Composer A. S

30.06.2019

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

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

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

"The Mighty Handful" and the work of Dargomyzhsky

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

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

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

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

“Dargomyzhsky is a great teacher of musical truth!”

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

Dargomyzhsky.The most famous compositions:

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

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

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2, 1813 in the village of Troitskoye, Tula province. For the first four years of his life, he was away from St. Petersburg, but it was this city that left the deepest imprint on his mind.

The Dargomyzhsky family had six children. Parents made sure that they all received a broad humanitarian education. Alexander Sergeevich received home education, he never studied in any educational institution. The only source of his knowledge was his parents, a large family and home teachers. They were the environment that shaped his character, tastes and interests.

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky

Music occupied a special place in the upbringing of children in the Dargomyzhsky family. Parents attached great importance to her, believing that she was the beginning, softening morals, acting on feelings and educating hearts. Children learned to play various musical instruments.

Little Sasha at the age of 6 began to learn to play the piano from Louise Wolgeborn. Three years later, the then-famous musician Andrian Trofimovich Danilevsky became his teacher. In 1822, the boy began to learn to play the violin. Music became his passion. Despite the fact that he had to learn a lot of lessons, Sasha at about 11 or 12 years old already began to compose small piano pieces and romances himself. An interesting fact is that the boy's teacher, Danilevsky, was categorically against his writing, and there were even cases when he tore up manuscripts. Subsequently, the famous musician Schoberlechner was hired for Dargomyzhsky, who completed his education in the field of playing the piano. In addition, Sasha took vocal lessons from a singing teacher named Zeibich.

In the late 1820s, it became finally clear that Alexander had a great passion for composing music.

In September 1827, Alexander Sergeevich was enrolled in the control of the Ministry of the Court for the position of clerk, but without salary. By 1830, all of St. Petersburg knew Dargomyzhsky as a strong pianist. No wonder Schoberlechner considered him his best student. From that time on, the young man, despite departmental duties and music lessons, began to pay more and more attention to secular entertainment. It is not known how the fate of Dargomyzhsky the musician would have developed if Providence had not brought him together with Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. This composer managed to guess the real vocation of Alexander.

They met in 1834 at Glinka's apartment, and all evening they talked animatedly and played the piano. Dargomyzhsky was amazed, fascinated and stunned by Glinka's playing: he had never heard such softness, smoothness and passion in sounds. After this evening, Alexander becomes a frequent visitor to Glinka's apartment. Despite the difference in age, a close friendship was established between the two musicians, which lasted 22 years.

Glinka tried to help Dargomyzhsky master the art of composing as best as possible. For this, he gave him his notes on music theory, which he was taught by Siegfried Den. Alexander Sergeevich and Mikhail Ivanovich met just at the time when Glinka was working on the opera Ivan Susanin. Dargomyzhsky helped his older friend a lot: he got the instruments needed for the orchestra, learned the parts with the singers and rehearsed with the orchestra.

In the 1830s, Dargomyzhsky wrote many romances, songs, duets, etc. Pushkin's poetry became a fundamental moment in the composer's artistic formation. Such romances as “I loved you”, “Young man and maiden”, “Vertograd”, “Night marshmallow”, “The fire of desire burns in the blood” were written to the poems of the brilliant poet. In addition, Alexander Sergeevich wrote on civil and social topics. A striking example of this is the fantasy song "Wedding", which has become one of the favorite songs of student youth.

Dargomyzhsky was a frequenter of various literary salons, often appeared at society parties and in art circles. There he played the piano a lot, accompanied singers, and sometimes sang new vocal pieces himself. In addition, he sometimes participated in quartets as a violinist.

