pyotr Ilyich confessed to his friend Nadezhda von Meck.

Unfortunately, a lot of what related to Spain was lost: some musical works, several letters and a diary that Mikhail Ivanovich kept on a trip were lost.

And now let's listen to the Andalusian Dance, composed in 1855.

(A recording of a dance performed by a piano sounds.)

Teacher: Experts see another facet in Glinka's Spanish "impulse": looking for folk songs and melodies, Glinka thereby stimulates the development of national classical music. From now on, not a single Spanish composer could pass by what was created by this Russian, moreover, here he is considered a teacher.

AT In 1922, a memorial plaque was installed on one of the houses in Grenada, where M.I. Glinka lived in the winter of 1846-1847. But in the very first years of the fascist coup in July 1936, the board was torn down and disappeared without a trace.

Only 60 years later she appeared again. This memorial plaque informs that “the Russian composer M.I. lived in this place. Glinka and here he studied the folk music of that era.

Today, the living memory of the Russian composer is kept by the Trio named after M.I. Glinka is a musical group in Madrid, which is widely known in the country and abroad. He plays the works of the great Russian and, of course, his compositions, born on the beautiful Spanish soil.

(Sounds the 2nd part of the overture "Night in Madrid").

III. Learning a song. ("Waltz Yes, well"

IV.Summary of the lesson.

Leaving Paris on the evening of May 13, Glinka “entered,” as he writes in Zapiski, Spain on May 20, 1845, on his very day of birth, “and was absolutely delighted.” After all, his old dream came true, and his still childhood passion - travel - from a game of imagination and reading books about distant lands became a reality. Therefore, it is not surprising that both in the Notes and in Glinka's letters, the passion for a realized dream affects every step. Lots of good descriptions
nature, life, buildings, gardens - everything that attracted his greedy mind and heart, greedy for impressions and people. Of course, folk dances and music are constantly celebrated by Glinka:
“..In Pamplona, ​​I saw for the first time a Spanish dance performed by minor artists.” (“Notes”, p. 310).
In a letter to his mother (June 4/May 23, 1845), Glinka describes in more detail the first choreographic impression:
“After the drama (Glinka visited the Drama Theater in Pamplona on the very first evening - B.A.) they danced the national dance Jota (jota). Unfortunately, as with us, the passion for Italian music has taken possession of the musicians to such an extent that the national music is completely distorted; I also noticed a lot in dancing in imitation of French choreographers. Despite this, in general, this dance is alive and entertaining.
In Valladolid: “In the evenings, neighbors, neighbors and acquaintances gathered at our place, sang, danced and talked. Between acquaintances, the son of a local merchant named Felix Castilla played the guitar briskly, especially the Aragonese jota, which with its variations I kept in my memory and then in Madrid, in September or December of the same year, made a piece out of them under the name of Cappriccio brillante, which later, on the advice of Prince Odoevsky, he called the Spanish Overture. (“Notes”, p. 311). Here is a description of one of the evenings in Valladolid according to Glinka's letter:
“..Our arrival inspired everyone. They got a bad piano, and yesterday, on the host's name day, about thirty guests gathered in the evening. I was not in the mood to dance, sat down at the piano, two students on two guitars accompanied me very deftly. Dancing with tireless activity continued until 11 pm. The waltz and the quadrille, here called rigaudon, constitute the principal dances. They also dance the Parisian polka and the national hota dance” (“Letters”, p. 208).
“.. Most of the evening I visit friends, play the piano with guitars and violins, and when I stay at home, they gather with us, and we sing national Spanish songs in chorus and dance, as it has not happened to me for a long time” (“Letters”, p. 211).

