Mikhail Glinka: music is my soul
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka
Name Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka It is no coincidence that in the history of Russian art stands next to the name of Pushkin. They were contemporaries, almost the same age (Glinka is five years younger), the composer turned to the poet's work more than once, wrote romances based on his poems, created the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila.
But many turned to Pushkin both before Glinka and after him. It is important that both brilliant artists had a single task, brilliantly solved by them: to find a way along which Russian artists will come out on a par with the classics of world art. This was done, first of all, by themselves - Pushkin and Glinka, becoming the founders of Russian literary and musical classics. Pushkin and Glinka are brought together by a clear, bright and optimistic view of the world, despite all its imperfections and contradictions. Hence the harmony and clarity of their own works.
Glinka realized his vocation very early. In the landowner's house in the village of Novospasskoye, near the town of Yelnya (now the Smolensk region), where he was born and spent his childhood, music sounded constantly: the serf orchestra played, music lovers who came to visit played music. Misha Glinka learned to play the piano, a little violin, but most of all he liked to listen to music. “Music is my soul,” the boy once said to the teacher, who reproached him for the fact that the next day after one of the home musical evenings he was unusually absent-minded and did not think about the lessons at all. Glinka M.I. Portrait.
The St. Petersburg Noble Boarding School, where Glinka entered at the age of thirteen, gave him a good education. Among the teachers were people devoted to science, who loved art. Glinka was lucky: his closest tutor - tutor - was a young teacher of Russian literature, Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker, Pushkin's lyceum comrade (in the future, a participant in the Decembrist uprising). Kuchelbecker organized a literary society in the boarding house, which included Glinka and Lev Pushkin, the poet's younger brother. The music lessons continued. Glinka studied with the best Petersburg teachers, in particular with Charles Mayer, a young pianist, whose lessons soon turned into a joint - on an equal footing - playing music. But in the eyes of the family, the music education of the future composer was, like most of his contemporaries, only part of the usual secular education. After the boarding school, Glinka entered the State Institute of Communications
After graduating from the boarding school, Glinka entered the service, which had nothing to do with music - in the Main Directorate of Railways. In appearance, his life was similar to the life of other young people of his time and his circle, but the further, the more he was possessed by a thirst for creativity, a thirst for musical impressions. He absorbed them everywhere and everywhere - at opera performances, at amateur musical evenings, during a trip to the Caucasus for treatment, where his hearing was struck by folk music, not at all like European. He composed romances, and some of his early experiments we can still attribute to the treasures of Russian vocal music. Such is the elegy to the words of E. Baratynsky “Do not tempt me without need” or the romance “Poor Singer” to the words of V. Zhukovsky.
The bitterness and disappointment that sounded in some of the writings of the early period were not only a tribute to romantic fashion. Glinka, like the majority of Russian honest people, was deeply shocked by the defeat of the December uprising of 1825, especially since among the rebels were both his boarding comrades and his teacher Kuchelbecker.
From childhood, Glinka had a passion for travel, his favorite reading was books describing distant countries. Not without difficulty, overcoming the resistance of the family, in 1830 he went to Italy, which attracted him not only with the luxury of nature, but also with musical beauties. Here, in the homeland of opera, he got to know the work of world-famous composers, in particular, Rossini, the favorite of Europe, and met Vincenzo Bellini personally. It was here that Glinka first conceived the idea of writing an opera. This intention was still not entirely clear. The composer only knew that it was to be a national Russian opera, and at the same time an opera in which music would be an equal part of the musical-dramatic whole, and would not be included in the action in the form of separate episodes.
However, to write such an opera, one had to have a large stock of knowledge and experience. Acquainted everywhere, where possible, with the creations of the great masters. Glinka has already learned a lot. But it was necessary to bring knowledge into order and system. And so, having stayed in Italy for about four years, filled with unforgettable impressions of the nature and art of this country. Glinka went to Berlin in the fall of 1833, to the famous "musical healer", as he put it in a letter to his mother, the theoretical scientist Siegfried Dehn. A few months of classes turned out to be enough for Glinka to feel self-confident and, upon returning to his homeland, to begin to fulfill his cherished dream - to create an opera. Glinka's opera "Ivan Susanin"
The plot of the opera was suggested to Glinka by the poet Zhukovsky. It was a historical fact: the feat of the peasant Ivan Susanin, who, during the war with the Polish gentry, who invaded our land in order to put the Polish prince Vladislav on the Russian throne, led an enemy detachment into a dense forest and died there, but also killed the enemies. This plot has already attracted the attention of Russian artists more than once, since the events of the beginning of the 17th century were involuntarily associated with the invasion of Napoleon experienced by Russia, and the exploits of Susanin with the exploits of famous and unknown partisan heroes of 1812. But there was one work that stood apart: the poetic “Duma” by Kondraty Ryleev, the Decembrist poet, who embodied in it the direct, uncompromising, majestic character of a patriot peasant. Glinka set to work with enthusiasm. The plan for the opera was soon ready, as was most of the music. But there was no text! And Zhukovsky advised Glinka to turn to Baron K.F. Rosen, a fairly well-known (though not of the first rank) writer. Rosen was an educated man, extremely interested in dramaturgy. He enthusiastically welcomed Pushkin's "Boris Godunov" and even translated it into German. And most importantly, he knew how to write poetry for already finished music.