At the same time, the composer decided to write an opera. He wanted to find a plot with strong human passions and experiences. That is why he chose the novel by V. Hugo "Notre Dame Cathedral". By the end of 1841, work on the opera was completed, as reported in the newspaper "Various News". In a short note, the author wrote that Dargomyzhsky had completed the opera Esmeralda, which was accepted by the directorate of St. Petersburg theaters. It was also reported about the imminent production of the opera on the stage of one of the theaters. But one year passed, then another, a third, and the score of the opera lay somewhere in the archive. No longer hoping for a production of his work, Alexander Sergeevich in 1844 decided to go abroad.

In December 1844 Dargomyzhsky arrived in Paris. The purpose of his trip was to get acquainted with the city, its inhabitants, way of life, culture. From France, the composer wrote many letters to his relatives and friends. Alexander Sergeevich regularly visited theaters, where he most often listened to French operas. In a letter to his father, he wrote: “French opera can be compared to the ruins of an excellent Greek temple ... but meanwhile the temple no longer exists. I can be fully convinced that the French opera could compare and surpass any Italian, but still I judge by one fragment.

Six months later, Dargomyzhsky returned to Russia. During these years, socio-political contradictions intensified in the homeland. One of the main tasks of art has become the truthful disclosure of irreconcilable differences between the world of the rich and ordinary people. Now the hero of many works of literature, painting and music is a person who came out of the middle and lower strata of society: an artisan, a peasant, a petty official, a poor tradesman.

Alexander Sergeevich also devoted his work to showing the life and way of life of ordinary people, to a realistic disclosure of their spiritual world, and to exposing social injustice.

Not only the lyrics sound in Dargomyzhsky's romances to the words of Lermontov "Both boring and sad" and "I'm sad." In order to fully understand and comprehend the meaning of the first of the above-mentioned romances, one must remember how these verses of Lermontov sounded during these years. The composer, however, sought to emphasize in the work the significance and weight of not only every phrase, but almost every word. This romance is an elegy that resembles an oratorical speech set to music. There were no such romances in Russian music. It would be more correct to say that this is a monologue of one of the lyrical Lermontov's heroes.

Another lyrical monologue of Lermontov - "I'm sad" - is built on the same principle of combining song and recitation as the first romance. These are not reflections of the hero alone with himself, but an appeal to another person, filled with sincere warmth and affection.

One of the most important places in the work of Dargomyzhsky is occupied by songs written to the words of the songwriter A.V. Koltsov. These are sketch songs showing the life of ordinary people, their feelings and experiences. For example, the lyrical song-complaint "Without Mind, Without Mind" tells about the fate of a peasant girl who was forcibly married to an unloved one. The song "Fever" is almost the same in character. In general, most of the songs and romances of Dargomyzhsky are devoted to the story of a difficult female lot.

In 1845, the composer began work on the opera Mermaid. He worked on it for 10 years. The work was uneven: in the first years the author was busy studying folk life and folklore, then he moved on to compiling the script and libretto. The writing of the work progressed well in 1853 - 1855, but at the end of the 1850s, work almost stopped. There were many reasons for this: the novelty of the task, creative difficulties, the tense socio-political situation of that era, as well as the indifference to the composer's work on the part of the directorate of theaters and society.

An excerpt from the romance "I'm sad" by A. S. Dargomyzhsky

In 1853, Alexander Sergeevich wrote to V. F. Odoevsky: “To the best of my ability and ability, in my Mermaid I am working on the development of our dramatic elements. I will be happy if I manage to do this at least half against Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ... "

On May 4, 1856, the first performance of The Mermaid was given. The performance was attended by the then young Leo Tolstoy. He sat in the same box with the composer. The opera aroused wide interest and attracted the attention of not only musicians, but also a diverse listener. However, the performance was not honored with a visit by the members of the royal family and high Petersburg society, in connection with which, since 1857, it began to be given less and less often, and then completely removed from the stage.