". In general, few travelers in Spain have traveled as successfully as I have so far. Living in a family, I know home life, study mores and begin to speak decently in a language that is not at all easy. Horseback riding is necessary here - I started my journey by riding 60 miles through the mountains, I ride here almost every evening for 2 and 3 hours. The horse is reliable, and I ride carefully. I feel that the veins come to life and I become more cheerful. (“Letters”, p. 212).
<"..Я не ожидал такого радушия, гостеприимства и благородства — здесь деньгами дружбы и благосклонности не приобретешь, а ласкою — все на свете» («Письма», с. 213).
“..Musically, there are many curious things, but it is not easy to find these folk songs; it is even more difficult to capture the national character of Spanish music - all this feeds my restless imagination, and the more difficult it is to achieve the goal, the more stubbornly and constantly I strive for it, as always ”(“ Letters ”, p. 214).
"... For my suggestion to write something sensible in the Spanish way, 10 months in Spain is not enough." (“Letters”, p. 215).
“.. Literature and theater are in a better condition here than I could have imagined, and therefore, after looking around, I think to do something for Spain.” (“Letters”, p. 218).
Glinka's first letters from Madrid—20/8 and 22/10 September 1845—are full of curious descriptions and observations. My quotations, concerning mainly his musical impressions, are only weak milestones: only by carefully reading his letters, one can understand for oneself how sedately Glinka delved into the life and art of the country that captivated him, and everything musical was for him inseparable from the environment and tenaciously. soldered to life.
“..The orchestra of the main theater in Madrid is excellent. I suppose to do something in the Spanish gender, which I have not yet studied thoroughly; I believe that my love for this country will prove beneficial to my inspiration, and the hospitality that is constantly shown to me here will not be weakened by my debut. If I really succeed in this, my work will not stop and will continue in a style different from my previous compositions, but for me as pretty as the country in which I am happy to live at the present time. Now I begin to speak Spanish with such freedom that the Spaniards are all the more surprised because it seemed to them that, as a Russian by origin, learning their language might be much more difficult. I have made sufficient progress in this language and at the present time I want to undertake a great work - the study of their national music will present me with no less difficulty. Modern civilization has dealt a blow here, as in the rest of Europe, to ancient folk customs. It will take a lot of time and patience to get to know the folk tunes, for modern songs, composed more in the Italian than the Spanish style, are quite naturalized. (“Letters”, pp. 222, 223).
Glinka is doing well in Spain. He even cradles himself with the dream that "I may have to return another time to Spain." His main work is a deep study of the language. He understood that without studying the language, intonationally one would not get to the essence of the people in music, and that only intonation-based sound listening and study of a folk song would help him understand where and what the true folk-national content is, that is his own, which makes Spanish music a phenomenon deeply original and at the same time so attractive to the whole of European culture that at that time a widespread “Spanish style” had already been created, where the Spanish was viewed through the prism of Italian music and Paris, especially the Parisian stage and boulevards.
Now, even at a distance of a hundred years, one can see how little progress has been made in the study of Spanish folk music and how difficult it was for the Spanish composers themselves to combine the mastery of advanced European musical technique with the simultaneous preservation of the main rhythmic and intonational and coloristic properties - the nature and soul, character, as well as the peculiar technicalism of the Spanish folk musical creativity.
What is Spanish music from a musical point of view and why does it excite everyone: both the connoisseur and the simple, not familiar with the intricacies of musical artistic perception? The fact is that thanks to complex and at the same time favorable historical phenomena for music in Spain, there was a close merger of intonation cultures, that is, cultures of human hearing (hearing as a phenomenon of social consciousness, of course, and not a physiological factor) - the rhythm and sound of speech - and musical; a merger in which the people's universal emotional and semantic content manifested itself beyond any division into East and West, Christianity and Mohammedanism, Europe and Asia, and tokhmu-like fences.
The people - humanity - music as one of the manifestations of the public consciousness of the people, but in its own - Spanish - coloring, which does not isolate, but unites the perception of many people with the most diverse beliefs, status and tastes - this is where and what is the essence of this amazing musical - at the root of folk culture. That's what attracts her!
This culture, precisely because of its deep nationality, individually socializes universal human emotions in a purely passionate and sultry intonation, and the plasticity and labor discipline of the human body in a flexible, sensitive rhythm. In her songs, how many reflections of the sorrows and joys experienced by the people, thoughts about life and death, suffering and will! And all this is folk-individual, because it is sharply, deeply experienced, but by no means isolated individualistically, because it reflects the true reality.
It is unlikely that Glinka could reason like that, but he could feel like that. That is why Spain instinctively attracted him. But not only to feel, he could also have mental justifications. Glinka, for all his carelessly romantic, artistic nature, was a person who specifically judged life and phenomena, while in art he was deeply realistic. He firmly knew that his boundless artistic fantasy - in other words, the individualistic tendencies of his artistic imagination - needed clear boundaries. Not finding these facets in the tact-inert constructivism worked out by European, especially Austrian-German practice and the ideology of handicraft instrumentalism (it is known how boldly and boldly Beethoven overcame this schematism, turning constructive fetishism into a means of expression), Glinka saw the means of his limitation of fantasy either in text, but subordinate to the musical idea and form, or, as he himself wrote, in “positive data”.
These positive data, of course, are not ready-made forms of other arts, otherwise Glinka, as a person who feels literature, especially epic literature, would have found such works. While appreciating Pushkin, he, however, did not slavishly follow his poem, but, on the contrary, turned the epic content of Ruslan and Lyudmila “synonymized by Pushkin” towards its folk essence and character. Suffice it to recall how Glinka decides in the opera, say, the moments of seeing off the bride to the bedchamber. He is not fond of beautiful Pushkin's poems:
Dear hopes have come true, Gifts are being prepared for Love; Jealous clothes will fall On Tsaregrad carpets.
He leads his musical narration through a strict and severe rite, and everywhere, throughout the opera, the "sensual Glinka" clearly draws the line between love - the creation of the imagination and caressing the imagination (Ratmir), and love - a deep, serious feeling (Finn, Ruslan, Gorislava ), the struggle for which elevates a person, straining all his creative forces to
Glinka refracts his sensually rich gifts into individually vivid emotional qualities and artistic richness of his love lyrics, but he never elevates them to individualistic or subjective reflections - “mirrors” of his everyday “I”, that is, he reveals the universal in an individual way. That is why his “Do not Tempt”, “Doubt”, “Burning in the Blood”, “Venetian Night”, etc. are so popular. In operas, he emphasizes the socializing-symphonic power of emotionalism even more strongly, without falling into hypocritical asceticism at all. And the passionate in a person - for Glinka - is a healthy beginning, enriching his abilities.
But figuratively juicy, bright and, let's say even bolder, sensually delicious Glinka's symphony has anti-individualistic and non-subjectivist tendencies. True, the tragic in proud individualism, that is, its doom, was still not as acute as, say, in Tchaikovsky, then in Mahler, then it was not revealed. But it is significant that Glinka himself fundamentally put "positive data" before his unbridled fantasy through the development of folk musical culture and emphasis on it. Thus, he put his figurative or illusory symphonism on an objective creative path, testing the possibilities by studying another rich musical basis and opening up bright prospects for all music.
It is characteristic that the entire evolution of Russian musical symphonism after Glinka proceeds in its main features in the struggle to overcome individualistic tendencies and in the desire, relying on the mastery of the advanced norms of Western European technicalism, not to lose its folk, both organic and real given.
Even in Tchaikovsky's symphonic individualism, this tendency is evident, revealing itself through the disclosure of the doom of individualism and its creative duality in the life of the Russian intelligentsia.
But, in a strange way, Glinka's Spanish journey and its significance as a creative experience remained almost unnoticed. Meanwhile, now, when the development of folk art in the USSR has long since passed beyond the limits of "ethnography and folklorism" and has become a creative reality, this experience of Glinka is far from being as shallow as it seems to a superficial glance ("after all, there are only two Spanish overtures!") ; on the contrary, his perspicacity surprises and amazes with all the consistency and naturalness of this act in Glinka's creative and artistic biography.
And I, for example, believe that it is not so much in the Spanish overtures and their brilliance and in the special - Russian - refraction in them of the features of early impressionism (here in Glinka there is something that later surfaced in Korovin's painting!), but in the ingenious " Kamarinskaya" were the main results of what Glinka learned from two years of direct observation of the life of folk music in Spanish everyday life.
However, Russian composers were so carried away by the magnificent formal and technical qualities of the music of this “amateur” and “barich”, according to Tchaikovsky’s arrogant definition (it is surprising that even Tchaikovsky, in the review of Kamarinskaya cited below,1 tries to reduce everything to “arrangement”), which is completely behind the few quantitative legacy of Glinka and behind the "hourly, so to speak, mechanism" of his music, almost no one tried to feel its qualitative foundations and its amazing "how"; that is, how Glinka transforms the "prompts of life" - reality - into music and how his sensitive, perceiving consciousness becomes "wise work" in art.
From Madrid, Glinka constantly informs his mother about the filling of his life with phenomena of interest to him: both life, and drama theater, and ballet (“The local first dancer Guy-Stephani, although a Frenchwoman, dances the Spanish dance jaleo in the most amazing way”), and bullfighting, and an art gallery (“I often visit the museum, admire some paintings and look at them so much that I seem to see them now before my eyes”), and constant work on learning the language. He notes that Italian music dominates in theaters and everywhere, but nevertheless notifies:
“... I found singers and guitarists who sing and play very well national Spanish songs - in the evenings they come to play and sing, and I adopt their songs and write them down in a special book for this” 2 (“Letters”, p. 231).
In a letter to the son-in-law V. I. Fleury - about the same:
“..I rarely leave the house, but I always have company, activities and even entertainment. Several ordinary Spaniards come to me to sing, play the guitar and dance—I record those tunes that amaze with their originality” (ibid., p. 233). “..I already know many singers and guitarists from the people, but I can use their knowledge in part - they have to leave, due to the late time.” (It is already the middle of November. - B. A.) (“Letters”, p. 234). On November 26/14, Glinka left Madrid for Granada. Later, in Notes, Glinka summed up his impressions of Madrid in the following way:
“..I didn’t like Madrid the first time, having learned it later, I rather appreciated it. As before, I continued to study Spanish and Spanish music. To achieve this goal, I began to visit the Drama Theater del Principe. Shortly after my arrival in Madrid, I set to work on Jota. Then, having finished it1, he carefully studied Spanish music, namely the melodies of the common people. One zagal (a stagecoach mule driver) came to me and sang folk songs, which I tried to catch and put on notes. 2 Seguidillas manchegas (aires de la Mancha) I especially liked and subsequently served me for the second Spanish Overture ”(“ Notes ”, p. 312). Italian music, here, in the midst of fresh Spanish life, causes only annoyance in Glinka, and when one of his Russian acquaintances dragged him to the dela Cruz theater, “where they gave Hernani Verdb to my grief, he forcibly kept Glinka during the entire performance.
In Granada, shortly after his arrival, Glinka made acquaintance with the best guitarist there, by the name of Murciano.
“..This Murciano was a simple illiterate man, he sold wine in his own tavern. He played with unusual deftness and distinctness (my italics - B.A.). Variations on the national tahmosh dance Fandango, composed by him and set to music by his son, testified to his musical talent” (“Notes”, p. 315).
“..In addition to studying folk songs, I also study local dance, because one and the other is necessary for a perfect study of Spanish folk music” (“Letters”, p. 245). And here Glinka again points out that
“this study is fraught with great difficulties - everyone sings in their own way, moreover, here, in Andalusia, they speak a special dialect, which differs from Castilian (pure Spanish) as much”, in his opinion, as “Little Russian from Russian” (there same, p. 246).
“..Here, more than in other cities of Spain, they sing and dance. The dominant chant and dance in Granada is the fandango. The guitars begin, then almost [everyone] of those present sings his verse in turn, and at this time, in one or two pairs, they dance with castanettes. This music and dance are so original that until now I could not quite notice the melody, for everyone sings in his own way. (“Letters”, p. 249). Glinka himself learns to dance, for in Spain music and dance are inseparable. And as a conclusion:
“..Studying Russian folk music in my youth led me to compose a Life for the Tsar and Ruslan. I hope that even now I’m not bothering in vain.” (“Letters”, p. 250). Once Glinka invited a gypsy he met with his comrades to his party:
“..Murciano ordered, he also played the guitar. Two young gypsies and an old swarthy gypsy who looked like an African were dancing; he danced deftly, but too obscenely” (“Zatsiski”, p. 317). In March 1846, Glinka returned to Madrid, lived here rather aimlessly, in the blues (heat and anxiety about the state of his divorce proceedings). In the fall, he was somewhat enlivened by a trip to a fair in the Spanish province of Murcia:
“..During the fair, many ladies and young ladies wore picturesque national dresses. The gypsies there are more beautiful and richer than in Granada—they danced for us three times, one nine-year-old gypsy danced especially well” (“Notes”, p. 321). Returning to Madrid, Glinka did not stay there for long and, having escaped from the cold autumn, in December he was already in Seville. On December 12, he tells his mother:
“.. On the next day of our arrival in the house of the first dance master, we saw a dance. I’ll tell you that everything I’ve seen so far of this kind is nothing in comparison with the local dancers - in a word, neither Taglioni in kachucha, nor the others made such an impression on me ”(Letters, p. 274).
In the Notes, the stay in Seville is described in somewhat more detail:
“..Now we have been given the opportunity to see a dance performed by the best dancers. Between them, Anita was unusually good and fascinating, especially in gypsy dances, as well as in Olya. We had a pleasant winter from 1846 to 1847: we attended dance evenings at Felix and Miguel's, where during the dances the best local national singers sang in an oriental way, while the dancers danced deftly, and it seemed that you heard three different rhythms: the singing went on by itself. to yourself; the guitar was separate, while the dancer clapped her hands and tapped her foot, it seemed, quite apart from the music” (“Notes”, p. 323). In May 1847, with regret, Glinka set off on his return journey. After a three-day stop in Madrid, he traveled to France; I stayed in Paris for three weeks, and from there I went to Kissingen, then to Vienna, and from there to Warsaw. Thus ended this most significant artistic journey that a Russian composer has ever managed to make, a journey that is not at all like the many other journeys of Russian people of the 19th century who had artistic inclinations or literary talents. The only exception is Gogol with his stay in Italy!
As a memory of Irpania and, probably, to practice in Spanish, Glinka took a satellite with him to Russia - Don Pedro Fernandez! The meeting with Glinka in Kissingen, described by the artist Stepanov, sounds like a curious colorful coda. After sharing first impressions after a long separation
“Glinka and Don Pedro went to look for an apartment and found it successfully. Having rested after the morning water service], I went to them: they had a piano, don Pedro took out a guitar, and they began to remember Spain with music. It was here that I heard Hota for the first time. Glinka performed brilliantly on the piano, Don Pedro deftly picked the strings on the guitar, and danced in other places - the music came out charming. It was a coda of a Spanish journey and at the same time the first—author's—performance of the "Jota of Aragon" to a compatriot.
At the end of July 1847, Glinka and Don Pedro arrived in Novospasskoye. One can imagine both the joy and surprise of his mother!
In September, while living in Smolensk, Glinka composed two pieces for piano - "Souvenir s Gipe mazourka" and "La Barcaune" and "improvised", as he writes, "Prayer Without Words" for piano.
“..Lermontov’s words came to this prayer In a difficult moment of life” (“Notes”, p. 328). Glinka's work closed in an intimate salon style. “..We lived in the house of a relative of Ushakov, and for his daughter I wrote variations on a Scottish theme. For sister Lyudmila, the romance Milochka, whose melody I took from a jota that I often heard in Valladolid.
I sat hopelessly at home, composing in the morning; in addition to the plays already mentioned, he wrote a romance You will soon forget me ..
At the beginning of March (1848) I went to Warsaw." (“Notes”, pp. 328-331). In Warsaw, Glinka wrote
“from four Spanish melodies Pot-pourri to an orchestra, which I then called Recuerdos de Castilla (Memories of Castile)” (“Notes”, p. 332). Subsequently, the play became known as "A Night in Madrid". “..My repeated attempts to make something from Andalusian melodies were unsuccessful: most of them are based on an oriental scale that is not at all like ours” (“Notes”, p. 333). It was then, in Warsaw, that Glinka heard for the first time the performance of one remarkable fragment from Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris, and since then he began to study his music - and very thoroughly, like everything he took for the sake of deep artistic interest.
Romances were created: “Do I hear your voice” (lyrics by Lermontov), ​​“Healthy Cup” (lyrics by Pushkin) and the wonderful Song of Margaret from Goethe’s “Faust” (translated by Huber).
With this work in Glinka's music, the aching Russian melancholy rang out less secretly and the drama of life was felt. In parallel, there is a reading of Shakespeare and Russian writers. And further:
“.. At that time, by chance, I found a rapprochement between the wedding song Because of the mountains, the high mountains, the mountains that I heard in the village, and the dancing Kamarinsky, known to everyone. And suddenly my fantasy was at play, and instead of the pianoforte I wrote a piece for an orchestra under the name Wedding and Dance (Notes, pp. 334, 335). So after the return of Glinka from the first Italian trip abroad, the opera Ivan Susanin was created; so now, upon returning from a second trip abroad (Paris and Spain), there is also a deep, folk and already instrumental-symphonic work that gave a decisive impetus to Russian symphonism.

