Composer A. S

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869) together with M.I. Glinka is the founder of the Russian classical school. The historical significance of his work was very accurately formulated by Mussorgsky, who called Dargomyzhsky "a great teacher of truth in music." The tasks that Dargomyzhsky set for himself were bold, innovative, and their implementation opened up new prospects for the development of Russian music. It is no coincidence that Russian composers of the generation of the 1860s, in the first place, representatives of the Mighty Handful, highly appreciated his work.

A decisive role in the formation of Dargomyzhsky as a composer was played by his rapprochement with M. I. Glinka. He studied music theory from Glinka's notebooks. with lecture notes by Siegfried Dehn, Dargomyzhsky performed Glinka's romances in various salons and circles, before his eyes the opera "Life for the Tsar" ("Ivan Susanin") was composed, in the stage rehearsals of which he took a direct part. Dargomyzhsky perfectly mastered the creative style of his older contemporary, as evidenced by the similarity a number of essays. And yet, compared with Glinka, Dargomyzhsky's talent was of a completely different nature. It's a talent playwright and psychologist, who manifested himself mainly in the vocal and stage genres.

According to Asafiev, "Dargomyzhsky sometimes possessed the ingenious intuition of a musician-playwright, not inferior to Monteverdi and Gluck ...". Glinka is versatile, larger, more harmonious, he easily grasps whole, Dargomyzhsky immersed in details. The artist is very observant, he analytically studies the human personality, notices its special qualities, demeanor, gestures, intonations of speech.He was especially attracted by the transmission of subtle processes of inner, spiritual life, various shades of emotional states.

Dargomyzhsky became the first representative of the "natural school" in Russian music. The favorite themes of critical realism, images of the “humiliated and insulted”, related to the heroes, turned out to be close to him.N.V. Gogol and P.A. Fedotov. The psychology of the “little man”, compassion for his experiences (“Titular Advisor”), social inequality (“Mermaid”), “prose of everyday life” without embellishment - these themes first entered Russian music thanks to Dargomyzhsky.

The first attempt to embody the psychological drama of the "little people" was the opera "Esmeralda" to the finished French libretto by Victor Hugo based on the novel "Notre Dame Cathedral" (completed in 1842). Esmeralda, based on the model of a large romantic opera, demonstrated the composer's realistic aspirations, his interest in acute conflict, strong dramatic plots. In the future, the main source of such plots for Dargomyzhsky was the work of A.S. Pushkin, on the texts of which he created the operas "Mermaid" and "The Stone Guest", more than 20 romances and choirs,cantata "The Triumph of Bacchus", later converted into an opera-ballet.

The originality of Dargomyzhsky's creative manner determines original fusion of speech and musical intonations. He formulated his own creative credo in the famous aphorism:“I want the sound to directly express the word, I want the truth.” By truth, the composer understood the exact transmission of speech intonations in music.

The strength of Dargomyzhsky's musical recitation lies mainly in its striking naturalness. It is closely connected both with the original Russian chant and with the characteristic colloquial intonations. Surprisingly subtle feeling of all the features of Russian intonation , melodics Russian speech played a significant role in Dargomyzhsky's love for vocal music-making and his studies in vocal pedagogy.

The pinnacle of Dargomyzhsky's quest in the field of musical recitation was histhe last opera is The Stone Guest (based on Pushkin's little tragedy). In it, he comes to a radical reform of the operatic genre, composing music to the unchanging text of a literary source. Achieving the continuity of the musical action, he abandons the historically established operatic forms. Only two of Laura's songs have a complete, rounded shape. In the music of The Stone Guest, Dargomyzhsky managed to achieve a perfect fusion of speech intonations with expressive melodism, anticipating the opening of the opera house XX century.

The innovative principles of The Stone Guest were continued not only in the operatic recitative of M. P. Mussorgsky, but also in the work of S. Prokofiev. It is known that the great Verdi, while working on Othello, carefully studied the score of this masterpiece by Dargomyzhsky.

In the creative heritage of the composer, along with operas, chamber vocal music stands out - more than 100 works. They cover all the main genres of Russian vocal lyrics, including new varieties of romance. These are lyrical-psychological monologues (“I'm sad”, “I'm both bored and sad” to the words of Lermontov), ​​theatrical genre-domestic romances-scenes (“The Miller” to poems by Pushkin).