On November 27, 1836, an opera about the feat of a Russian person and the Russian people was released. Not only the plot was national, but also the music based on the principles of folk musical thinking, folk art. As the music writer V. Odoevsky put it then, Glinka managed to "elevate the folk tune to tragedy." This applies both to Susanin's part and to the wonderful folk choirs. And as a contrast to the simple and majestic folk scenes, Glinka created a picture of a brilliant Polish ball, at which the gentry seemed to be celebrating a victory over the Russians in advance.
Glinka's opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila"
The success of "Ivan Susanin" inspired Glinka, and he conceived a new composition - the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila". But the work moved slowly and intermittently. The service in the court singing chapel was distracting, the home environment was not conducive to creativity - discord with his wife, who turned out to be a person deeply indifferent to Glinka's life's work.
Years passed, and Glinka himself began to look differently at Pushkin's youthful poem, seeing in it not only a string of exciting adventures, but also something more serious: a story about true love that overcomes deceit and malice. Therefore, only the overture to the opera flies in full sail, to match the poem, yet the action unfolds unhurriedly, epicly.
“The Wizard of Glinka,” A. M. Gorky once called the composer. And indeed, the scenes in the palaces of the sorceress Naina, in the gardens of Chernomor, are depicted with extraordinary vividness in the opera. They transform the sound images of reality - and the melodies of the peoples of the Caucasus heard in youth, and the Persian melody, God knows what ways flew into St. Petersburg, and the melody that the Finn cab hummed to himself, who drove Glinka to the Imatra waterfall ...
Opera Ruslan and Lyudmila (Head) by Glinka
"Ruslan and Lyudmila" - an essay in which we still discover previously unheard beauties, at one time was appreciated by a few. But among them, in addition to Russian friends, was the world famous Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt. He transcribed Chernomor's March for piano and performed it brilliantly.
Despite life's difficulties, in the "Ruslan years" Glinka created many other wonderful works - music for Nestor Kukolnik's drama "Prince Kholmsky", a cycle of romances "Farewell to Petersburg" - also to the words of Kukolnik. The memory of Glinka's deep feeling for Ekaterina Kern (daughter of Anna Kern, once sung by Pushkin) was the wonderful romance "I Remember a Wonderful Moment" and the symphonic "Waltz-Fantasy" - a kind of musical portrait of a young girl against the festive background of the ball.
Mikhail Glinka with his wife
In the spring of 1844, Glinka went on a new journey - to France, and from there - a year later - to Spain. The original, hot and passionate folk music of Spain captivated Glinka and found a creative reflection in two symphonic overtures: "Jota of Aragon" (jota is a genre of Spanish songs, "inseparable from dancing", as Glinka said) and "Memories of a summer night in Madrid" - writings that Glinka, in his words, wanted to make "equally reportable to connoisseurs and the general public." The same, in essence, goal was set and achieved in the famous "Kamarinskaya" - a fantasy on the themes of two Russian songs, wedding and dance. In this composition, as Tchaikovsky later said, “like an Oak in a stomach, all Russian symphonic music is contained.” The last years of Glinka's life were filled with new ideas.
An illustrious master, known both at home and abroad, he did not get tired of studying, mastering new forms of art. In particular, he was attracted by ancient Russian church melodies, in which the inspiration and skill of many generations of chanters who came from the people were invested. Glinka's old acquaintance Siegfried Den, now, of course, no longer a teacher, but a friend and adviser, had to help find a suitable setting for these musical treasures. And Glinka, who in these years, as of old, was possessed by "wanderlust", went to Berlin. This was his last trip, from which he never returned.
February 3 (15 - new style), 1857, Glinka died. A few months later, the coffin with his body was transported to his homeland and buried in St. Petersburg. In the last years of his life, in those short months that Glinka spent in St. Petersburg, he was surrounded by musicians and music lovers, representatives of the younger generation. These were the composers A. S. Dargomyzhsky and A. N. Serov, the Stasov brothers (Vladimir - a historian, archaeologist, critic and Dmitry - a lawyer), V. P. Engelhardt - an amateur musician, a famous astronomer in the future. All of them idolized Glinka, admired everything that came out from under his pen. And for this generation, and for the next, just entering the musical road. Glinka became a teacher and founder.
An interesting fact is that the first anthem of the Russian Federation from 1990 to 2000 was the "Patriotic Song" of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. The anthem was sung without words, there was no generally recognized text for it. An unofficial text was planned to be introduced in 2000:
Glory, glory, motherland - Russia!
Through centuries and storms you have passed
And the sun shines on you
And your fate is bright.
Above the old Moscow Kremlin
A banner with a double-headed eagle is flying
And sacred words sound:
Glory, Russia - my Fatherland!
But the new President V. Putin chose the melody of the Soviet anthem.
Basic writings.
Operas:
- "Ivan Susanin" (1836)
- "Ruslan and Lyudmila" (1843)
- Music for the tragedy by N. Kukolnik “Prince Kholmsky” (1840)
For orchestra:
- "Waltz Fantasy" (1845)
- 2 Spanish overtures - "Jota of Aragon" (1846) and "Night in Madrid" (1848)
- "Kamarinskaya" (1848)
Chamber Ensembles:
- Grand Sextet for Piano and Strings (1832)
- Pathetic Trio (1832) and other compositions
- 80 romances, songs, arias on poems by Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Lermontov
- cycle “Farewell to St. Petersburg” (words by N. Kukolnik).