Glinka spent the winter of 1848/49 in St. Petersburg, but returned to Warsaw in the spring, not creatively enriched. Glinka speaks more and more often about the attack of the blues. One can only speculate about the reasons: life became unbearably politically stuffy, everything that a sensitive artist could exist was “sucked out” of it, no matter how seemingly apolitical his behavior was. And, finally, behind all this constraint, Glinka could not help but feel his end: his creative clash ceased, since the environment had nothing to do with everything that he created. The old generation did not appreciate him, and the Russian progressive youth was in a hurry to respond to the persistent harsh demands of Russian reality and - for the time being - did not feel the need for Glinka's artistic intellectualism. And now Glinka's heightened musical consciousness draws him deeper into the contemplation of the great musical phenomena of the past and into the wise work of Bach.
“.. Musical deep pleasures during the summer of 1849 I felt from playing the organ in the Evangelical Church of the organist Freyer. He played Bach's pieces superbly, distinctly moved with his feet, and his organ was so well tuned that in some pieces, namely in the BACH fugue and the F-dur toccata, he brought me to tears ”(“ Notes ”, p. 343) In the autumn of 1849 years, love romances were written (“Roz-mowa” - “O dear maiden” to the text of Mickiewicz and “Adele” and “Mary” to the texts of Pushkin), because Glinka did not want to give in to his creative timelessness of the joys of life, and in these sparkling little things again one can hear both sly humor and romantic delight.
According to a letter to V. F. Odoevsky on the verge of 1849-1850, it can be seen that Glinka continues to work on Aragonese Jota:
“.. Taking advantage of the remark made by you, I remade the 32 measures of the beginning of the Allegro, or, better, the vivace of the Spanish Overture. The passage, which, in your opinion, should have been divided into 2 harps, I arranged for two hands, a solo of the violin very spiccato in unison with the harp, I think, can produce a new effect.
In the appended excerpt from the same crescendo overture, one must pay attention to the flutes as the main motive; they must play on the lower octave, which, however, is also clear from the parts of other wind instruments.
In an excerpt from Kamarinskaya, sons harmoniques of violins should form the following sounds for hearing. Here Glinka places a musical example: three notes of re - the first octave - cello, the second - II Viol, and the third - I Viol.
On March 18, 1850, the first performance of "Hota" and "Kamarinskaya" took place in one of the St. Petersburg concerts. The response to this is in a letter from Glinka to V.P. Engelhardt from Warsaw dated March 26/April 7, 1850:
“..Either our public, which hitherto hated instrumental music, has completely changed, or, indeed, these pieces, written con atoge, have succeeded beyond my expectations; be that as it may, but this completely unexpected success greatly encouraged me. Further, Glinka says that his "Recuerdos de Castilla" is only an experience and that he intends to take two themes from there for the second Spanish Overture: "Souvenir d" une nuit d "ete a Madrid". Therefore, he asks not to tell anyone about "Recuerdos" and not to perform it anywhere. At the end of the letter are the following remarkable words of Glinka about himself:
“..During the current 50 years, the 25th anniversary of my feasible service in the field of Russian folk music will be celebrated. Many people reproach me with laziness - let these gentlemen take my place for a while, then they will be convinced that with a constant nervous breakdown and with that strict view of art that has always guided me, one cannot write much (my italics. - B. A.). Those insignificant romances poured out by themselves in a moment of inspiration, often costing me a lot of effort - not to repeat myself as hard as you can imagine - I decided this year to stop the factory of Russian romances, and devote the rest of my strength and vision to more important works. But it was really only a dream. Glinka's creative biography was coming to an end.
The following autumn, 1850, Glinka completed the romance he had conceived earlier to the words of Obodovsky "Palermo" ("Gulf of Finland").
A peculiar echo of Russian lyricism with Italian memories is one of Glinka's intimate, affectionate, "welcoming" contemplations. In the same autumn, a new “encouraging gesture” from Nicholas I was brought to Glinka: the instrumentation of the choir written by Glinka - “Farewell Song for the Pupils of the Society of Noble Maidens” (Smolny Monastery) - was declared weak by the tsar, about which the son of the late bandmaster Kavos, I. K. Cavos did not fail to inform Glinka:
“Sa majeste Fempereur a trouve que Instrumentation du choeur est faible, et moi, je partage parfaitement I "opi-nion de sa majeste ..” (“Notes”, p. 349). If we take into account that in the winter of 1848/49 years, during the stay of Glinka in St. Petersburg, the Italian theater was not allowed to perform the opera "Ivan Susanin", now Glinka was clearly given to understand that he did not even dare to dream of any official application of his abilities.
The score of this "Farewell Song", personally checked by Glinka, is in my possession (from D.V. Stasov), and from it one can be fully convinced of the accuracy of the description of the instrumentation of this piece, which Glinka gives in his "Notes" (p. 348):
“.. With piano and harp, I used the whole orchestra, instrumenting the piece as transparently and softly as possible, in order to show the voices of the girls as much as possible.” In the autumn of 1850, Glinka's sister (E. I. Fleury) died, and on May 31, 1851, his mother, Elizaveta Andreevna Glinka, died. The nervous shock caused a temporary "disobedience" of the right hand. Having recovered somewhat, Glinka "remade" the pot-pourri from Spanish melodies: "Recuerdos de Castilla", developed the piece and called it "Spanish Overture No. 2".
“.. It cost me less work to write notes than to sign my name” (“Notes”, p. 351). Thus, when the legend of the constantly drinking Glinka, who always needed to reinforce his inspiration with a bottle of lafite, began to walk around the world (this is his reward for sociability and willingness to sing and play in the circle of a cheerful company!), Glinka worked hard, brushing aside accusations of laziness - some and in eternal drunkenness - others, over the last in their most intellectual things - the overture "Night in Madrid". He worked nervously and physically exhausted, but observing his strict view of art and - with this work - boldly looking ahead.
As you can see, the work on "Night", begun in the spring or summer of 1848 in the form of a potpourri "Memories of Castile", was completed only in the autumn of 1851. He was reassured by doctors (“one does not die of nerves!”) - from these reassurances, with his excruciating pains and a drop in efficiency, he did not get better - and “pushed” to different voices by admirers (“give music, you have so many reserves and opportunities !”), Glinka felt that few people cared about him as a person, but the more carefully he clung to his artistic and intellectual work. It is worth opening the first page of the marvelous score of "A Summer Night in Madrid" to comprehend that in this early flowering of Russian music, in this spring lily of the valley, created by the composer's ageless mind, there is a deep, most humane need expressed by music for warm affection and joy. Timidly, like a Snow Maiden emerging from a still cold wilderness into a spring meadow, a tender thought, a theme, breaks through and, as if blooming, smiles at the spring stars, sky and warm air, then dissolving in human animation.
It is impossible not to listen to this smart music without excitement and not be surprised not by it, but by those who sowed around Glinka a terrible "everyday life" of memories, measuring him - after all, growth, not fall - on his philistine arshin or strictly condemning his taste for life enjoying it in their own way. The second Spanish overture is Glinka's last greeting to the best gifts of nature and life, a greeting without false sentimentality and coarse sensuality, but saturated with healthy bliss and passion of the southern night. As if there were no letters from the sick Glinka, no groans, no vain attempts to explain to his friends his true state. Only his loving sister Lyudmila Ivanovna understood him, looked after him, cherished and protected him.
In the autumn of 1851, restless, driven by his own nervousness, Glinka reappeared in St. Petersburg. Friendly meetings with admirers and home music-making began. Creativity has stopped. Here are some interesting episodes of this Petersburg winter (1851/52) according to the Notes:
“..At Lvov's request, I started preparing choristers (large) who were to participate in the performance of his Prayer at the Cross (Stabat mater). That year (1852) was the 50th anniversary of the Philharmonic Society; the Germans wanted to give the play and my composition. Gr[af] Mikh. Yu. Velgorsky and Lvov forced me out - there was no indignation on my part - and, as mentioned above, I taught and fed the choristers.
On February 28 we had a big musical evening, especially Gluck's arias with oboes and bassoon were performed, the orchestra replaced the piano. Gluck then made an even greater impression on me - from his music, what I heard in Warsaw could not yet give me such a clear idea about him.
In April, my sister arranged (it was my sister, not me) the 2nd concert for the Philharmonic Society. Shilovskaya participated and sang several of my plays. The orchestra performed Spanish Overture No. 2 (A-dur) and Kamarinskaya, which I then heard for the first time.