An article devoted to Dargomyzhsky's opera "Mermaid" appeared in the journal "Russian Musical Culture". Here is what the author said in it: “The Rusalka is the first significant Russian opera that appeared after Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila. At the same time, this is an opera of a new type - a psychological everyday musical drama ... By revealing the complex chain of relationships between the actors, Dargomyzhsky achieves special completeness and versatility in depicting human characters ... "

Alexander Sergeevich, according to his contemporaries, 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, that is, the ability of a person to be different in certain circumstances. P. I. Tchaikovsky highly appreciated this work, saying that in a number of Russian operas it occupies the first place after the brilliant operas of Glinka.

1855 was a turning point in the life of the Russian people. The Crimean War had just been lost, despite the 11-month defense of Sevastopol. This defeat of tsarist Russia revealed the weakness of the serf system and became the last straw that overflowed the cup of people's patience. A wave of peasant riots passed through Russia.

During these years, journalism flourished. A special position among all publications was occupied by the satirical magazine Iskra. Almost from the moment the journal was created, Dargomyzhsky was a member of the editorial board. Many in St. Petersburg knew about his satirical talent, as well as about his socially accusatory orientation in his work. Many notes and feuilletons about theater and music were written by Alexander Sergeevich. In 1858, he composed the dramatic song "Old Corporal", which was both a monologue and a dramatic scene. It sounded an angry denunciation of the social system, which allows violence of man against man.

The Russian public also paid much attention to Dargomyzhsky's comic song "Chervyak", which tells about a petty official who grovels in front of a illustrious count. The composer also achieved vivid figurativeness in "Titular Counselor". This work is nothing more than a small vocal picture showing the unfortunate love of a modest official for an arrogant general's daughter.

In the early 60s, Alexander Sergeevich created a number of compositions for the symphony orchestra. Among them we can name the "Ukrainian Cossack", which echoes Glinka's "Kamarinskaya", as well as "Baba Yaga", which is the first program orchestral composition in Russian music, containing sharp, ornate, sometimes simply comical episodes.

At the end of the 60s, Dargomyzhsky took up composing the opera The Stone Guest based on the verses of A. S. Pushkin, which, in his opinion, became a “swan song”. Having chosen this work, the composer set himself a huge, complex and new task - to keep the full text of Pushkin intact and, without composing the usual operatic forms (arias, ensembles, choirs), to write music for it that would consist of only recitatives . Such work was up to the musician who perfectly mastered the abilities of the musical transformation of a living word into music. Dargomyzhsky coped with this. He not only presented a work that has an individual musical language for each character, but also managed to depict the habits of the characters, their temperament, manner of speech, mood swings, etc., with the help of recitative.

Dargomyzhsky repeatedly told his friends that if he died before completing the opera, then Cui would complete it, and Rimsky-Korsakov would instrument it. On January 4, 1869, Borodin's First Symphony was performed for the first time. Alexander Sergeevich at that time was already seriously ill and did not go anywhere. But he was keenly interested in the success of the new generation of Russian musicians, he wanted to hear about their work. While the rehearsals of the First Symphony were going on, Dargomyzhsky asked everyone who came to visit him about the preparations for the performance of the work. He wanted to be the first to hear about how it was received by the general public.

Fate did not give him this chance, because on January 5, 1869, Alexander Sergeevich died. On November 15, 1869, the opera The Stone Guest was shown in full at a regular evening with his friends. According to the author's will, Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov took away the manuscript of the opera immediately after his death.

Dargomyzhsky was a bold innovator in music. He was the first of all composers to capture the theme of great social acuteness in his compositions. Since Alexander Sergeevich was a subtle psychologist, distinguished by remarkable powers of observation, he was able to create a wide and varied gallery of human images in his works.

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary (P) author Brockhaus F. A.

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary (M) author Brockhaus F. A.

