Biography
To the pleiad of the great Russian composers of the XIX century, along with Mikhail Glinka and members, the mug "Mighty hand" rightfully belongs to the author of the Opera "Stone Guest" Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky. Becoming the founder of musical realism, the Creator left behind a lot of works, not estimated during life. His legacy includes piano, orchestral and vocal writings, the most famous of which are the romance for verses A. S. Pushkin "I loved you" and the song cycle "Petersburg Serenads".Childhood and youth
Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky appeared in one of the settlements of the Tula region on February 14, 1813. Researchers of the composer biography have not yet come to a single opinion about the exact place of his birth. The most likely was the hypothesis that Alexander's roots were lying in the village of Voskresensky, who were located in the central district of the Russian Empire, near the modern city of Mobile.
Alexandra Father, Sergey Nikolaevich, was an illegitimate descendant of the wealthy landowner A. P. Ladyzhensky. Thanks to Colonel N. I. Bogucarov, he received a good education and worked in a commercial bank under the Ministry of Finance.
Mother Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya came from a rich princely kind, possessed by estates in Smolensk and Tula provinces. Contrary to the will of the parents, she became the wife of a simple employee and subsequently made on the light of six children.
The childhood of the future composer passed in the estate of Solidunovo, historically belonging to the Kozlovsky family, and then the father received a position in the metropolitan office, and the family moved to St. Petersburg. There, 7-year-old Sasha began to learn to play the piano and became interested in writing. The first teacher of Louise Volgeborn encouraged the compositional experiments of the boy, by 10 years older than the author of several piano plays and romances.
However, parents and subsequent teachers skeptically belonged to the creations of a novice musician and preferred tools for instruments, notice literacy and vocal training. Cooperation with teachers by Adrian Danilevsky, Franz Schoberlechner and Benedict Troibig, led to charitable concerts, where Alexander performed as a pianist and violinist.
In 1827, the young Dargomyzhsky entered the court office and made the first steps to an independent adult life.
Music
The creative path of Alexander Sergeevich began with dating with the Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. The author of the famous opera called "Life for the Tsar" shared with a young man theoretical knowledge gained in Germany, and helped to understand the subtleties of writing on the example of the works of foreign colleagues.Inspired by this communication, Dargomyzhsky began visiting the metropolitan opera, where the music written by the Italians sounded at the rehearsals of the Glinka performance. In the late 1830s, he conceived to create his own opera based on the historical drama Viktor Hugo "Lucretia Borgia", but after the first sketches, I realized that the material was bad for instrumental and vocal embodiments.
Then, according to the advice of the poet, Vasily Zhukovsky, Alexander, addressed another product of the Frenchman and, using the original libretto to the "Cathedral of the Parisian Mother of God", began to compose the Opera "Esmeralda". By 1841, the orchestral parties were ready, and Dargomyzhsky handed over the work of the leadership of the imperial theaters.
For several years, notes were lazy without a case, but in 1847 the premiere of the production took place in Moscow. Unfortunately, the author's debut of Dargomyzhsky did not receive positive reviews, and his "Esmeralda" soon disappeared from the program and later did not appear.
Disappointment of the composer aggravated the popularity of the works of His mentor Glinka. And temporarily departing from writing, Alexander Sergeevich began to train the noble women vocals and engaged in creating romances and songs. It was at that time in the work of Dargomyzhsky, the famous "Sad", "Night Marshmallow, Romet Ether", "Youth and Virgo" and "Sixteen Years" appeared.
Another faithful way to survive the first failure was an overseas journey, during which the author of Esmeralda met the European Creators and the musicians by Charlel Berio, Henri Vietan, Gaetano Dyzetti and others.
Upon returning to Russia in 1848, the composer decided to continue experiments with large forms and began to create a folk opera "Mermaid", based on the poetic tragedy of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Folk melodies were so fascinated by Dargomyzhsky that, along with the main work, he wrote genre romances "Melnik", "Crazy, without joy" and "Serebel-Maiden", who took a special place in Russian musical and realistic heritage.