By Easter, at the request of my sister, I wrote the Primary Polka (as it is called in print). I have been playing this polka with 4 hands since the age of 40, but I wrote it in April 1852.
At the evening, which Prince Odoevsky arranged for me in the same month of April and where many of my acquaintances were, in the presence of their gr. M. Yu. Velgorsky began to tease me, but I cleverly got rid of him ”(“ Notes ”, pp. 354-357). It is not surprising that in a letter to Engelhardt (February 15, 1852) with wishes for the newborn, Glinka jokes:
“.. I wish all the best to my dear little namesake, that is, that he be healthy in spirit and body; if not handsome, but certainly of a very pleasant appearance (which, in my opinion, is better, pass it on); if not rich, then in the course of his life he would always be more than well off - smart, but not witty - in my opinion, a positive mind is more correct; I do not believe in happiness, but may the great Allah keep my namesake from failures in life. I pass music by - from experience I cannot consider it a guide to well-being ”(Letters, p. 301). May 23 Glinka went abroad. On June 2 he was in Warsaw, then via Berlin, Cologne, then up the Rhine to Strasbourg and via Nancy to Paris, where he arrived on July 1, "not without pleasure," as he recalls:
“A lot, a lot of the past, the past echoed in my soul” (“Notes”, p. 360). And in a letter to her sister L. I. Shestakova dated July 2:
“..Glorious city! excellent city! a good city! - the place of Paris. I'm sure you'd love it too. What a movement, but for the ladies, ladies, Lord, what is not there - such magnificence, it just aims in the eye itself.
Glinka's good mood, humor and gaiety are even more noticeable and friendly.
The supposed second trip to Spain did not take place due to the nervous stomach pains that again tormented Glinka. Having reached Avignon and Toulouse, he turned back and returned to Paris on August 15:
“I ask you, my angel,” he writes to his sister, “do not be upset. I will say frankly that cheerful Spain is not for me,—here in Paris I can find new, unexperienced mental pleasures” (Letters, p. 314).
And, indeed, Glinka's letter to A. N. Serov dated September 3/August 22 shows this in the full bloom of his observant, art-hungry and vital mind. This is evident in every line, whether Glinka is talking about the Louvre, about his favorite Jardin des plantes, or ballroom music orchestras (“Ballroom music orchestras are remarkably good: cornets and pistons and copper ones play a big role, but this is by the way - everyone can hear”). It seems that Glinka woke up, instead of creativity, inquisitiveness - creative - of perception, a passionate desire to saturate the imagination with intellectual content. He visits the Cluny Museum, surveys the ancient streets of Paris, he is excited by the historical monuments of Paris and France, he does not forget nature, especially plants, as well as birds and animals.
But a musical thought began to awaken:
“..September was excellent, and I recovered to such an extent that I set to work. I ordered a huge score paper and began to write the Ukrainian symphony (Taras Bulba) for the orchestra. He wrote the first part of the first allegro (c-moll) and the beginning of the second part, but, not being able or in a position to get out of the German rut in development, he abandoned the work he had begun, which Don Pedro subsequently exterminated ”(note by Glinka himself on the margins of the copy of Notes "Good-naturedly reads:" The master was good! - B. A.) ("Notes", p. 368).
This attempt to create a symphony will have to be returned in connection with Glinka's last stay in St. Petersburg in 1854-1855. In Paris, he apparently had no other creative experiences. But musical impressions still excited Glinka, along with the passion for ancient authors - Homer, Sophocles, Ovid - in French translations and Ariosto's Furious Roland and the tales of the Thousand and One Nights.
“.. I heard, however, twice in the Opera comique of Joseph Megul, very well performed, that is, without any frills, and so neatly that, despite the fact that Joseph and Simeon were not very good, the performance of this opera touched me to tears” (“Notes”, p. 369). About Auber's opera Magso Spada:
“.. The beginning of the overture is extremely sweet and promised a lot of good things, but the allegro of the overture and the music of the opera turned out to be very unsatisfactory” (ibid.). Again, Glinka did not like the French interpretation of Beethoven's music in the concerts of the Paris Conservatory:
“.. By the way, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (c-moll) was given that concert, I found the performance exactly the same as before, that is, very pretentious, the pp reached an absurd Rubinian degree, and where it was more or less necessary to go out with brass, they were coyly drawn (a very apt definition of the French intonation of wind instruments! - italics mine. - B. A.); in short, there was no Beethoven symphony (elle a ete completement escamotee). Other pieces, like the dervish choir from Beethoven's Athenian ruins and Mozart's symphony, were performed distinctly and very satisfactorily” (“Notes”, pp. 369, 370). Subsequently, in a letter to N.V. Kukolnik dated November 12, 1854, already from St. Petersburg, Glinka described this concert in even more detail:
“..In Paris, I lived quietly and secluded. I saw Berlioz only once, he no longer needs me, and, consequently, the end of affection. As for the musical part, I heard twice in the Opera comique of Joseph Megul, very neatly performed .. I can’t say the same about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which I heard at the conservatory. They play somehow mechanically, the strings are all in one stroke, which is noticeable to the eye, but does not satisfy the ear. Moreover, the coquetry is terrible: / they do fff, ar - prr, so that in the excellent Scherzo of this symphony (c-moll) the most excellent places have disappeared: prrp brought to the same absurd degree, as Jupiter Olympien did - the deceased Ivan Ivanovich Rubini, in a word , le conservatoire de Paris est aussi menteur que le frangais-male, il promet beaucoup et ne tient rien, on vous promet une belle symphonie et on vous l "escamote" 1 ("Letters", pp. 406, 407).
But Glinka becomes less and less interested in Paris and everything Parisian, more and more in his numerous letters to his sister - Shestakova - the desire to go home, to a homely environment. A letter from Florence from V. V. Stasov awakens in him again the memory of Italy; dreams of visiting there (however, they are not strong enough to try to realize them. On April 4, 1854, Glinka leaves Paris (“where you will find everything, everything for feeling and imagination, but for the heart, what can replace your own and your homeland!” - so he writes to one of his friends M. S. Krzhisevich), and after a stop in Brussels, having moved to Berlin, he writes to his sister (April):
“..My friend and teacher Dehn [Den] constantly treats me with all possible food, so I have already received the Hayden and Beethoven quartets; yesterday the first organist played, maybe the first in the world, he works out such things with his feet that it’s just my respect - take it with that. Tomorrow, too, a quartet and an organ.”
“.By order of the king, on April 25/13, they gave me Armida Gluck in the most magnificent way” (May). Although Meyerbeer promised Glinka this gift when he met him in Paris in June 1853, Glinka now claims that he arranged all this himself, “without Meyerbeer’s assistance”: “.. The effect on the stage of this music exceeded my expectations. The scene in the enchanted D-dur forest with mutes is charming. Scene III of the act with hatred (the Great Stage, as the Germans call it) is extraordinarily majestic. 12 second violins, 8 violas, 7 cellos and the same number of double basses, two wind instruments each. The setting is very good (zweckmassig)—gardens from landscapes by Claude Lorrain, ballet, and so on. It was the 74th performance of Armida and the theater was full.
I was also at the Singverein, on Good Friday they gave Graun's Tod Jesu, they sang well, the orchestra was weak. (“Notes”, pp. 377, 378). From Berlin, Glinka moved to Warsaw and from there soon, driven by longing for his homeland and his own, to Petersburg:
“.On May 11, in a mail coach, we went to S.P.-burg, where we arrived safely on May 16, 1854, early in the morning; I took a nap, and Pedro, having learned the address of my sister in Tsarskoye Selo, half-asleep, took me to Tsarskoye, where I found my sister Lyudmila Ivanovna and my little goddaughter, niece Olinka, in the desired health ”(ibid.). This is where Glinka's notes end. He had about 2-2 years left to live, but without a creative biography (only one romance - "Don't Say That Your Heart Hurts" - sounds in this mournful living, indeed, like Glinka's swan song). Yes, and it would be difficult for him to go further in his work than his beautiful Night in Madrid.
So, Glinka returned to his homeland with an inspired impression of Gluck's Armida. What attracted him to Gluck? In essence, with what Glinka ended up in "Night": an exceptional artistic sense of proportion, taste, reasonableness of technique and at the same time figurativeness, and especially, probably, what was Glinka dearest of all: the majesty of his musical and theatrical art, intellectualism , not withering, however, neither emotions nor heartbeats. Indeed, with Gluck, in his best successes, emotion is translated into life and thoughts into emotion, the spiritual plays and shines with the mind, and the harsh mind captivates in the most seemingly abstract situations for the listener with humanity, understanding of the heart. It's like Diderot's.
Rhythm in Gluck at the heights of drama is felt like a tense pulse - in the same famous aria of hatred in "Armide", and in the tragic pathos of "Alcesta" you catch yourself on the fact that you do not know - do you hear your heart or music? All this could not but excite Glinka, in whose nature natural artistry was soldered with echoes of the cult of Reason of the age of the great encyclopedists. To Gluck, to Bach, to ancient - as he says - Italian music, to the music of high ethical thoughts and aspirations of mankind, Glinka was attracted.
A classic in his entire mindset, only tempted and delighted by the artistic culture of feeling - romanticism, a culture that did not eradicate in him, however, neither a sense of proportion in form, nor a wise selection of means of expression, Glinka in his mature years began to gravitate more and more towards the style of the great masters of the age of rationalism, while in his homeland several more generations had to learn from what he had done, what he achieved, from his work.
It is impossible not to love Stasov's passionate, agitated article about Glinka's unrealized Taras Bulba symphony. Of course, due to the exceptional devotion to the cause of Glinka, due to human love for him and his music - this is one of the fiery speeches (it sounds like an ardent word!) Stasov. None of the reasons he cites as evidence why, in his opinion, Glinka did not realize the symphony, can not be taken into account, including up to a comparison of the state of mind and spiritual loneliness of the dying years of Glinka and Chopin. Nothing can be extracted or quoted from this article—then it must be reprinted in its entirety. But the whole sum of reasons, the totality of all Stasov's explanations cannot convince everyone who knows what the artistic process is and the ineradicable need to create art, which is inherent in humanity by its own social consciousness. They create - deaf, blind, having lost an arm, even in semi-paralysis, if they want, if they cannot but create. They create, despite denial and persecution, bullying and stupid misunderstanding!