Dargomyzhsky's orchestral fantasies - "Bolero", "Baba Yaga", "Little Russian Cossack", "Chukhonskaya Fantasy" - together with Glinka's symphonic opuses, marked the pinnacle of the first stage of Russian symphonic music. They clearly show signs of genre-characteristic symphonism (national coloring of thematic reliance on song and dance genres, picturesqueness of images, programming).

The musical and social activity of Dargomyzhsky, which unfolded from the end of the 50s of the 19th century, was multifaceted. He took part in the work of the satirical magazine "Iskra" (and since 1864 - and the magazine "Budilnik"), was a member of the committee of the Russian Musical Society (in 1867 he became chairman of its St. Petersburg branch), participated in the development of the draft charter of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

Dargomyzhsky's last opera The Stone Guest was named by Cui alpha and omega Russian opera art, along with Glinka's Ruslan.D he advised all vocal composers to study the declamatory language of The Stone Guest "constantly and with the greatest care" as code.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alexander Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2 (according to the new calendar, February 14), 1813. The researcher established that Alexander Dargomyzhsky was born in the village of Voskresenskoye (now Arkhangelsk) in the Tula province. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, was the illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner Alexei Petrovich Ladyzhensky, who owned an estate in the Chernsky district. Shortly after his birth, Sergei was taken into care and eventually adopted by Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Boucharov, who brought him to his estate Dargomyzhka in the Tula province. As a result, the son of A.P. Ladyzhensky became Sergey Nikolaevich Dargomyzhsky (after the name of the estate of his stepfather N.I. Boucharov). Such a change of surname was required for admission to the Noble Boarding School at Moscow University. Mother, nee Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, sister of the famous wit Peter Kozlovsky, married against the will of her parents.

Until the age of five, the boy did not speak, his late-formed voice remained forever high and slightly hoarse, which did not prevent him, however, from subsequently touching him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of his vocal performance. In 1817, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Dargomyzhsky's father got a position as the head of the office in a commercial bank, and he himself began to receive a musical education. His first piano teacher was Louise Wolgeborn, then he began studying with Adrian Danilevsky. Finally, Franz Schoberlechner was Dargomyzhsky's teacher for three years. Having achieved a certain skill, Dargomyzhsky began to perform as a pianist at charity concerts and in private collections. By that time, he had already written a number of piano compositions, romances and other works, some of which were published.

In the autumn of 1827, Dargomyzhsky, following in the footsteps of his father, entered the civil service and, thanks to hard work and a conscientious attitude to business, quickly began to move up the career ladder. In the spring of 1835 he met Mikhail Glinka, with whom he played the piano four hands. Having visited the rehearsals of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar, which was being prepared for production, Dargomyzhsky decided to write a major stage work on his own. On the advice of Vasily Zhukovsky, the composer turned to the author's work, which was very popular in Russia in the late 1830s - Hugo's Notre Dame Cathedral. Dargomyzhsky used a French libretto written by Hugo himself for Louise Bertin, whose opera Esmeralda had been staged shortly before. By 1841, Dargomyzhsky completed the orchestration and translation of the opera, for which he also took the name Esmeralda, and handed over the score to the directorate of the Imperial Theaters. The opera, written in the spirit of French composers, had been waiting for its premiere for several years, since Italian productions were much more popular with the public. Despite the good dramatic and musical decision of Esmeralda, this opera left the stage some time after the premiere and was practically never staged in the future. In his autobiography, published in the newspaper Music and Theatre, published by A. N. Serov in 1867, Dargomyzhsky wrote:
Esmeralda lay in my briefcase for eight years. These eight years of vain waiting, and in the most ebullient years of my life, laid a heavy burden on my entire artistic activity.

melancholic waltz.

experiencesDargomyzhsky about the failure of "Esmeralda" was aggravated by the growing popularity of Glinka's works. The composer begins to give singing lessons (his students were exclusively women, while he did not charge them) and writes a number of romances for voice and piano, some of which were published and became very popular. In 1843, Dargomyzhsky retired, and soon went abroad.

He meets the leading European composers of the time. Returning to Russia in 1845, the composer is fond of studying Russian musical folklore, the elements of which are clearly manifested in the romances and songs written during this period: “Darling Maiden”, “Fever”, “Melnik”, as well as in the opera “Mermaid”, which the composer began to write
in 1848."Mermaid" occupies a special place in the composer's work, written on the plot of the tragedy of the same name in the verses of A. S. Pushkin. The premiere of "Mermaid" took place in May 1856 in St. Petersburg. The largest Russian music critic of that time, Alexander Serov, responded to it with a large-scale positive review.