Menshikov Alexander Sergeevich Menshikov (Alexander Sergeevich, 1787 - 1869) - Admiral, Adjutant General, His Grace Prince. First he joined the diplomatic corps, then he entered the military service and was the adjutant of Count Kamensky. In 1813 he was in the retinue of Emperor Alexander I and

From the book The Most Famous Poets of Russia author Prashkevich Gennady Martovich

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin No, I do not value rebellious pleasure, Sensual delight, madness, frenzy, Moaning, cries of a young bacchante, When, waving in my arms like a snake, With a burst of passionate caresses and an ulcer of kisses, She hastens the moment of the last shudders. O,

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (YES) of the author TSB From the book Popular History of Music author Gorbacheva Ekaterina Gennadievna

Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky (1813–1869) Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky was born on February 14, 1813 in the Tula province. The early childhood years of the future composer were spent in the estate of his parents in the Smolensk province. Then the family moved to St. Petersburg. Parents of the future

From the book Dictionary of Aphorisms of Russian Writers author Tikhonov Alexander Nikolaevich

Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2, 1813 in the village of Troitskoye, Tula province. For the first four years of his life, he was away from St. Petersburg, but it was this city that left the deepest mark on his mind. In the family

From the author's book

GRIBOEDOV ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov (1795–1829). Russian playwright, poet, diplomat. Author of the comedy Woe from Wit, the plays Young Spouses, Student (co-authored with P. Katenin), Feigned Infidelity (co-authored with A. Gendre), Own Family, or

From the author's book

PUSHKIN ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837). Russian poet, writer, playwright, creator of the modern Russian literary language. The merits of A. S. Pushkin to Russian literature and the Russian language cannot be overestimated, listing even the most

Professions

Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky (February 2 (14) ( 18130214 ) , Troitskoye village, Belevsky district, Tula province - January 5 (17), St. Petersburg) - Russian composer, whose work had a significant impact on the development of Russian musical art of the 19th century. One of the most notable composers of the period between the work of Mikhail Glinka and The Mighty Handful, Dargomyzhsky is considered the founder of the realistic trend in Russian music, whose followers were many composers of subsequent generations.

Biography

Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2, 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 composer’s grandfather) the family estate of Smolensk Tverdunovo, now in 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. In the Smolensk estate Tverdunovo, Alexander Dargomyzhsky spent the first 3 years of his life. Subsequently, he repeatedly came to this parental estate: in the late 1840s - mid-1850s to collect Smolensk folklore while working on the opera Rusalka, in June 1861 to free his Smolensk peasants from serfdom.

The composer's mother, M. B. Kozlovskaya, was well educated, wrote poetry and small dramatic scenes that were published in almanacs and magazines in the 1820s and 1830s, and was keenly interested in French culture. The family had six children: Erast (), Alexander, Sophia (), Victor (), Lyudmila () and Erminia (1827). All of them were brought up at home, in the traditions of the nobility, received a good education and inherited from their mother a love of art. Dargomyzhsky's brother, Viktor, played the violin, one of the sisters played the harp, and he himself was interested in music from an early age. Warm friendly relations between the brothers and sisters have been preserved for many years, so Dargomyzhsky, who did not have his own family, subsequently lived for several years with the family of Sophia, who became the wife of the famous cartoonist Nikolai Stepanov.

Until the age of five, the boy did not speak, his late-formed voice remained forever high and slightly hoarse, which did not prevent him, however, from subsequently touching him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of 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 music theory lessons he had 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 Lucrezia 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 La 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 Theater", 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.

Manuscript of the first page of one of Dargomyzhsky's romances

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.

"Mermaid" occupies a special place in the composer's work. Written on the plot of the tragedy of the same name in verse by A. S. Pushkin, it was created in the period 1848-1855. Dargomyzhsky himself adapted Pushkin's poems into a libretto and composed the ending of the plot (Pushkin's work 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.

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 chord 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 back in 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 in 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.

Addresses in St. Petersburg

autumn 1832-1836 - Mamontov's house, Gryaznaya street, 14.
1836-1840 - Koenig's house, 8th line, 1.
1843 - September 1844 - tenement 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 an innovative style for those times: it contains neither arias nor ensembles (apart from 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 "dramatic truth", but also the artistic reproduction of human speech with all its shades and twists with the help of music. Later, the principles of Dargomyzhsky's operatic art were embodied in the operas of M. P. Mussorgsky - 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".