They stop creating only when what has been created suggests that it is unthinkable to step over the limits set by the same consciousness, when one cannot lie to anyone - neither to oneself, nor to art, when thought, mind have gone ahead of all abilities and talents, ahead of skills and talent. This is where this passionate desire in Glinka of recent years for the knowledge of man, human, nature and - again and always - the secrets of the mastery of his art comes from.
He reads the ancients, reads Rousseau's Emile, studies Gluck, Bach, Handel and continues to study the violin. It is ridiculous to argue whether Glinka knew or did not know medieval frets before 1856! Of course he did. But then he began to torture them with the aim of whether it was possible to find in them a “new life” and, therefore, means of artistic expression and even greater understanding of the ethos of the great eras of music.
In this tireless inquisitiveness of the mind and restlessness of the heart, in this - small quantitatively - fixation of what has been created, but at the same time in the exceptional thoroughness of everything that is fixed, there is something Leonardian in the very essence, in Glinka's artistry and intellectualism, although softened by sentimentalism and romanticism, as well as the restoration trends of the era that gave birth to it. But in Glinka there is no inertia of this era, and if his mind draws him back, it is not in the name of stagnation, but in the name of enrichment.
And indeed, if one were to look for the cultures of the musical theater, would it not be better to go from The Vestal Virgins, The Vampires, The Prophets, to Gluck, and in them, to the "primordial culture of feeling", to Rousseau? Having understood Beethoven, to go towards Bach, etc., etc.? But in himself, in his work, Glinka could not combine the prospects that opened up to his intellect with what he would be able to do by nature as a man of his time. Hence the disruption of the symphony - immediately and ruthlessly!
And not only Glinka. Mendelssohn and Schumann also "broke" when trying to become classics! Is A Midsummer Night's Dream primarily an overture? Is it possible to compare the poem of romanticism with the restoration of oratory by Mendelssohn?!
Glinka rightly felt that Gluck is Gluck, the intellectualism of culture is intellectualism, but ahead is the only way to realism on the basis of his native culture of folk song - hence "Taras Bulba", for he understood the value of Ukrainian folk music and its exciting lyricism. But he really had no way, no "magic lamp"! He felt that it would not be possible to create a real work as a unity of form and content by the formal application of the rational technique of German intellectual symphonism, and therefore he stopped, honestly expressing this in a letter to N.V. Kukolnik on November 12, 1854:
“... My muse is silent, partly, I believe, because I have changed a lot, become more serious and calmer, I am very rarely in an enthusiastic state, moreover, little by little I have developed a critical view of art (it, as we remember, has become mature around disputes around Ruslan, in self-defense. - B. A), and now, apart from classical music, I can’t listen to any other music without boredom. For this last circumstance, if I’m strict with others, then even stricter with myself Here is an example: in Paris I wrote the 1st movement of the Allegro and the beginning of the 2nd movement of the Cossack Symphony—c-moll (Taras Bulba)—I could not continue the second movement, it did not satisfy me. Allegro (Durchfuhrung, develop-pement) was begun in a German way, while the general character of the play was Little Russian. I abandoned the score "(" Letters, p. 406). Considering all the musical growth, knowledge, technical experience, taste, culture hearing Glinka and remembering that he knew perfectly the musical culture of Italy, France, Spain (folk), not to mention Russian, that he had the right not to recognize the constructive recipe of German symphonism as universal - considering all this, one cannot but recognize the truth and sincerity of this recognition. And, of course, with such a mindset, there was no possibility left for composing the domestic Russian opera The Two Husbands, which was slipped and imposed by admirers, and soft Glinka, having fiddled with the project for the sake of persistent requests, soon lagged behind him.!
In conclusion, it remains to supplement Glinka's creative biography with several of his reports on his work and catchy aphoristic statements about music by correspondence in recent years. In these statements, the best qualities of Glinka, a sensitive musician, are heard everywhere, always, everywhere and in everything, his peculiar mental appearance and his own handwriting, hardly perceptible in words, are manifested.
From a letter to Dr. Heidenreich dated July 3, 1854:
“..Reviewing the score of Ruslan, I found it necessary and useful for the effect to make a change in some places in the score. I cannot and should not start this business without K-Lyadov. If he returned from vacation, I would very much like to see him "("Letters", p. 399).
From a letter to V.P. Engelhardt on September 16 of the same year: “I brought my notes to Little Russia, to the instrumental Aufforderung zum Tanz Weber, now the instrumental Hummel Nocturne F-dur” (“Letters”, p. 400). To him on November 2, 1854:
". The other day they sang, and rather neatly, the pieces of church music by the old Italian maestro I brought from Lomakin, except for Bach's Crucifixus, which is supposed to be performed with the orchestra later.
Aufforderung zum Tanz I finished, and I also transferred it to the orchestra of Hummel's Nocturne F-dur, opus 99, for my sister. I am not responsible for the success of the first play, but the second, it seems to me, should be more successful.
He brought his notes [until] 1840; I am also dictating a short biography of my own for Dan, who wrote me a long friendly letter. Drobish brought your violin into excellent condition, and, straining, I play excerpts from Bach's sonatas, and the other day I lost a whole Beethoven sonata Es-dur with Serov ”(Letters, pp. 403, 404). In his large, detailed and interesting letter from St. Petersburg dated November 12, 1854, Glinka also informs Kukolnik about his work: and about notes (“.. starting from the era of my birth, that is, from 1804, and until my current arrival in Russia, that is, until 1854. I do not foresee that later my life could give rise to a narration.”), and about editing a new edition of romances by him (“. a new edition of "Ivan Susanin" for piano with singing (". I am checking the translation of numbers that have not yet been printed"), and about home music-making (quartets, trios), etc.
In the next letter to the Dollmaker, dated January 19, 1855, Glinka, refusing to instrument the music of the Dollmaker himself for his own play "The Seat of Azov", touches upon curious and always - to this day - topical topics:
". Orchestras in our dramatic theaters are not only bad, but are constantly changing in composition, for example, now in Alexandria there are three cellists, and all three play only half an artist - in a few days, maybe there will be no violas or oboe ! The question is - how to please?
In my opinion, turn to some experienced regimental bandmaster, even if he is from the Germans, which, however, will be even more reliable. Tell him to literally translate your music into an orchestra, let him instrument in masses, that is, violins and wind instruments all together, which is more reliable than my difficult transparent instrumentation, where every fool should not yawn, but stand up for himself. I remind you of your own words; when you heard Keller's oratorio, you said: this is a stagecoach of solid German workmanship. I advise you once again to order your melodies to be instrumented without frills, but firmly. 1 And then significant words about myself, confirming the arguments I have given above:
“., I have never been Hercules in art, I wrote from feeling and loved and now I love him sincerely. The fact is that now and some time ago I no longer feel the vocation and attraction to write. What am I to do if, comparing myself with brilliant maestro, I am carried away by them to such an extent that, out of conviction, I cannot and do not want to write?
If suddenly my muse were awakened, I would write without text for the orchestra, but I refuse Russian music, like Russian winter. I don't want Russian drama - I've had enough trouble with it.
I am now instrumenting the Prayer, written by me for the piano without words (1847 - B. A.), - the words of Lermontov surprisingly fit this prayer: In a difficult moment of life. I am preparing this piece for a concert by Leonova, who studies diligently with me, and not without success” (“Letters”, pp. 411, 412). In his correspondence with his old friend K. A. Bulgakov, Glinka, having once become angry at Bulgakov’s mention in a letter of the names of composers Spor and Bortnyansky, whom Glinka did not like, outlined his “recipe” for musical programs: “No. 1. For dramatic music: Gluck, the first and the last, shamelessly robbed by Mozart, Beethoven, etc. etc.
No. 2. For church and organ: Bach, Seb.: h-moll Missa and Passion-Musik.
No. 3. For concert: Handel, Handel and Handel. I recommend Handel: Messias. Samson. (This one has a soprano aria with an h-moll choir, when Delilah lulls Samson to fool him, similar to mine from Ruslan: Oh my Ratmir, love and peace, only a hundred times fresher, smarter and more vibrant.) Jephta.
I hope that after such a cure radicale, Spurs and Bortnyanskys will no longer meet in your letters” (“Letters”, p. 464). This letter is dated November 8, 1855, when Glinka escaped the imposed temptations to compose everyday Russian opera. On November 29, 1855, outraged by the well-known foreign article by A. G. Rubinshtein on Russian music (“He did harm to all of us and hurt my old woman - Life for the Tsar is rather boldly”), Glinka all the more decisively reports:
“And that the opera (“Two-wife.” - B. A.) has ceased, I am glad: 1) because it is tricky and almost impossible to write an opera in the Russian genus, without at least borrowing the character from my old woman, 2) there is no need to blind the eye , because I see badly, and 3) in case of success, I would have to stay longer than necessary in this hated St. Petersburg ”(“ Letters ”, p. 466). Compatriots really did not please Glinka. And now Europe begins to beckon him again. To Italy or Berlin - listen to Gluck, Bach, Handel and
". By the way, it would be good for me to work with Dan on ancient church tones” (ibid.). But Glinka continues to work on finding, editing and reviving his previous works, and on March 10, 1856, he informs K. A. Bulgakov in Moscow:
“I am still ill, but yesterday, despite my illness, I finished the instrumentation of Valse-fantaisie (remember? - Pavlovsk - about 42, 43 years old, etc. - enough!); yesterday I gave it to be rewritten, and when a copy of the score is ready, I will immediately send it to your name. I ask you to immediately order the score to be painted for voices and give a shout so that this Scherzo (Valse-fantaisie) will be performed in Leonova's concerto. This play, I repeat, was performed in Paris, in the Hertz Hall, with great success in April 1845, it can be hoped that your audience may also like it. I re-instrumented it for the 3rd time with a deliberate refinement and trick of malice; I dedicate the work to you, and give the score to the property of Mrs. Leonova” (“Letters”, p. 473). In the next letter to K. A. Bulgakov (March 17), - again mentioning the sending of the score of "Waltz-Fantasy" to him with a request "to order, as soon as possible, to paint this score for voices", Glinka informs him of the desired composition of the orchestra:
". Wind instruments are required one at a time, and bowed ones, that is, 1 and 2 violins - 3 each; violas - 2 and cellos with double basses - 3 each ”(“ Letters ”, p. 475). The waltz demanded subtlety of performance and performance
culture, therefore, in a letter to K. A. Bulgakov dated March 23
Glinka elaborates on her wishes:
“Prayer and Valse-fantaisie are instrumented in a new way; no reckoning on virtuosity (which I absolutely cannot stand), nor on the enormity of the mass of the orchestra.

