This strange juxtaposition of beauty and suffering was introduced to us by Sergei Yesenin, turning to a Khorossan Persian woman from border Persia, which he so wanted to visit, but never visited:
Goodbye, peri, goodbye, Even if I couldn’t unlock the doors, You gave beautiful suffering, I can sing about you in my homeland...
Yesenin wrote the poems of this cycle in Baku. Next door to Persia, but still not in it. S. M. Kirov, addressing Yesenin’s friend, journalist Pyotr Chagin, who accompanied the poet during his Baku business trip in the spring of 1925, said: “Why haven’t you yet created Yesenin’s illusion of Persia in Baku? Look how I wrote it, as if I was in Persia...” “In the summer of 1925,” recalls Chagin, “Yesenin came to my dacha. This, as he himself admitted, was a genuine illusion of Persia: a huge garden, fountains and all sorts of oriental ideas...”
This comment confirms the illusory-romantic pathos of “Persian Motifs”. Deliberately illusory, when it is clear that the roses with which the threshold of the unrealizable Persian woman is strewn were grown in the ethereal gardens of Babylon, and the mysterious doors, which remained unopened, did exactly the right thing, strictly following the poetics of the genre. But what genre?
OR MAYBE
"SUFFERING BEAUTY"?
So, the poems themselves are a product of pure imagination. After all, all this happened before the Chagi gardens and fountains. The poet imagined everything. On the border with the non-existent. But inside the poem, “beautiful suffering” is a derivative of a different kind, designed to “beautify” the pain, but in such a way that this pain is compassionate. The boundary between an authentic chant and the decorative object of this chant.
Let's change the semantic emphasis - instead of beautiful suffering, let's say suffering beauty - and the peri will disappear from Khorossan. It’s true, perhaps the Persian princess Stenka Razin will emerge from the Volga depths. Let’s remove suffering, and what remains is Pushkin’s “I drink to Mary’s health,” also peri, only different, powerless to bestow not only beautiful, but any kind of suffering at all. And beauty - ringing and light - yes. Borders within lyrics, within its genres.
Please note: “I can sing about you in my homeland.” Sing someone else’s image of “beautiful suffering”; while maintaining this foreign image, but in their homeland.
Isn’t it true that we are little by little getting used to this strange juxtaposition of suffering and beauty? We’ve almost gotten used to how, from the depths of historical memory, a terrible ancient Roman legend emerges about one local music lover who invented a monstrous musical instrument- a golden box with iron partitions in it. This musical maestro drove the slave into the box, battened down the shutter and began to heat his torture organ over low heat. The inhuman screams of the man being roasted alive, repeatedly reflected from the specially placed partitions there, were transformed into captivating sounds that delighted the ears of aesthetically sophisticated listeners. Suffering incomprehensible to the mind has become beauty comprehensible to the ear; chaos of scream - harmony of sounds. The aesthetic, which is on the other side of the ethical, is obvious. The artistic boundary has been irrevocably crossed.
But beautiful suffering “in the days of... the people’s troubles” or in memory of these troubles must be supplanted by a different aesthetics that does not tolerate plausibility, but demands truth:
...And the soldier drank from a copper mug Half the wine with sadness
on the ashes of a hut burned by the Nazis;
Friends can't stand in the area, The movie goes on without them
that is, without Seryozha and Vitka with Malaya Bronnaya and Mokhovaya.
Wine with sadness, cinema with sadness. But from the position of a poet-chronicler with lyrical-epic vision.
These tragic poems are also sung, but they are sung differently, just like Simon’s “yellow rains” of expectation. Here beauty is of a different kind - the beauty of an act that conceals the particularity of a beautifully suffering gesture. Once again, the genre boundary: between the epic song and the elegy romance. An essential boundary for defining the romance genre as an ethical and aesthetic reality at the same time, corresponding to the “Russian-Persian” Yesenin formula, which paradoxically combined suffering and beauty.
“...Every cultural act essentially lives on boundaries: this is its seriousness and significance; abstracted from boundaries, he loses ground, becomes empty...”
So is romance, which is on the border of the aesthetic and ethical, artistic and social. To understand this, it is necessary to leave the “sounding” space into another, “listening” space.