Its main advantage is a new, never used style of musical dialogue. All melodies are thematic, and the characters "say notes". This style was subsequently developed by MP Mussorgsky. …

Without the "Stone Guest" it is impossible to imagine the development of Russian musical culture. It was three operas - "Ivan Susanin", "Ruslan and Lyudmila" and "The Stone Guest" that created Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. “Susanin” is an opera where the main character is the people, “Ruslan” is a mythical, deeply Russian plot, and “The Guest”, in which the drama excels over the sweet beauty of sound.

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, being 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.

Compositions

operas

"Esmeralda". Opera in four acts to its own libretto based on the novel Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo. 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.

Works for orchestra

"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.

Chamber vocal works

Songs and romances for two voices and piano based on verses 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.

Works for piano

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.
Not far from the composer's homeland, in the village of Arsenyevo, Tula region, his bronze bust was installed 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.
A street in Lipetsk, Kramatorsk, Kharkov, Nizhny Novgorod and Alma-Ata is 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.
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 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.
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 way to the former estate of A. S. Dargomyzhsky - Tverdunovo.

Notes

Literature

Karmalina L. I. Memoirs of L. I. Karmalina. Dargomyzhsky and Glinka // Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 13. - No. 6. - S. 267-271.
A. S. Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869). Autobiography. Letters. Memoirs of contemporaries. Petrograd: 1921.
Drozdov A.N. Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky. - M.: 1929.
Pekelis M. S. A. S. Dargomyzhsky. - M.: 1932.
Serov A.N. Mermaid. Opera by A. S. Dargomyzhsky // Izbr. articles. T. 1. - M.-L.: 1950.
Pekelis M. S. Dargomyzhsky and folk song. To the problem of nationality in Russian classical music. - M.-L.: 1951.
Shlifshtein S.I. Dargomyzhsky. - Ed. 3rd, rev. and additional - M .: Muzgiz, 1960. - 44, p. - (Library of the music lover). - 32,000 copies.
Pekelis M. S. Dargomyzhsky and his entourage. T. 1-3. - M.: 1966-1983.
Medvedeva I. A. Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky. (1813-1869). - M., Music, 1989. - 192 p., incl. (Russian and Soviet composers). - ISBN 5-7140-0079-X.
Ganzburg G. I. A. S. Pushkin's poem "October 19, 1827" and the interpretation of its meaning in the music of A. S. Dargomyzhsky. - Kharkov, 2007. ISBN 966-7950-32-8
Samohodkina N. V. Opera style of A. S. Dargomyzhsky: Textbook. - Rostov n / a: Publishing house of the RGC im. S. V. Rachmaninova, 2010. - 80 p. - (Library of methodical literature).
Stepanov P. A. Glinka and Dargomyzhsky. Regarding the reviews of A. S. Dargomyzhsky // Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 14. - No. 11. - S. 502-505.
Dissinger B. Die Opern von Aleksandr Dargomyzskij. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2001.
Budaev D. I. A page from the biography of the composer A. S. Dargomyzhsky // Smolensk region in the history of Russian culture. - Smolensk, 1973. P.119 - 126.
Pugachev A. N. Smolensk region in the life and creative biography of A. S. Dargomyzhsky. Smolensk, 2008.
Tarasov L. M. Dargomyzhsky in St. Petersburg. Lenizdat. 1988. 240 pages.

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

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

5(17).1.1869, Petersburg)

Dargomyzhsky, Alexander Sergeevich - famous Russian composer. Born February 14, 1813 in the village of Dargomyzhe, Belevsky district, Tula province. He died on January 17, 1869 in St. Petersburg. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, served in the Ministry of Finance, in a commercial bank.

Dargomyzhsky's mother, nee Princess Maria Borisovna Kozlovskaya, married against the will of her parents.