Note. In the Prayer, bassoon 1 and trombone should be considered (consideres) as soloists, although they do not have intricate passages at all.
In Valse-fantaisie, one must pay special attention to the corni, which are out of tune, that is, the first is in one, and the other is tuned in a different tone.
Prayer requires a strict performance (severe), while Valse-fantaisie must be played in a mannered manner (un peu exagere)” (“Letters”, pp. 479, 480). Characteristic is the solicitude with which Glinka treats this revived offspring of hers - "Valse-fantaisie". Obviously, the waltz was very dear to the composer due to the reasonableness, clarity and utmost economy of the instrumental "apparatus" achieved in Gluck's instrumentation. But at the same time, such a score demanded even more intonational responsibility from the performers, with all the simplicity and naivety - for the listener - of the idea, when all Glinka's "trick of malice" does not at all boast, does not stick out. This is the smart technique, and not the grotesque witty, flaunting itself. The cunningly odd rhythm of the waltz trombone, or rather the combination of scherzo and waltz rhythms, sounds just as natural – smoothness in unevenness!
All these qualities were already in Glinka's instrumentation, and the rhythm in it was always almost inseparable from all elements of form and intonation dynamics (rhythm in semantic accentuation); but here properties of this kind resulted in a strict, classical, consistently carried out system of thinking: an easy play of the imagination turned into a beautiful meditation. With his "Valse-fantaisie" Glinka laid a solid foundation for the culture of waltz lyrics!

N.V. Kukolnik, in a letter dated March 18, Glinka reported on his other, new and last brainchild, his swan song - the romance "Don't Say That Your Heart Hurts" - in the following ironic tone:
“. Pavlov (the author of the then popular stories “Name Day”, “Yatagan”, etc. - B. A.) begged me on his knees for music to the words of his composition, the world was cursed in them, which means the public, which is very good for me . Yesterday I finished it” (“Letters”, p. 477). Glinka did not even suspect that with this dramatic, one might say, exhortation monologue, he really got even with the hated Petersburg high society, in which he was superfluous - a bitterness that could not be drowned out by a small group of devoted admirers. The unfortunate Glinka did not hear the reassuring strong voices, did not realize that his music, especially his melodies, had long since spoken for him, had long since infiltrated the consciousness of the agitated raznochintsy sections of the Russian democratic intelligentsia.

April 27, 1856 Glinka went on his fourth and last trip abroad. He left to die.
In Berlin, Glinka's life proceeded calmly. With Dan, he continued almost all the time to work on mastering the art of writing fugues in the style of the old masters, but without tiring or straining; so that the emphasis, which is usually placed from his words on such classes, is greatly exaggerated, and he himself admitted in one of his letters to Dr. Heidenreich that he does not work with Den much. Apparently, he listened to music — Bach, Mozart, Gluck in particular — a lot and with pleasure, but he almost stopped talking about music in his letters, noting only the "portions of pleasure" received.
This was the case until January 21/9, 1857, when Glinka was finally “honored” by the inclusion of one piece in the program of the court concert at the Royal Palace: the trio “Oh, not to me, the poor orphan girl” from the opera “Ivan Susanin”. Leaving the concert from the stuffy hall, Glinka caught a cold and got the flu. This happened to him more than once, and the disease did not inspire fear. But then something not entirely clear begins: Den's letter to Glinka's sister, Lyudmila Ivanovna Shestakova, about this last month of Glinka's death, is decidedly confusing. It speaks of some unpleasant news received by Glinka, about his unbearably increased irritability, even anger, anger and rage, about significant sums of money being sent somewhere (Den had Glinka's money in storage, and he took them from him).
As a result, it is impossible to understand whether outbreaks of painful phenomena alternate, while the primary cold has long been eliminated; whether the stupid stubbornness of the doctor, who, like all the doctors who usually used Glinka, kept repeating until the last days that there were no signs of danger; or some strong shock caused a sharp turn in the disease of the liver, which quickly brought Mikhail Ivanovich to the grave. Den reports that as early as February 13/1, “Glinka was joking and talking about his fugues” (for more than a year these fugues have appeared everywhere - it looks like psychosis and some kind of silence. - B. A), and 14 / 2 he found the patient completely indifferent to everything. In the morning - at 5 o'clock - February 15/3, Glinka died, meek and calm, according to Den. The funeral took place on February 18/6; among the few who saw off the deceased was Meyerbeer.

When V. P. Engelhardt arrived in Berlin three months later and, on behalf of L. I. Shestakova, took care of transporting the remains of Glinka to his homeland, it turned out that the great Russian composer was awarded a burial almost like Mozart's:
“Despite the very significant amount later paid to L. I. Shestakova on Den’s accounts,” says Engelhardt, “Glinka’s funeral in Berlin was, one might say, beggarly. Den even chose a grave in the section of the cemetery where the poor are buried. The coffin was the cheapest and fell apart so quickly that when Dan and I dug up the body (in May) we had to wrap the coffin in canvas to be able to lift it to the ground. When the coffin was taken out and opened, I did not dare to look at Mikhail Ivanovich. One of the gravediggers lifted the canvas and, immediately closing it, said: “Das Gesicht ist wie mit Watte bedeckt. Es sieht bose aus" - according to the gravedigger, the whole face was white, as if covered with cotton wool.
Another characteristic addition from the memoirs of Glinka by the same Engelhardt, published in the Russian Musical Newspaper in 1907 (pp. 155-160): “Glinka’s body was not in a dress, but in a white linen shroud.” Why not Mozart! But, true, he was buried in a common grave.
On May 22, 1857, a steamship with Glinka's body arrived in Kronstadt, and on May 24, a funeral took place at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.
There is also such, according to V.V. Stasov, a completely reliable story by N.A. Borozdin about one of Glinka’s ill-wishers - A.F. Lvov, that when the memory of Glinka after his death was honored with a solemn memorial service in the St. where Pushkin was buried twenty years ago), then “before the [tomb] speech, the director of the singing chapel, A.F. Lvov, did not want to allow this, declaring that it was impossible to do this without his censorship, and he forgot his glasses at home and cannot censor immediately.". The speech was delivered with the permission of another person. But the case is still typical!

". A concert was given in the Philharmonic Society, composed of the works of his brother; the concert was very successful. At the same time, I asked Den to send me things that were closest to my brother: a small icon, a portrait of Olya, a family ring and, by the way, a dressing gown, which my brother loved very much and in which he died. Curious feature: Den, sending all the things that I asked for, did not send a dressing gown. “I don’t send a dressing gown because,” Mr. Den wrote with quite German ingenuity, “because the dressing gown is too old, and you can’t make any use of it” ”(“ The Last Years of the Life and Death of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. Memoirs of his Sister L. And Shestakova". 1854 - 1857; "Notes", p. 417). So the great Russian man passed away. And so "funny" all kinds of human "everyday life" revolved around his death. Richly gifted, showing Russian music the only true path development - in unity with folk art - he left his homeland and as a superfluous person, rejected, except for a small, then powerless group of friends, relatives and admirers, by his own environment.But his music was loved by the entire Russian people, and he never will forget.