Fantasy "Baba Yaga". Scherzo.

In 1859Dargomyzhsky is elected to the leadership of the newly founded Russian Musical Society, he meets a group of young composers, the central figure among whom was Mily Balakirev (this group would later become the "Mighty Handful"). Dargomyzhsky plans to write a new opera. The choice of the composer stops at the third of Pushkin's "Little Tragedies" - "The Stone Guest". Work on the opera, however, is proceeding rather slowly due to the creative crisis that began at Dargomyzhsky, associated with the exit from the repertoire of the Rusalka theaters and the neglect of younger musicians. The composer again travels to Europe, where his orchestral piece "Cossack", as well as fragments from "Mermaid", are successfully performed. Approvingly speaks about the work of Dargomyzhsky Franz Liszt.

"Bolero"

Returning to Russia, inspired by the success of his works abroad, Dargomyzhsky, with renewed vigor, takes on the composition of The Stone Guest. The language he chose for this opera - built almost entirely on melodic recitatives with simple chordal accompaniment - interested the composers of The Mighty Handful. However, the appointment of Dargomyzhsky to the post of head of the Russian Musical Society and the failure of the opera The Triumph of Bacchus, which he wrote back in 1848 and had not seen the stage for almost twenty years, weakened the composer's health, and on January 5, 1869, he died, leaving the opera unfinished. According to his will, The Stone Guest was completed by Cui and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Laura's first song from the opera "The Stone Guest"

Prince's aria from the opera "Mermaid"

Romance "I still love him, crazy"

Evgeny Nesterenko performs romances by A. Dargomyzhsky

1, Timofeev - "Ballad"

2. A.S. Pushkin - "I loved you"

3. M.Yu. Lermontov - I'm sad

Dargomyzhsky's innovation was not shared by his younger colleagues and was condescendingly considered oversights. The harmonic dictionary of the style of the late Dargomyzhsky, the individualized structure of consonances, their typical characteristic were, as on an ancient fresco recorded with later layers, “ennobled” beyond recognition by Rimsky-Korsakov’s edition, brought into line with the requirements of his taste, like Mussorgsky’s operas “Boris Godunov” and "Khovanshchina", also radically edited by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Dargomyzhsky was buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts at the Tikhvin Cemetery, not far from Glinka's grave.

Opera "The Stone Guest".

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

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

Childhood

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

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

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

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

mature years

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

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

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

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

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

Creativity Dargomyzhsky

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

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

Famous works of Dargomyzhsky

• "Esmeralda" (1841)
• "The Triumph of Bacchus" (1848)
• "Mermaid" (1855)
• "Cossack" (1864)
• "Stone Guest" (1869)

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

Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2 (14), 1813 in the village of Troitskoye, Tula province. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, was the illegitimate son of a wealthy nobleman, Vasily Alekseevich Ladyzhensky. Mother, nee Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, married against the will of her parents; According to the musicologist M.S. Pekelis, Princess M.B. Kozlovskaya inherited from her father the Tverdunovo family estate, now the Vyazemsky district of the Smolensk region, where the Dargomyzhsky family returned from the Tula province after the expulsion of the Napoleonic army in 1813. Alexander Dargomyzhsky spent the first 3 years of his life in his parental estate Tverdunovo. Subsequently, he repeatedly came to this Smolensk estate: in the late 1840s - mid-1850s, while working at the Mermaid opera, to collect Smolensk folklore, in June 1861 to free his peasants from serfdom in the village of Tverdunovo.

French Nikolai Stepanov

Until the age of five, the boy did not speak, his late-formed voice remained forever high and slightly hoarse, which did not prevent him, however, from subsequently touching him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of his vocal performance. In 1817, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Dargomyzhsky's father got a position as the head of the office in a commercial bank, and he himself began to receive a musical education. His first piano teacher was Louise Wolgeborn, then he began studying with Adrian Danilevsky. He was a good pianist, but did not share the young Dargomyzhsky's interest in composing music (his small piano pieces from this period have been preserved). Finally, for three years Dargomyzhsky's teacher was Franz Schoberlechner, a student of the famous composer Johann Hummel. Having achieved a certain skill, Dargomyzhsky began to perform as a pianist at charity concerts and in private collections. At this time, he also studied with the famous singing teacher Benedikt Zeibig, and from 1822 he mastered playing the violin, played in quartets, but soon lost interest in this instrument. By that time, he had already written a number of piano compositions, romances and other works, some of which were published.

In the autumn of 1827, Dargomyzhsky, following in the footsteps of his father, entered the civil service and, thanks to hard work and a conscientious attitude to business, quickly began to move up the career ladder. During this period, he often played music at home and visited the opera house, the basis of the repertoire of which was the works of Italian composers. In the spring of 1835, he met Mikhail Glinka, with whom he played the piano four hands, analyzed the work of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Glinka also gave Dargomyzhsky notes of the music theory lessons he received in Berlin from Siegfried Dehn. Having visited the rehearsals of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar, which was being prepared for production, Dargomyzhsky decided to write a major stage work on his own. The choice of plot fell on Victor Hugo's drama "Lucretia Borgia", but the creation of the opera progressed slowly, and in 1837, on the advice of Vasily Zhukovsky, the composer turned to another work by the same author, which was very popular in Russia in the late 1830s - " Cathedral of Notre Dame". Dargomyzhsky used an original French libretto written by Hugo himself for Louise Bertin, whose opera Esmeralda had been staged shortly before. By 1841, Dargomyzhsky completed the orchestration and translation of the opera, for which he also took the name Esmeralda, and handed over the score to the directorate of the Imperial Theaters. The opera, written in the spirit of French composers, had been waiting for its premiere for several years, since Italian productions were much more popular with the public. Despite the good dramatic and musical decision of Esmeralda, this opera left the stage some time after the premiere and was practically never staged in the future. In his autobiography, published in the newspaper Music and Theatre, published by A. N. Serov in 1867, Dargomyzhsky wrote:

Dargomyzhsky's worries about the failure of Esmeralda were aggravated by the growing popularity of Glinka's works. The composer begins to give singing lessons (his students were exclusively women, while he did not charge them) and writes a number of romances for voice and piano, some of which were published and became very popular, for example, “The fire of desire burns in the blood ...”, “I am in love, beauty maiden…”, “Lileta”, “Night marshmallow”, “Sixteen years old” and others.

In 1843, Dargomyzhsky retired, and soon went abroad, where he spent several months in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Vienna. He meets the musicologist François-Joseph Fety, the violinist Henri Vietin and the leading European composers of the time: Aubert, Donizetti, Halévy, Meyerbeer. Returning to Russia in 1845, the composer is fond of studying Russian musical folklore, elements of which are clearly manifested in romances and songs written during this period: "Darling Maiden", "Fever", "Melnik", as well as in the opera "Mermaid", which the composer began writing in 1848.

"Mermaid" occupies a special place in the composer's work. Written on the plot of the tragedy of the same name in the verses of A. S. Pushkin, it was created in the period 1848-1855. Dargomyzhsky himself adapted Pushkin's poems into a libretto and composed the ending of the plot (Pushkin's work was not completed). The premiere of "Mermaid" took place on May 4 (16), 1856 in St. Petersburg. The largest Russian music critic of that time, Alexander Serov, responded to it with a large-scale positive review in the Theater Musical Bulletin (its volume was so large that it was printed in parts in several issues), which helped this opera to stay in the repertoire of the leading theaters of Russia for some time. and added creative confidence to Dargomyzhsky himself.

After some time, Dargomyzhsky draws closer to the democratic circle of writers, takes part in the publication of the satirical magazine Iskra, writes several songs to the verses of one of its main participants, the poet Vasily Kurochkin.

In 1859, Dargomyzhsky was elected to the leadership of the newly founded Russian Musical Society, he met a group of young composers, the central figure among whom was Mily Balakirev (this group would later become the "Mighty Handful"). Dargomyzhsky plans to write a new opera, but in search of a plot, he first rejects Pushkin's Poltava, and then the Russian legend about Rogdan. The choice of the composer stops at the third of Pushkin's "Little Tragedies" - "The Stone Guest". Work on the opera, however, is proceeding rather slowly due to the creative crisis that began at Dargomyzhsky, associated with the exit from the repertoire of the Rusalka theaters and the neglect of younger musicians. The composer again travels to Europe, visits Warsaw, Leipzig, Paris, London and Brussels, where his orchestral piece The Cossack, as well as fragments from The Mermaid, are successfully performed. Approvingly speaks about the work of Dargomyzhsky Franz Liszt.

Returning to Russia, inspired by the success of his works abroad, Dargomyzhsky, with renewed vigor, takes on the composition of The Stone Guest. The language he chose for this opera - built almost entirely on melodic recitatives with simple chordal accompaniment - interested the composers of the Mighty Handful, and in particular Caesar Cui, who at that time was looking for ways to reform Russian opera art. However, the appointment of Dargomyzhsky to the post of head of the Russian Musical Society and the failure of the opera The Triumph of Bacchus, which he wrote as early as 1848 and had not seen the stage for almost twenty years, weakened the composer's health, and on January 5 (17), 1869, he died, leaving the opera unfinished. According to his will, The Stone Guest was completed by Cui and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Dargomyzhsky's innovation was not shared by his younger colleagues, and was condescendingly considered oversights. The harmonic dictionary of the style of the late Dargomyzhsky, the individualized structure of consonances, their typical characteristic were, as on an ancient fresco recorded with later layers, “ennobled” beyond recognition by Rimsky-Korsakov’s edition, brought into line with the requirements of his taste, like Mussorgsky’s operas “Boris Godunov” and "Khovanshchina", also radically edited by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Dargomyzhsky was buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts in the Tikhvin cemetery, not far from Glinka's grave.

Addresses in St. Petersburg

• autumn 1832-1836 - Mamontov's house, Gryaznaya street, 14.
• 1836-1840 - Koenig's house, 8th line, 1.
• 1843 - September 1844 - apartment house of A. K. Esakovoy, Mokhovaya street, 30.
• April 1845 - January 5, 1869 - profitable house of A. K. Esakovoy, Mokhovaya street, 30, apt. 7.

Creation

For many years, the name of Dargomyzhsky was associated exclusively with the opera The Stone Guest as a work that had a great influence on the development of Russian opera. The opera was written in a style that was innovative for those times: it contains neither arias nor ensembles (except for two small inserted romances by Laura), it is entirely built on "melodic recitatives" and recitations set to music. As the goal of choosing such a language, Dargomyzhsky set not only the reflection of the "dramatic truth", but also the artistic reproduction of human speech with the help of music with all its shades and twists. Later, the principles of Dargomyzhsky's opera art were embodied in M. P. Mussorgsky's operas - "Boris Godunov" and especially vividly in "Khovanshchina". Mussorgsky himself respected Dargomyzhsky and, in the dedications of several of his romances, called him a "teacher of musical truth."

Another opera by Dargomyzhsky - "Mermaid" - also became a significant phenomenon in the history of Russian music - this is the first Russian opera in the genre of everyday psychological drama. In it, the author embodied one of the many versions of the legend about a deceived girl, turned into a mermaid and taking revenge on her offender.

Two operas from a relatively early period of Dargomyzhsky's work - "Esmeralda" and "The Triumph of Bacchus" - had been waiting for their first production for many years and were not very popular with the public.

Dargomyzhsky's chamber-vocal compositions enjoy great success. His early romances are sustained in a lyrical spirit, composed in the 1840s - they are influenced by Russian musical folklore (later this style will be used in the romances of P. I. Tchaikovsky), and finally, the later ones are filled with deep drama, passion, truthfulness of expression, appearing as such way, forerunners of the vocal works of M. P. Mussorgsky. In a number of works, the composer's comic talent was clearly manifested: "Worm", "Titular Advisor", etc.

Dargomyzhsky wrote four compositions for the orchestra: "Bolero" (late 1830s), "Baba Yaga", "Cossack" and "Chukhonskaya Fantasy" (all - early 1860s). Despite the originality of the orchestral writing and good orchestration, they are rarely performed. These works are a continuation of the traditions of Glinka's symphonic music and one of the foundations of the rich heritage of Russian orchestral music created by composers of a later time.

In the 20th century, interest in Dargomyzhsky's music revived: his operas were staged in the leading theaters of the USSR, orchestral compositions were included in the Anthology of Russian Symphonic Music, recorded by E.F. Svetlanov, and romances became an integral part of the singers' repertoire. Among the musicologists who made the greatest contribution to the study of Dargomyzhsky's work, the most famous are A. N. Drozdov and M. S. Pekelis, the author of many works dedicated to the composer.