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

One of the Dargomyzhsky brothers played the violin beautifully, participating in a chamber ensemble at home evenings; one of the sisters played the harp well and composed romances.

Until the age of five, Dargomyzhsky did not speak at all, and his late-formed voice remained forever squeaky and hoarse, which did not prevent him, however, from subsequently touching him to tears with the expressiveness and artistry of vocal performance at intimate meetings.

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

Playing in the puppet theater, the boy composed small vaudeville plays for him, and at the age of six he began to learn to play the piano.

His teacher, Adrian Danilevsky, not only did not encourage his student to compose from the age of 11, but exterminated his composing experiments.

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

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

His earliest compositions - rondo, variations for piano, romances to the words of Zhukovsky and Pushkin - were not found in his papers, but even during his lifetime, "Contredanse nouvelle" and "Variations" for piano were published, written: the first - in 1824, the second - in 1827 - 1828. In the 1830s, Dargomyzhsky was known in the musical circles of St. Petersburg as a "strong pianist", as well as the author of several piano pieces in a brilliant salon style and romances: "Oh, ma charmante", "The Maiden and the Rose", "I confess, uncle", "You are pretty" and others, not much different from the style of romances by Verstovsky, Alyabyev and Varlamov, with an admixture of French influence.

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

Assessing Glinka's talent, Dargomyzhsky for his first opera "Esmeralda" chose, however, the French libretto compiled by Victor Hugo from his novel "Notre Dame de Paris" and only after the end of the opera (in 1839) did he translate it into Russian.

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

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

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

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

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

Reviews of the foreign press about the performance of Dargomyzhsky's works at private collections in Vienna, Paris and Brussels contributed to a certain change in the attitude of the theater management towards Dargomyzhsky. In the 1840s he wrote a large cantata with choirs based on Pushkin's text "The Triumph of Bacchus".

It was performed at the directorate's concert at the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg in 1846, but the author was refused permission to stage it as an opera, completed and orchestrated in 1848 (see "Autobiography"), and only much later (in 1867) it was staged in Moscow.

This opera, like the first, is weak in music and not typical of Dargomyzhsky. Disappointed by the refusal to stage Bacchus, Dargomyzhsky again closed himself in a close circle of his admirers and admirers, continuing to compose small vocal ensembles (duets, trios, quartets) and romances, then published and made popular.

At the same time, he took up teaching singing. The number of his students and especially his female students (he gave lessons for free) is enormous. L.N. Belenitsyn (by Karmalin's husband; Dargomyzhsky's most interesting letters to her have been published), M.V. Shilovskaya, Bilibina, Barteneva, Girs, Pavlova, Princess Manvelova, A.N. Purholt (by husband Molas).

The sympathy and worship of women, especially singers, always inspired and encouraged Dargomyzhsky, and he used to say half-jokingly: "If there were no singers in the world, it would not be worth being a composer." Already in 1843, Dargomyzhsky conceived a third opera, Rusalka, based on a text by Pushkin, but the composition moved extremely slowly, and even the approval of friends did not speed up the work; meanwhile, the duo of the prince and Natasha, performed by Dargomyzhsky and Karmalina, caused tears in Glinka.

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

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

The weak side of the "Mermaid" is still technically its orchestration, which cannot be compared with the richest orchestral colors of "Ruslan", and from an artistic point of view - the whole fantastic part, rather pale. The first performance of The Mermaid in 1856 (May 4) at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, with an unsatisfactory production, with old scenery, inappropriate costumes, careless performance, inappropriate cuts, conducted by K. Lyadov, who did not like Dargomyzhsky, was not successful .

The opera lasted only 26 performances until 1861, but resumed in 1865 with Platonova and Komissarzhevsky, it was a huge success and has since become a repertoire and one of the most beloved of Russian operas. In Moscow, "Mermaid" was staged for the first time in 1858. The initial failure of "Mermaid" had a depressing effect on Dargomyzhsky; according to the story of his friend, V.P. Engelhardt, he intended to burn the scores of "Esmeralda" and "Mermaid", and only the formal refusal of the directorate to give these scores to the author, supposedly for correction, saved them from destruction.