Now we need to turn to M. I. Glinka's trip to Spain - a very important event in the formation of the "Spanish" style in Russian classical music. Fortunately, many travel documents have been preserved, and the most valuable are the composer's Notes, where he not only described in detail what he saw and heard, but also recorded Spanish folk melodies. They formed the basis of some of the works of Russian composers about Spain. We will turn to two texts - to the Spanish-language book by A. Canibano "Glinka's Spanish Notes" (Caсbano, 1996), as well as to the book by S. V. Tyshko and G. V. Kukol "Glinka's Wanderings. Commentary on Notes. Part III. Journey to the Pyrenees or Spanish arabesques” (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011). A. Canibano describes the ideas of Western Europeans about Spain in the 17th - 19th centuries. - and Spain appears here as an oriental country. Moreover, these ideas largely coincide with what Europeans thought about the East. Here we observe the same situation as with the book of E. Said - a native of the East wrote about Orientalism (the West's ideas about the East), and a native of Spain A. Canibano wrote about the West's perception of Spain as an Oriental country.

The researcher points out that Jews, Moriscos, Gypsies and Negroes lived in Spain - and all of them in Orientalist discourse are united by the term "people of the East". Already in the XVII century. several ideas were formed that were oriental for Europeans: a harem, a bathhouse, an abduction from a seraglio (suffice it to recall the opera by W. A. ​​Mozart). Europe created the Oriental concert after the French Revolution, when it was preoccupied with the search for an identity. There was a need for something distant, different, Other - in order to establish their own traditions. However, Europe did not seek to study other cultures, but only fabricated a prototype that met its needs. Andalusia, and in particular Granada, was for European romantics (the term of A. Canibano - but it is known that Orientalism was one of the main ideas in romanticism, therefore there are no contradictions with our concept here) the gateway to the Oriental world. The East was a dream, a myth, remote and (therefore) desirable, a place of earthly paradise, where one can calmly break all the taboos of the "Western" man. However, this dream had another side: the East is also something evil, mystical, cruel. And in defining the East in this way, the Western European met with his own values. Europe invented the East for its own purposes. This fashion for the oriental was also expressed in music - however, even here Western Europe followed the path of invention, imitation. Oriental rhythms and melodies were adapted to the standards of Western European music (= corrupted), as a result, musical means were formed (“Eastern scale”, chromaticism, extended seconds, certain rhythms, etc.), which indicated the oriental nature of the composition. Works about Spain have been created by Western European composers since the 17th century. (Cacibano, 1996, 20-21).

Everything that has been said about the East applies to Spain. M. I. Glinka arrived in already orientalized Spain - and was inspired precisely by this very image of her. To confirm this thesis, let us turn to the "Notes" of the composer and commentaries to them. Attention should be paid to what M. I. Glinka saw and heard in Spain, how he interpreted it and what explanation is given in the comments to his notes. The Russian composer's first impression of Spanish music was disappointment: the musicians sought to reproduce the Italian and French traditions, the most advanced traditions at the beginning of the 19th century. - but M. I. Glinka, like other travelers who visited Spain, expected to find exotic things, and not Italy and France already known to everyone. The main thing here is that the Spaniards acted quite consciously. They could not be satisfied with the fact that in the eyes of Europeans Spain is a backward, wild country, so they wanted to represent themselves as part of (developed) Europe and create the kind of music that (as it seemed to them) corresponded to the leading European trends. However, this only irritated the Europeans themselves. As a result, M. I. Glinka concluded that genuine, folk, authentic Spanish music should be sought not in the theaters of large cities, but somewhere else (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 125 - 127). If we describe this situation in terms of orientalist discourse, we get the following: the Spaniards somehow realized that their country was orientalized by Europeans - and tried to fight it. Orientation is not just a one-way process, it can be resisted.

So, the goal of M. I. Glinka was the search for "real" Spanish music. And he succeeded: on June 22, 1845, in Valladolid, the composer began to write down in a special notebook Spanish melodies that he heard performed by local residents (not always professional musicians, but who had talent and, of course, knew national music). These melodies became the basis for the first works in the Spanish style. So, M. I. Glinka recorded the Aragonese jota (here - without quotes!), which Felix Castilla played the guitar with him, and subsequently - in the fall of 1845 - created the play "Capriccio brillante" from the melody with variations. Prince Odoevsky advised to call it "Spanish Overture", and we know the play under the name "Jota of Aragon". M. I. Glinka also recorded other jotas: Valladolid (to the melody of which the romance “Milochka” was written), Asturian (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 160, 164 - 165). Regarding the "Jota of Aragon", S. V. Tyshko and G. V. Kukol note one important point: in February 1845, F. Liszt, at the end of his own trip to Spain, wrote "Great Concert Fantasy", where he used the theme of jota, which only a few months later was fixed by M.I. Glinka. F. Liszt was the first - but "Jota of Aragon" was created completely independently, without external influences (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 214 - 215). The development of the "Spanish" style in Western European music is a topic for a separate study, but at the moment we want to note only that the "Spanish" style is not only a Russian "invention".

When writing down Spanish melodies, M.I. Glinka faced a difficulty - the music was unusual for him, differed from what he knew, in general, it was difficult to write music, and therefore he identified the nature of this music as ... Arabic (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011 , 217). On the one hand, the Russian composer was right - in the comments to the "Notes" it is repeatedly stated that Spanish music (jotas, seguidillas, fandango, flamenco - according to researchers, symbols of the Spanish culture of that time) has Arabic (and not only) roots. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that M. I. Glinka thought like an Orientalist composer: he was not in the countries of the Arab world, he did not hear Arab national music, but this did not prevent him from giving a similar definition to Spanish music. Moreover, the composer heard “Arabic” music more than once (in Madrid, in the autumn of 1845; in Granada, in January 1846) (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 326). And in the winter of 1846-17847. he attended dance evenings where national singers, according to him, “filled themselves in an oriental way” - this wording allows us to confidently assert that Spain, in the view of the Russian composer, was an oriental country (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 472 - 473). M. I. Glinka wrote to N. Kukolnik: “The national music of the Spanish provinces, which were under the rule of the Moors, is the main subject of my study ...” (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 326) - that is, firstly, he understood and recognized that Spain is orientalized, and secondly (hence) had certain - orientalist - expectations (music will be "Arabic"). Expectations were confirmed.

In Granada, M. I. Glinka met a gypsy and, having learned that she could sing and dance, invited her and her comrades to the evening. According to the composer, the old gypsy danced too obscenely at the evening. The obscene dances of the gypsies are another important element in the image of Oriental Spain. S. V. Tyshko and G. V. Kukol note that the gypsy culture has become an integral part of life in Andalusia, and the Spanish gypsy - the gitana - has become a recognizable symbol of the art of the 19th century, including Russian. But then the text contains a rhetorical exclamation: “What can we say about the world symbol embodied in Carmen…” (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 366). This exclamation is not the only one, but they all cause bewilderment. Carmen is mentioned in a fairly large passage dedicated to Andalusian women. S. V. Tyshko and G. V. Kukol indicate that at the beginning of the 19th century. there were legends about the attractiveness of Andalusians. Literary critic V. P. Botkin wrote about the bewitching brilliance of the eyes, the bronze color of the skin, the delicate whiteness of the face, the naivety and audacity of the Andalusians, whose only need was the need to love; A. S. Pushkin admired the legs of Andalusian women (and the poet, unlike V. P. Botkin, was not in Spain either). Researchers note in the character of Andalusians such traits as ignorance, willfulness, indomitability - and the proof for them is the words of the hero of the short story "Carmen" Jose that he was afraid of Andalusians (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 355 - 360). Such a position can at least cause surprise - after all, here an appeal is made to the work of a French writer (and then to a work by a French composer), where the Spanish gypsy Carmen is shown as the French wanted to see her - but this does not mean that the gypsies actually were like that! In our opinion, one cannot judge gypsies according to Carmen, one cannot base one's conclusions on an orientalist work, where one can only find the authors' ideas, from which it does not follow that everything was so in reality. If the researcher acts in this way, then there is reason to call him an Orientalist.

But back to our topic. Gypsy culture was indeed an important part of Spanish culture - and part of the oriental image of Spain. A. Piotrowska points out that the image of Spanish gypsies is, first of all, the image of attractive and obscene gypsy dancers (Piotrowska, 2013). The same was the opinion of M. I. Glinka. However, he was really interested in the gypsies and even, most likely, was in El Malecón - the place where the gypsies gathered. In addition, he met Antonio Fernandez "El Planet" - a gypsy blacksmith, "national singer", keeper of the oldest authentic traditions, from whom the first recorded flamenco music was received (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 424, 483).

S. V. Tyshko and G. V. Kukol pay attention to the origin and characteristics of flamenco - and from their descriptions one can easily conclude that flamenco was also part of the Oriental Spanish culture. The origins of flamenco are found in Arabic, Gypsy, Spanish (Andalusian) and Greco-Byzantine cultures. The first professional performers in the style of cante hondo (the first style of flamenco) appeared in Spanish patios, pubs, taverns at the end of the 18th century, when public interest in oriental dances and songs increased, and the more they contained gypsy or Moorish, the more exotic they were ( Tyshko and Kukol, 2011, 478). Accordingly, in Spain at the end of the 18th century. there was exactly the same situation that took place in Europe in the 17th century, when Turkish music became relevant (Rice, 1999). The "Spanish" style was formed in the same logic as other Orientalist styles. Flamenco music is free-improvisational and subtly virtuoso. Melodies ("in the oriental style") contain intervals of less than a semitone, a lot of embellishments. Their modal structure is complex - there is a combination of Phrygian, Dorian, as well as the Arabic “maqam hijazi” modes. Flamenco rhythms are also complex, besides, there is a lot of polyrhythm in music (Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 479 - 480). All this was completely unusual for M.I. Glinka (as for a European musician), which is why he experienced difficulties in recording and understanding flamenco music.