Compositions

• "Esmeralda". Opera in four acts to own libretto based on Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris. Written in 1838-1841. First production: Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre, December 5 (17), 1847.
• "The Triumph of Bacchus". Opera-ballet based on the poem of the same name by Pushkin. Written in 1843-1848. First production: Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre, January 11 (23), 1867.
• "Mermaid". Opera in four acts to its own libretto based on the unfinished play of the same name by Pushkin. Written in 1848-1855. First production: St. Petersburg, May 4 (16), 1856.
• "Mazepa". Sketches, 1860.
• "Rogdan". Fragments, 1860-1867.
• "Stone Guest" Opera in three acts based on the text of Pushkin's Little Tragedy of the same name. Written in 1866-1869, completed by Ts. A. Cui, orchestrated by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. First production: St. Petersburg, Mariinsky Theatre, February 16 (28), 1872.

• "Bolero". Late 1830s.
• "Baba Yaga" ("From the Volga to Riga"). Finished in 1862, first performed in 1870.
• "Cossack". Fantasy. 1864
• "Chukhon fantasy". Written in 1863-1867, first performed in 1869.

• Songs and romances for two voices and piano on poems by Russian and foreign poets, including "Petersburg Serenades", as well as fragments of unfinished operas "Mazepa" and "Rogdana".
• Songs and romances for one voice and piano on the verses of Russian and foreign poets: "Old Corporal" (words by V. Kurochkin), "Paladin" (words by L. Uland, translated by V. Zhukovsky, "Worm" (words by P. Beranger, translated V. Kurochkina), “Titular Advisor” (words by P. Weinberg), “I loved you…” (words by A. S. Pushkin), “I’m sad” (words by M. Yu. Lermontov), ​​“I have passed sixteen years old” (words by A. Delvig) and others to the words of Koltsov, Kurochkin, Pushkin, Lermontov and other poets, including two inserted romances by Laura from the opera The Stone Guest.

• Five Pieces (1820s): March, Counterdance, "Melancholic Waltz", Waltz, "Cossack".
• "Brilliant Waltz" About 1830.
• Variations on a Russian Theme. Early 1830s.
• Esmeralda's Dreams. Fantasy. 1838.
• Two mazurkas. Late 1830s.
• Polka. 1844
• Scherzo. 1844
• "Tobacco Waltz". 1845
• "Eagerness and composure." Scherzo. 1847.
• "Song Without Words" (1851)
• Fantasy on themes from Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar (mid-1850s)
• Slavic tarantella (four hands, 1865)
• Arrangements of symphonic fragments from the opera "Esmeralda", etc.

tribute

• Monument on the grave of A. S. Dargomyzhsky, installed in 1961 in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts on the territory of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. Sculptor A. I. Khaustov.
• The music school located in Tula bears the name of A. S. Dargomyzhsky.
• In the composer's homeland, not far from the village of Arsenyevo, Tula region, his bronze bust was erected on a marble column (sculptor V. M. Klykov, architect V. I. Snegirev). This is the only monument to Dargomyzhsky in the world.
• The composer's museum is located in Arseniev.
• Streets in Lipetsk, Kramatorsk, Kharkov, Nizhny Novgorod and Alma-Ata are named after Dargomyzhsky.
• A memorial plaque has been installed at 30 Mokhovaya Street in St. Petersburg.
• The name of A. S. Dargomyzhsky is the Children's School of Arts in Vyazma. There is a memorial plaque on the facade of the school.
• Personal belongings of A. S. Dargomyzhsky are stored in the Vyazemsky Museum of Local History.
• The name "Composer Dargomyzhsky" was named the ship, the same type as the "Composer Kara Karaev".
• In 1963, a USSR postage stamp dedicated to Dargomyzhsky was issued.
• In 2003, in the former family estate of A.S. Dargomyzhsky - Tverdunovo, now a tract in the Vyazemsky district of the Smolensk region, a memorial sign was erected in his honor.
• By the decision of the Smolensk Regional Executive Committee No. 358 of June 11, 1974, the village of Tverdunovo in the Isakovo village council of the Vyazemsky district was declared a monument of history and culture of regional significance, as the place where the composer A.S. Dargomyzhsky spent his childhood.
• In the village of Isakovo, Vyazemsky district, Smolensk region, a street was named after A.S. Dargomyzhsky.
• On the highway Vyazma - Temkino, in front of the village of Isakovo, in 2007 a road sign was installed showing the road to the former estate of A.S. Dargomyzhsky - Tverdunovo.