The last period of Dargomyzhsky's work, the most original and significant, can be called reformatory. Its beginning, already rooted in the recitatives of The Mermaid, is marked by the appearance of a number of original vocal pieces, distinguished either by their comicality - or, rather, by Gogol's humor, laughter through tears ("Titular Counselor", 1859), then by drama ("Old Corporal", 1858; "Paladin", 1859), then with subtle irony ("Worm", on the text of Beranger-Kurochkin, 1858), then with a burning feeling of a rejected woman ("We parted proudly", "I don't care", 1859) and always remarkable in strength and truth of vocal expressiveness.

These vocal pieces were a new step forward in the history of Russian romance after Glinka and served as models for the vocal masterpieces of Mussorgsky, who wrote on one of them a dedication to Dargomyzhsky, "the great teacher of musical truth." The comic vein of Dargomyzhsky also manifested itself in the field of orchestral composition. His orchestral fantasies belong to the same period: "Little Russian Cossack", inspired by Glinka's "Kamarinskaya", and quite independent: "Baba Yaga, or From the Volga nach Riga" and "Chukhonskaya Fantasy".

The last two, originally conceived, are also interesting in terms of orchestral techniques, showing that Dargomyzhsky had taste and imagination in combining the colors of the orchestra. Dargomyzhsky's acquaintance in the mid-1850s with the composers of the "Balakirev circle" was beneficial for both sides.

The new vocal verse of Dargomyzhsky influenced the development of the vocal style of young composers, which especially affected the work of Cui and Mussorgsky, who met Dargomyzhsky, like Balakirev, earlier than the rest. Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin were particularly affected by Dargomyzhsky's new opera techniques, which were the practical implementation of the thesis expressed by him in a letter (1857) to Karmalina: "I want the sound to directly express the word; I want the truth." An opera composer by vocation, Dargomyzhsky, despite failures with the government administration, could not endure inaction for a long time.

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

There was not enough determination to expend energy on a large work, the fate of which seemed unreliable. Traveling abroad, in 1864-65, contributed to the rise of his spirit and strength, as it was very successful artistically: in Brussels, Kapellmeister Hanssens appreciated Dargomyzhsky's talent and contributed to the performance of his orchestral works in concerts (overture to "Mermaid" and "Cossack "), which was a huge success. But the main impetus to the extraordinary awakening of creativity was given to Dargomyzhsky by his new young comrades, whose talents he quickly appreciated. The question of opera forms then became another.

Serov was engaged in it, intending to become an opera composer and carried away by the ideas of Wagner's operatic reform. Members of the Balakirev circle, especially Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, also dealt with it, solving it on their own, based largely on the features of Dargomyzhsky's new vocal style. Composing his "William Ratcliffe", Cui immediately introduced Dargomyzhsky to what he had written. Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov also introduced Dargomyzhsky to their new vocal compositions. Their energy was communicated to Dargomyzhsky himself; he decided to boldly embark on the path of operatic reform and sang (as he put it) the swan song, setting about composing The Stone Guest with extraordinary zeal, without changing a single line of Pushkin's text and without adding a single word to it.

Did not stop creativity and Dargomyzhsky's disease (aneurysms and hernia); in the last weeks he had been writing in bed with a pencil. Young friends, gathering at the patient's, performed scene after scene of the opera as it was being created, and with their enthusiasm gave new strength to the fading composer. Within a few months the opera was almost finished; death prevented him from completing the music only for the last seventeen verses. According to Dargomyzhsky's will, he completed Cui's The Stone Guest; he also wrote the introduction to the opera, borrowing thematic material from it, and orchestrated the opera by Rimsky-Korsakov. Through the efforts of friends, The Stone Guest was staged in St. Petersburg on the Mariinsky Stage on February 16, 1872 and resumed in 1876, but it did not stay in the repertoire and is still far from appreciated.

However, the significance of The Stone Guest, which logically completes the reformist ideas of Dargomyzhsky, is beyond doubt. In The Stone Guest, Dargomyzhsky, like Wagner, seeks to achieve a synthesis of drama and music, subordinating the music to the text. The operatic forms of The Stone Guest are so flexible that the music flows continuously, without any repetitions that are not caused by the meaning of the text. This was achieved by the rejection of the symmetrical forms of arias, duets and other rounded ensembles, and at the same time the rejection of a continuous cantilena, as insufficiently elastic to express rapidly changing shades of speech. But here the paths of Wagner and Dargomyzhsky diverge. Wagner transferred the center of gravity of the musical expression of the psychology of the characters to the orchestra, and his vocal parts were in the background.

Dargomyzhsky focused musical expressiveness on vocal parts, finding it more expedient for the actors themselves to speak about themselves. Opera links in the continuously flowing music of Wagner are leitmotifs, symbols of persons, objects, ideas. The operatic style of The Stone Guest is devoid of leitmotifs; nevertheless, the characteristics of the characters in Dargomyzhsky are bright and strictly sustained. Different speeches are put into their mouths, but they are the same for everyone. Denying a solid cantilena, Dargomyzhsky also rejected the ordinary, so-called "dry" recitative, which has little expressiveness and is devoid of purely musical beauty. He created a vocal style that lies between cantilena and recitative, a special melodious or melodic recitative, elastic enough to be in constant correspondence with speech, and at the same time rich in characteristic melodic twists, spiritualizing this speech, bringing into it a new, lacking emotional element.

This vocal style, which fully corresponds to the peculiarities of the Russian language, is the merit of Dargomyzhsky. The operatic forms of The Stone Guest, caused by the properties of the libretto, the text, which did not allow for the widespread use of choirs, vocal ensembles, and independent performance of the orchestra, cannot, of course, be considered immutable models for any opera. Artistic problems allow not one, not two solutions. But the resolution of Dargomyzhsky's operatic problem is so characteristic that it will not be forgotten in the history of opera. Dargomyzhsky had not only Russian followers, but also foreign ones.

Gounod intended to write an opera on the model of The Stone Guest; Debussy in his opera "Pelléas et Mélisande" implemented the principles of Dargomyzhsky's operatic reform. - Dargomyzhsky's social and musical activity began only shortly before his death: from 1860 he was a member of the committee for the consideration of compositions submitted to competitions of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, and from 1867 he was elected director of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Society. Most of Dargomyzhsky's works were published by P. Jurgenson, Gutheil and V. Bessel. Operas and orchestral works are named above. Dargomyzhsky wrote few piano pieces (about 11), and all of them (except for the "Slavic Tarantella", composed in 1865) belong to the early period of his work.

Dargomyzhsky is especially prolific in the field of small vocal pieces for one voice (over 90); he wrote 17 more duets, 6 ensembles (for 3 and 4 voices) and "Petersburg Serenades" - choirs for different voices (12 ©). - See the letters of Dargomyzhsky ("Artist", 1894); I. Karzukhin, biography, with indexes of works and literature about Dargomyzhsky ("Artist", 1894); S. Bazurov "Dargomyzhsky" (1894); N. Findeisen "Dargomyzhsky"; L. Karmalina "Memories" ("Russian Antiquity", 1875); A. Serov, 10 articles about "Mermaid" (from a collection of critical essays); C. Cui "La musique en Russie"; V. Stasov "Our music for the last 25 years" (in collected works).

G. Timofeev

Russian Civilization

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 family estate of Tverdunovo, 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 Lucrezia 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 Fethi, the violinist Henri Vieuxtan 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 the 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 becomes close 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 Mermaid 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 especially 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 back in 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 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 - tenement 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 an innovative style for those times: it contains neither arias nor ensembles (apart from 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."

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 based on verses 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.