Finally, let us turn to the gypsy dances that the Russian composer saw. Regarding them, he wrote the following: “But it is remarkable - and in our northern and western regions it is difficult to believe in such things - that all these strange, unfamiliar, unprecedented movements for us are voluptuous, but they do not feel the slightest unbridledness ... "(Tyshko, Kukol, 2011, 477 - 478). M. I. Glinka draws an imaginary border, dividing "his" "northern and western regions" and unfamiliar Spain, obviously located in the "south and east" - that is, being part of the Oriental world. It was this - oriental (and orientalized), with Arabic music and dances of beautiful gypsies - that Spain appeared before M. I. Glinka, one of the founders of the "Spanish" style in Russian musical orientalism.

M Ikhail Glinka was always attracted by Spain, which he had long known from books, paintings, and least of all from music. Composers from many countries then wrote romances in the spirit of Spanish folk music, Spanish dances. It was in vogue, but it was not authentic Spanish music.

The idea to see Spain with one's own eyes took its real embodiment during Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka's stay in Paris.

AT In the museums of Paris, Glinka saw many paintings by famous painters of Spain: portraits of Spanish courtiers created by the brush of the great Velazquez, who looked with a cold and cruel smile, paintings by Murillo depicting the Madonna, saints and angels, endowed with such earthly, human beauty that they caused even the most religious spectator not a prayerful mood, but admiration and joy.

G Linka was also familiar with the great work of Spanish literature - Cervantes' novel about the valiant and cunning knight of the Sad Image - Don Quixote of La Mancha. A novel that tells about the funny and sad adventures of poor Senor Quijano, who imagines himself a knight-errant and sets off on a distant wandering in pursuit of a dream.

To what was Spain itself, which gave the world such a writer as the great Cervantes, such artists as Velasquez and Murillo - Glinka did not know this, but really wanted to know.

R The Russian composer did not intend to be an idle, entertaining traveler in Spain. To get to know Spain meant for him, first of all, to get to know the Spanish people, their language, their music. And so, in Glinka's small Parisian apartment, books appeared about Spain, geographical maps and Don Quixote in Spanish, which Mikhail Glinka diligently studied.

AT During almost a year of Mikhail Ivanovich's stay in France, where he began classes in the study of the Spanish language, the concert program of his works held in April 1845 was quite successful, and already on May 13, 1845 Glinka left Paris and set off on his intended path. With him went the Spaniard Don Santiago Hernandez, with whom he practiced conversational Spanish in Paris. The third companion was Rosario, the nine-year-old daughter of Don Santiago, a sweet, cheerful talker who endured all the difficulties of the road without complaint or fatigue. And this road was the most difficult of all that Glinka traveled in his life. The path from the Spanish border lay through the mountains, along a narrow stone path, accessible only to saddle horses and mules.

AT from so, on horseback, and then on mules, and Glinka and his companions had to go to the first Spanish city of Pampluna. Then they went in a stagecoach, which turned out to be unusually comfortable and pleasant.

AT from and Valladolid - the city where the family of Don Santiago lived and where Glinka expected to rest after a difficult journey. He liked the small town, not listed among the sights of Spain, but beautiful and picturesque in its own way, he liked the modest patriarchal family of Santiago.

H Where abroad, Mikhail Glinka did not feel as at ease as in Spain, among sociable and friendly people. Rest, evening rides, sometimes playing music with new Spanish acquaintances filled all the time. So the summer passed. Glinka felt that here he would be able to forget all the sorrows of the past, he would be able to return to creativity, to life.

AT New, vivid impressions awaited in front of me. The ancient palaces of Segovia, the fountains of San Idelfonso, which reminded Glinka of Peterhof; other cities and villages, mostly ancient, breathing the harsh grandeur of the former glory and power of Spain, which once dominated half the world.

BUT then Madrid, quite modern, cheerful and smart, with eternal bustle in the streets and squares. Here, as in Paris, Glinka spent all his time walking around the city, visiting palaces, museums, visiting theaters, becoming more and more familiar with Spanish life, especially since he already spoke the language fluently.

M Glinka visited many remarkable places during his two years in Spain. They were almost entirely devoted to travel. He visited Toledo, a fortified city that preserved its medieval appearance more than others, saw Escorial, the palace of the most catholic of kings, cruel Philip II. A huge, gloomy building, more like a monastery or even a prison, rising in the middle of a desert plain, made a depressing impression on Glinka, but it was smoothed out by the fact that he undertook his first excursion to Escorial accompanied by two beautiful Spanish women.

W Glinka spent 1845-46 in the south of Spain, in Granada, a city located in a picturesque valley surrounded by a chain of high mountains. Glinka settled in one of the suburban houses, from the windows of which one could see the entire valley of Granada, part of the city and the Alhambra - an ancient fortress that has been preserved since the reign of the Moors. The Alhambra Palace - a bizarre creation of exquisite art and craftsmanship of architects - captivated Glinka with the coolness of spacious galleries, the play of chiaroscuro on marble columns, arches, vaults, carved like lace.

AT the very first days of Glinka's stay in Granada, by the will of circumstances, he made an acquaintance with one interesting person, whose name was Don Francisco Bueno y Moreno. In the past, this Spaniard was a smuggler (a common occupation for Spain at that time), but having amassed a decent fortune, he decided to become an honest citizen. Don Francisco started a glove factory and, moreover, traded in leather. It was this former smuggler who introduced Glinka to real Andalusian music performed by a guitarist, this is what Glinka himself writes about this in his Notes: “On the next or third day, he introduced me to the best guitarist in Granada named Murciano. This Murciano was a simple illiterate man, he sold wine in his own tavern. He played with uncommon deftness and clarity. Variations on the national local dance Fandango, composed by him and his son set to music, testified to his musical talent ... "

R In the early autumn of 1846, on the advice and invitation of one of his Spanish acquaintances, he went to a fair in Murcia in a village gig - "tartan" along roads that, by the composer's own definition, were worse than Russian country roads. But on the other hand, he saw rural Spain, completely unfamiliar and inaccessible to ordinary foreign travelers, he saw the daily life of the people, their work, their entertainment. He heard the real music of Spain. Glinka studied it not in theaters and concert halls, but on the streets and roads, as well as at home, performed by folk singers and

guitarists. Song and dance were inseparable here, and "don Miguel", as the Spaniards called Glinka, decided to study the dances of the Spanish people. Probably, none of the St. Petersburg acquaintances would have recognized Mikhail Ivanovich if they saw him dancing jota with castanets in his hands!

B a large album and music notebook, taken by Glinka with her to Spain, was gradually filled with drawings and autographs of new acquaintances, recordings of Spanish songs. Everything attracted Glinka: the songs of the muleteers, and the dances of dancers in small pubs located right on the streets.

“I diligently study Spanish music,” the composer wrote to his mother from Granada. - Here, more than in other cities of Spain, they sing and dance. The dominant chant and dance in Granada - fandango. The guitars begin, then almost [everyone] of those present sings his verse in turn, and at this time, in one or two pairs, they dance with castanettes. This music and dance are so original that until now I have not yet been able to notice the melody completely, for everyone sings in their own way. In order to fully comprehend the matter, I study three times a week (for 10 francs a month) from the first local dance teacher and work with my hands and feet. It may seem strange to you, but here music and dance are inseparable. – The study of Russian folk music [in] my youth led me to compose a Life for the Tsar and Ruslan. I hope that now I will not bother in vain.

E those songs and dances were really amazing. The listener heard three different musical rhythms: one in the song, another in the guitarist's playing, the third in the dancer's castanets. But these three rhythms merged into a single harmonious whole.

		Aragonese jota. From a painting by M. Hus

E while still in Valladolid, Glinka recorded the hota, a melody of a cheerful dance in which dancing couples try to outdo each other in lightness of jumps and speed of movement. Jota, heard in Valladolid performed by a local guitarist, attracted Glinka with the liveliness of the melody, the lively rhythm and playful, perky words:

E that melody was the basis of the symphonic work written by Glinka in Spain - "Jota of Aragon", one of the two "Spanish Overtures" that later became famous. "Jota of Aragon" was not a simple processing of a folk melody - in it Glinka conveyed the very essence of the music of Spain, painted vivid pictures of the life of the Spanish people.

		Don Pedro. Photo. Mid 19th century

E Having started working on the Jota of Aragon, Glinka felt that he was discovering a new area of ​​musical art for himself, that by introducing folk melodies into symphonic music, he creates a work that is equally interesting and understandable for both connoisseurs and the most ordinary music lovers .... In the summer of 1847, Glinka set off on his way back to his homeland. He did not leave alone, with him was his student, a great music lover - the Spaniard Pedro Fernandez Nelasco Sendino.

H What happened to Don Pedro? Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka recounts events rather sparingly, focusing more on intrigues with young ladies and ladies he meets on his travels, which, on the whole, does not in the least violate the spirit of that time, which has already changed the principles of courtesy. How the fate and musical career of the Spaniard developed in Russia, I do not know. What did this Fernandez Nelasco Sendino find in Russia, what was his further path, or further wanderings? Eh...