What are they, the boundaries of perception of the romance lyrical word (if, of course, a modern listener is able to hear in the lyrics the root lyre, which can be plucked, tested for sound and put to the voice)?
“HOW DOES THIS TAKE YOUR SOUL?”
The thirties, marked by the shock marches of the first five-year plans, are polemically included in the love “Poems in honor of Natalya” by Pavel Vasiliev:
Summer drinks from the brushes in her eyes, We are not afraid of your Vertinsky yet - Damn flyer, wolf's fill. We still knew Nekrasov, We also sang “Kalinushka”, We haven't started living yet.
The chamber world of Alexander Vertinsky, in tragic grandeur prodigal son, who returned from “foreign cities” to the expanses of the “Moldovan steppe” of his homeland, is just “dust”. It is said harshly, but with a tinge of doubt about the success of the debunking - “yet... not scary.”
Around the same years, Yaroslav Smelyakov, in his no less love poem “Lyubka Feigelman,” asked puzzledly about the same intimate lyre:
I don't understand, How is it What is it Does it touch your soul?
To answer this question means to understand perhaps the most important thing in our subject.
Vasilyev’s salon romancer is opposed by Nekrasov. Obviously: Nekrasov “Peddlers”, but it is unlikely that Nekrasov is the most tender lyricist.
Sorry! Don't remember the days of the fall, Melancholy, despondency, embitterment, - Don't remember the storms, don't remember the tears, Don't remember the jealousy of threats!
Nekrasov... But almost romantic tears!
And in the same salon world we hear the wide-willed “We were riding in a troika with bells,” attracting not by semantic, but by lexical association, not someone else’s, but again Nekrasov’s:
You won't be able to catch up with the crazy three: The horses are strong, and well-fed, and spirited, - And the coachman was drunk, and to the other A young cornet rushes like a whirlwind.
The key (not all, of course) words of the romance dictionary are indicated: a crazy troika, a drunk driver, a young cornet... Vocabulary is perhaps the main reality of the genre definition of a romance. And then the “troika with bells”, performed by a chamber singer, and the “mad troika” with a young cornet are lexically one-order vocal and lyrical phenomena.
The confrontation did not take place. What touches the soul and how it does it should be sought beyond pure genre: in later times, at first glance there are few intended for romance.
“AND YOU ARE ALL ABOUT LOVE...”
Although the era of scientific and technological revolution tried to reject romance as the realm of “tears, roses and love,” it not only failed, but, on the contrary, bards and minstrels of a neo-romantic type appeared, filling the palaces of culture and red corners with the achingly masculine strumming of a seven-string guitar, plugged in , if the ceilings are high and the hall is loud, to the city power grid.
However, the world of “tears, roses and love”, pushed to the periphery public consciousness, has always been a secret aspiration.
The same Smelyakov wrote about the years of “industrial” literature, testifying to this unnatural situation:
Books about casting were created, Books about Ural cast iron, And love and its messengers They remained somewhat aloof.
But here too, like a true poet, he discovered a weak but evergreen blade of love.
A romance for a new city, new citizens - in every home. Guitar song on a glued-re-glued magnetic track. Or even with a camp guitar - by the fire.
And nearby, almost on the same small-format stage, Ruzana and Karina Lisitsian sing the famous “Do not tempt...”. In the monophony of a loving heart, they reveal the second, inner voice, putting both of them into a duet. But such, however, is a duet in which a gap is left in the monologue of two and for two, and therefore for everyone.
Director Eldar Ryazanov creates a new film version of A. N. Ostrovsky's "Dowry", calling it "Cruel Romance". And if in the previous film adaptation the gypsy breakdown “No, he didn’t love...” looks like just an insert number, here the phenomenon of romance is conceptualized as a phenomenon of personal fate, taken on the border of life and death, and not as a genre of vocal and poetic art. This is life for the last time. Romance as fate - fate as romance. Not everyday life, but being, but in the mirror of the genre. A self-aware vision of the genre - with a grain of salt - reveals its hidden nature from the perspective of new songs and new times, for romance, so to speak, "poorly equipped."
At the same time, the present time is reviving the genre in its historical diversity. And evidence of this is the sold-out concerts of Elena Obraztsova, Valentina Levko, Galina Kareva, Nani Bregvadze, Dina Dyan... The Russian romance, performed in the “gypsy” key, is glorified by the names of Tamara Tsereteli, Keto Japaridze, Isabella Yurieva. And the patriarch of romance performance Ivan Kozlovsky?! And Nadezhda Obukhova or Maria Maksakova, who brought Russian romance out of the “spiritual” philistine life into the spiritual existence of the singing people?..
Vocal interpretations of romances from the past are sometimes unexpected and innovatively constructive (remember, for example, “The reeds rustled ...” performed by Zhanna Bichevskaya and Elena Kamburova).
A culture of new romance based on old words is developing ( Pushkin cycle G.V. Sviridov, for example) and to the poems of poets of the 20th century in their best examples (Tsvetaev’s “It seems to me that you are not sick with me ...” to the music of Tariverdiev ...).
And yet: why and how does “beautiful suffering” “touch the soul”?
“...GIVE EVERYONE WHAT THEY DON’T HAVE...”
For now we will remain in our time and in our lives. And let us turn to the world of Bulat Okudzhava, not without the former nobility and not without the new, soul to soul, artistry, singing his endless romance for almost thirty years in a huge city, as in a cozy room of a comfortable sixteen-story building or in a former communal apartment of a restored, almost antique old Arbat. We go out into crowded squares, and this long romance sounds in our souls - for each individual. And the street noise cannot drown it out, despite the quietest penetration of this voice. Okudzhava’s romance is fundamentally new, but it is precisely in it that there is the key to understanding the romance of the old, because the poet comprehends the mystery of romance as an independent substance, romance as a personal life lived for the sake of love.
Each poem-song is personal for everyone, and only because of that - for everyone. These uniquely authored “guilty”, “imagine”, “if you don’t mind” invite you not only to listen, but also to experience what you have not experienced. You find yourself in that same “blue trolleybus” next to and on an equal basis with everyone else. This is a modern symbol of the democracy of the genre in its original focus on love with its tragic end. "Road Song" by Okudzhava - Schwartz became a romance about a romance. Here they are - love and separation - in their almost banal, but essentially significant proximity, that is, in the primordial human proximity and distance. They are two friends, two wanderers, two roads, forever attached to a heart seeking love. And this is the meaning-forming center of this, like any romance in general. Its plot-content duality, reconciled in happy misfortune lyrical hero. And then all the other attributes of the genre (“then the shore, then the sea, then the sun, then the blizzard, then the angels, then the crows...”) are a necessary thing, but still secondary.
You cannot suffer more or less. Personal suffering is always in full force. But the “beauty of suffering,” if we again follow Yesenin’s image, may be greater or lesser. Okudzhava's romance, as a consciously conscious romance, reveals the features of the genre in extremely expressed forms. This applies especially to affected “beauty” - in its contact with the decorative and ornamental life of Georgia, close to the poet. Look: before the poet’s gaze, “a blue buffalo, a white eagle, and a golden trout…” are actually swimming in reality, as in Pirosmani’s paintings. Much more picturesque than in Yesenin’s Khorossan! The border and limit of the genre canon.
But the secret of “beautiful suffering” is revealed in the romance about Francois Villon: “...Give everyone what he doesn’t have.”
All this for nothing - and you don’t have to ask - gives romance. And if you read and listen closely, everyone for whom the poet asks for lacks... love. This is why the world of “beautiful suffering” exists in culture, as if replenishing what is missing, carefully kept secret. For, Chekhov is right, every personal existence is kept secret.
Romance reveals this secret, but not in its alcove particularity, but in the general cultural musical and poetic objectivity. And in the sphere of perception, this objectivity again becomes personal. The illusion of dreams come true. For each of those sitting in the hall, but also for everyone in the same hall. In a collective-individual longing for the happiness of love, but love is short and finite and therefore suffering; but suffering ideally, that is, “beautifully.”
WITH MUSIC ON A FRIENDLY FOOT
“The fire of desire burns in the blood...”, “Do not tempt me unnecessarily...”, “In the midst of a noisy ball...”. This series can be continued for a long time.
You can build a series in a different way: “Khas-Bulat is daring...”, “Because of the island on the rod...”.
Or it could be completely different: “Only the evening will turn blue…”, “My fire is shining in the fog...”.
You can do this: “We just know each other...”, “Returning your portrait to you...”.
We can finally return to the classics, but new classics: “You are my fallen maple...”, “There will be no one in the house...”.
Just one line is said, and at the same moment music appears with subsequent words, freely drawn to each other and all together - to music; absolutely certain music, which - just start - is always heard, but always together with the word.
All the poetic beginnings listed here are individual signs of poetic and musical identities (even nameless ones); but such identities that, having met, revealed a different quality. And all this is a romance: elegiac, ballad, urban. Romance in its intuitively intelligible genre definition.
Fraternization of words and music; but words that are ready to become music, and music that is also ready to become a verbally expressed love and everyday situation. A word in a text that has not yet become a romance - with music “on a friendly footing.”
Remember;
He was catching up on Schubert, Like a pure diamond;
To us with blue music It's not scary to die.
The mundane and the sublime are side by side, together to the end. Another, primordial romance, overcoming boundaries.
However, the coincidence of music and words is a miracle, a creative impossibility: “... but the hand trembled and the motive did not agree with the verse.” Whether words have been translated into music, music into words, is judged by those who listen to the romance and at the same time listen to their soul and the beats of their heart.
The coincidence of words and music, logos and voice is the composer’s deepest aspiration. Is this why the history of Russian romance knows several dozen musical versions of the same poetic text? “Don’t sing, beauty, in front of me...” by Pushkin. Glinka, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Rachmaninov wrote music for this poem. Only Glinka and Rachmaninov hit the mark. It is in their interpretations that the romance appeals to the ears of a mass audience. Based on Baratynsky’s text “Where is the sweet whisper...”, Glinka, Grechaninov, and Vik competed in a creative duel. Kalinnikov, Ts. Cui, N. Sokolov, N. Cherepnin, S. Lyapunov. It should be noted that if Glinka and Lyapunov read this poem as a romance, then Sokolov and Tcherepnin heard in it a two-voice musical piece, and Cui created a musical picture based on this text. Thus, it is also not easy for a romance to become itself: the multi-semantic nature of a poetic text, intended for a romantic life, contradicts its purpose, meeting with music that has plans for something else.
The attraction of the romance word to music is its essential feature. Afanasy Fet wrote: “I was always drawn from a certain area of words into an indefinite area of music, into which I went as far as my strength was sufficient.” Music in its initial uncertainty, as it were, reveals the instability of the romance word with all its semantic unambiguity as a word.
Composers also understand this theoretically based attraction. P. I. Tchaikovsky writes: “...Fet, in his best moments, goes beyond the limits indicated by poetry and boldly takes a step into our field... This is not just a poet, but rather a poet-musician, as if avoiding even such topics that easily lend themselves to expression in words." Composer and musicologist Cesar Cui wrote: “Poetry and sound are equal powers, they help each other: the word imparts certainty to the expressed feeling, music enhances its expressiveness, gives sound poetry, complements the unsaid: both merge together and act on the listener with redoubled force.” According to Cui, the word is not completely defined, because it can be explained by music. Thus, the composer is the first person from the public to listen to the romance in its formation, which has not yet begun, but is ready to begin, with its unsaid - unsaid - secret. Music in its uncertainty is called upon to further define the word, which seems to be already defined in terms of meaning. Cui saw “the artistic task of vocal lyricism” in a balanced correspondence between musical and poetic forms. But this balance is only a striving for the ideal, “unexpected joy” from the convergence of words and music.
Word and music. Another significant borderland that has the ability to be overcome in an “ideal” romance.
A special type of coincidence is the romance theater of a poet, composer, musician and performer in one person, representing heterogeneous talents in his own personality.
NON-CLASSICAL CLASSICS
But it is unlikely that only aesthetic criteria determine this overcoming.
The great Glinka writes music to the poems of the third-rate poet Kukolnik, and as a result - the brilliant “Doubt”, “Only the evening will warm up blue...” by Alexei Budishchev (who knows this poet now?) set to music by A. Obukhov (and who, tell me, knows this composer?). The result is a popular urban romance known as “The Wicket”, without which not a single evening of old romance is complete.
Or, finally, not at all the classic - everyday - romance “Only Once” by P. German - B. Fomin, but “touches the soul...”.
Classics and non-classics - poetic and musical - have equal rights, because both are addressed to everyone. And this is a remarkable feature of Russian romance, a socially conditioned and deeply democratic phenomenon, but with keen attention to the spiritual world of man.
Perhaps this is why V.I. Lenin was so sensitive and interestedly partial to Russian romance in its best examples, who at the same time perfectly understood the social purpose of art, the revolutionary-democratic views of the leading writers of Russia.
M. Essen recalls: “Lenin listened with great pleasure to Tchaikovsky’s romances “Night”, “Among the noisy ball”, “We sat with you by the sleeping river”, and Dargomyzhsky’s song “We were not married in a church”... What a relaxation, what a pleasure for Vladimir Ilyich there were our songs!.. They recited poems by Nekrasov, Heine, Beranger.”
Lenin's attraction to the elements of Russian romance with its deepest nationality and primordial love of freedom passed through his entire life, starting with youthful rehearsals with his younger sister Olga. D.I. Ulyanov recalls: they sang a duet “Our Sea is Unsociable”, “Wedding” by Dargomyzhsky; Vladimir Ilyich himself sang. It was "Pretty Eyes" Gaines:
...These wonderful eyes on the heart They sealed my sorrows, I'm completely dying from them, Dear friend, what more to look for...
“I’m dying” - it was necessary to strike a very high note, and Vladimir Ilyich said, stretching it out: “I’m already dead, completely dead...”. “It was sung... not only for words,” continues D.I. Ulyanov. - It was sung because his soul was really yearning for another life. Sang. But she didn’t languish, she wasn’t sad. In Vladimir Ilyich’s singing, I almost don’t remember the minor key. On the contrary, he always sounded brave, daring, high, and appealing.”
These short excerpts vividly testify to the place of music, Russian romance, Russian song in the life of V. I. Lenin. And in fact: in Russian romance, love of freedom and heroism naturally coexist with subtle lyricism and love experience, sadness and sadness - with a smile and barely noticeable irony.
“I AM SINGING ABOUT YOU AT HOMELAND...”
The meaning-forming core of the romance is universal. This is, as a rule, a lyrical confession, a story about love in its eternal variations of the first date, jealousy, betrayal, youthful timidity, hussar bravado, separation, leaving for another, a memory of lost love. Eternal stories, knowing neither temporal nor spatial boundaries. The universal basis of romance involves the removal of national borders, the internationalization of the genre while preserving the national identity of each individual work.
“I drink to Mary’s health...” Pushkin’s primary source is the poems of Barry Cornwell; “Mountain peaks...” of Lermontov were called by him “From Goethe”; “Evening Bells” by Thomas Moore, which has become a surprisingly Russian thing, is sung in Ivan Kozlov’s translation...
This is enough to feel that the foreign language sources of the named texts, moreover, still merged with music, are behind the scenes and flicker only as weak flashes of a former foreign language. Now these works are living facts of Russian culture, which appeared especially democratic in the romance.
The most prominent poets working in the genre of romance lyrics actively go into foreign language spaces, into neighboring cultures, so to speak, to collect material. Interesting in this regard creative biography“Songs of Zemfira” (“Old husband, formidable husband…”) by Pushkin, included in his poem “Gypsies”. Commentators testify: while in Chisinau, the poet was interested in local folklore. He was especially fascinated, recalls V.P. Gorchakov, “with the famous Moldavian song “Tyu oobeski pitimasura”. But with even greater attention he listened to another song - “Arde - ma - frage ma” (“Burn me, fry me”), with which already at that time he related us with his wondrous imitation...” Initially, the tune of the song was recorded for Pushkin by an unknown person and published with corrections by Verstovsky along with the text, preceded by the following entry: “We enclose the notes of the wild tune of this song, heard by the poet himself in Bessarabia.”
Something alien, which became one’s own with an extremely caring attitude towards this alien, with the most tender preservation of the originality of the “wild melody of this song”, which remained wild and at the same time poetically and musically cultural.
The international character of Russian song and Russian romance is obvious. Exceptions only confirm this assertion, substantiated by researchers. The poem “Native” by Feodosius Savinov - “I see a wonderful freedom...” (1885), which became a folk romance, is sung without the last stanza:
The “editorial” instinct of the singing people turned out to be impeccably accurate, protecting the basis of the foundations of Russian song, Russian romance - its universal human nature, alien to religious and chauvinistic obstacles and divisions.
At the same time, the national originality of the romance remains amazingly intact, striking the ears of Western connoisseurs of Russian romance and song creativity. One German philosopher XIX century he wrote admiringly: “...I would give all the benefits of the West for the Russian way of grieving.” This “manner of sadness,” which surprised him, is rooted in Russian history, including the history of Russian romance.
“RUSSIAN SONG” - “RUSSIAN SONG” - ROMANCE
Romance (Spanish romance, literally in Roman, that is, in Spanish) is a chamber musical and poetic work for voice with instrumental accompaniment. This is roughly how romance is defined in encyclopedic publications.
The dual nature of the genre is immediately revealed: musical - poetic, vocal - instrumental.
In some languages, romance and song are denoted by one word: among the Germans it is Lied, among the English it is Song, among the French it is Lais (epic folk songs). English romance means an epic ballad song, a knightly poem. Spanish romancero (romancero) - folk, most often heroic, romances specially combined into a complete cycle. The fact that the main thing in romance (heroic passion), in Russian romance is only an opportunity, overcoming the personal, intimate love principle, but testifying, however, to the close connection of Russian song and romance culture with the historical destinies of the people and the country.
Vladimir Dal places romance as a homogeneous word in the dictionary entry novel. He records the German and French origins of the concept of novel. Next come the interpretations of the words romantic and romantic, and only after that romance - “a song, a lyrical poem for singing with music.”
The word romance came to Russia in the middle of the 18th century. Then a romance was called a poem in French, necessarily set to music, although not necessarily French. But romance as a genre of Russian vocal and poetic culture was called differently - Russian song. This was an everyday romance, intended for solo one-voice performance with harpsichord, piano, harp, and guitar.
It was almost for the first time that romance as a title for a poem was used by Grigory Khovansky and Gavriil Derzhavin in their poetry books published in 1796. In any case, “A Pocket Book for Music Lovers for 1795” does not yet record this term as an independent poetic genre.
So, from the second half of the 18th century, the “Russian song”, or everyday single-voice romance, began.
The monophony of the “Russian song” is a fundamental phenomenon. The “Russian Song” was preceded by the so-called cant - a chant in three voices, followed by the replacement of the third voice with flute and violin accompaniment, turning it into a duet: the path to a one-voice song-romance, a work that captures personal destiny in its universal eventfulness. The second and third voices went to the listeners, listening to the inner voice of the lyrical hero.
One more significant point should be noted. G. N. Teplov, a composer and collector of cants from the 18th century, calls his, in fact, the first collection of this kind “Between things, idleness,” denoting the non-business nature of not only composing songs, but also listening to them. Everyone’s affairs are different, but in “idleness” people are equal in the empathy of universal human feelings. The three-voice cant, which has not yet become the monophony of the “Russian song,” indicates worldly nature genre.
Composers F. M. Dubyansky and O. A. Kozlovsky defined the musical image of the “Russian song” of the late 18th century. “Russian song” is a rather vague concept. It is as variegated in content as Kant’s concept is variegated and diverse. But a different poetics is obvious. The folk song element and the book culture of Kant naturally converged in this new genre, defining its bookish and folklore inconsistency, which reflected the peculiarities of Russian urban life of the late 18th - early 19th centuries in all its social and class heterogeneity. “Collection of Russian Songs” by V. F. Trutovsky (1776–1795) is, perhaps, the first collection of romance-like songs, or “poems,” as they were called then. An action in verse, a fragment of fate, a feeling in development.
By the turn of the century, the “Russian song” appeared in the following varieties: pastoral - shepherd - idyll, drinking song, elegiac song (close to classical romance), edifying chant, philosophical miniature. Poets Yuri Neledinsky-Meletsky, Ivan Dmitriev, Grigory Khovansky, Nikolai Karamzin work fruitfully in the genre of “Russian song”.
Combining texts into well-known musical images was a common phenomenon of that time. Poems “for voice” are evidence of the universal nature of music, but also of the popularity of these musical pieces. