Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky ( February 2 (14) , 1813 , the village of Troitskoye , Belevsky district , Tula province  - January 5 (17) , 1869 , St. Petersburg ) - Russian composer , whose work had a significant impact on the development of Russian musical art of the XIX century. One of the most notable composers of the period between the works 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 .

Alexander Dargomyzhsky was born on February 2  (14),  1813 in the village of Troitsky, Belevsky district (now Arsenevsky district), Tula province. In 1866, in his autobiography, the composer himself only indicated that he was born in the village, without indicating its name and geographical location . However, A. Lukovkin came to the conclusion that at the time of the birth of the future composer in Belevsky district, there was no village with the same name - Troitskoye. The researcher established that Alexander Dargomyzhsky was born in the village of Voskresenskoye (the parish of the village of Stary Roskotets, now Arkhangelskoye) of the Chernsky district of the Tula province. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, was the illegitimate son of the wife of a wealthy landowner Alexei Petrovich Ladyzhensky (1738-1826), who owned an estate in the Chernsky district. Soon after his birth (in 1789), Sergei was taken in by Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Boucharov (1749-1794) , who brought him to his estate Dargomyzhka in the Belevsky district of the Tula province . As a result, he became Sergei Nikolaevich Dargomyzhsky (he received a new surname from the name of the estate of the educator 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 Kozlovskymarried against the wishes 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. It is documented that before the Patriotic War of 1812, vil. Tverdunovo belonged to the princes Kozlovsky ^[13]. In the same 1813, after the expulsion of the Napoleonic army from Russia and a few months after the birth of their son Alexander, the Dargomyzhsky family returned from the Tula province to the Smolensk region. In the family estate Tverdunovo, east of the city of Vyazma, Alexander Dargomyzhsky spent the first 3.5 years of his life. In May 1816, the Dargomyzhsky family moved to Smolensk, and at the end of 1817 to St. Petersburg. But subsequently, the composer repeatedly came to the parental estate of Tverdunovo, but especially often in the late 1840s - mid-1850s, while working on the opera "Mermaid". During these years, he studied Smolensk folklore, so he included several Smolensk folk melodies in this famous opera. In addition to "Mermaid", the composer also used folk motifs from the Smolensk region for his popular Russian songs: "Darling Maiden" and "Fever". In June 1861, having arrived from St. Petersburg in Tverdunovo, A. S. Dargomyzhsky was the first in the Smolensk province to free his Smolensk peasants from serfdom, and on the most favorable terms for them. As it was written in the Charter, in order to “improve the life of the peasants”, he left behind them all the land that they cultivated in the pre-reform period, which was one and a half times higher than the norm established by the tsar's Regulations. At the same time, A. S. Dargomyzhsky did not increase the rate of quitrent collected annually from the peasants for the use of surplus land from the peasants. On the same preferential terms, A. S. Dargomyzhsky retained the land for the peasants in the neighboring village of Dubrovo (now the Temkinsky district of the Smolensk region) , moreover, forgiving them more than 4,000 rubles due from them according to the Regulations . Such a humane behavior of the landlord in relation to his serfs was exceptional for that time in Russia.

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, Franz Schoberlechner was Dargomyzhsky's teacher for three years., a student of the famous composer Johann Hummel ^[16] . 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 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 Life for the Tsar”, 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 - " Notre Dame Cathedral ". Dargomyzhsky used an original French libretto written by Hugo himself for Louise Bertin , whose opera La Esmeralda had been staged shortly before. By 1841Dargomyzhsky completed the orchestration and translation of the opera, for which he also took the title Esmeralda, and handed over the score to the directorate of the Imperial Theatres. 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, some time after the premiere, which took place in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater , left the stage 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'm in love, virgin-beauty ... "," Lileta "," Night marshmallow "," Sixteen years "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 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 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 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 her with a large-scale positive review in the Theater and Music Bulletin”(its volume was so large that it was printed in parts in several numbers), which helped this opera to stay in the repertoire of the leading theaters in 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 .

 

Monument on the grave of A. S. Dargomyzhsky at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra ( St. Petersburg )

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 of Rogdan. The choice of composer stops at the third of the Little TragediesPushkin - "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. Franz Liszt speaks favorably of the work of Dargomyzhsky .

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 operatic 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 ", written by him back in 1848 and not seen the stage for almost twenty years, weakened the composer's health, and on January 5  (17) ,  1869he 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 ^[20] .

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