In 1855, "Mermaid" was completed and after a while submitted to the public. This time the mastery of the composer was rated: Opera lasted in the repertoire of several seasons and became the subject of a multi-page article in the journal "Theater Music Bulletin". Interesting is the fact that Dargomyzhsky independently composed a libretto for the work and, following the storyline of Pushkin, invented the ending of an unfinished tragedy in verses.
The following works of Alexander Sergeyevich became the symphonic odds "Ukrainian Cossack", "Baba Yaga" and "Chukhon Fantasy". They affected the influence of Mia of Balakirev and Vladimir Stasov, subsequently the members of the mug "Mighty hand" became members.
In the 1860s, thanks to new acquaintances, the composer began to develop a genre of a household romance, which were the vivid examples of which were the works of "dramatic song", "Old Capral" and "Title Advisor". At the same time, another trip to Europe was taken, where foreign musicians first performed a number of instrumental writings of Dargomyzhsky.
During the trip, Alexander Sergeevich did not stop thinking about her further career and was engaged in search of the plot for a new opera. Initial ideas were musical arrangements of the Pushkin Poem "Poltava" and recreation on the stage of the old Russian legend of Rogdan. However, these plans were not destined to be incarnated, and only a collection of sketches called "Mazepa" and several solo and choral numbers remained from them.
As a result, the selection of the composer fell on the work of A. S. Pushkin "Stone Guest", which was included in the famous poems called "small tragedies", but the work did not go because of the next creative crisis associated with the exception of the theatrical poster of the Opera "Mermaid" . In addition, the previously written work "Celebration of Vakha" was also not successful.
Only thanks to the participation in the life of Russian musical society and approving reviews of foreign colleagues, Dargomyzhsky still took over the written "Stone Guest" and managed to write most of the musical material.
Personal life
Creative troubles, for a long time pursued by the composer, reflected on his personal life. Having no wife, nor children, Alexander Sergeevich spent his free time in the family estate of Tverunovo near Smolensk and there was inspiration for romances, symphonic works and operas.
After the death of the mother in 1852, Dargomyzhsky liberated the peasants from the fortress burden, giving the land in the ownership of which they lived and worked. Such behavior was exceptional for Russia of the XIX century, and the contemporaries began to call the composer the most humane landowner of modernity.
However, the mansion of Kozlovsky remained in possession of Alexander Sergeevich, and until 1864, the loneliness of the author "Mermaid" asked the elderly father. The end of the latter became a heavy blow to the musician and finally undermined his creative activity.
Death
During the foreign trip, 1864-1865 Dargomyzhsky fell ill with rheumatism. Without betraying the values of his own state, he continued to engage in musical and social activities. In early 1868, the state of Alexander Sergeyevich worsened, and he began to complain about discomfort in the field of heart and the wrong blood circulation, which became the causes of his sustainable death.The precharge of death, the composer made a will, according to which Caesar Antonovich Kyui and Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov should have completed the discovered Opera "Stone Guest" and prepare parties to further formulation.
Colleagues who agreed to fulfill the last will of Dargomyzhsky, in the depths of the soul, they hoped that irreparable would not happen soon, but on January 5, 1969, Alexander Sergeevich unexpectedly died of aneurysm. The newspapers told the society about the irrelevant loss, and at the funeral held on January 9, all representatives of the creative elite of St. Petersburg were gathered. And the coffin with the body of the deceased to Tikhvinsky's opinion, Alexander Nevsky Lavra, relatives and relatives carried in their arms.
Shortly after the burial ceremony Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov ordered the artist Konstantin Makovsky Portrait of Dargomyzhsky by photography, which became one of the first images of Russian culture figures in the gallery of the famous collector and the patron.
Work
- 1830 - "Bolero"
- 1830 - "Variations to a Russian topic"
- 1830 - "Brilliant Waltz"
- 1838-1841 - Esmeralda
- 1843-1848 - "Vakha celebration"
- 1845 - "Tabakerkaya Waltz"
- 1848-1855 - "Mermaid"
- 1850s - "Fantasy on topics from the opera Glinka" Life for the king "
- 1860 - "Mazepa" sketches
- 1860-1867 - "Rogdan" Fragments
- 1865 - "Slavic Tarantella"
- 1866-1869 - "Stone Guest"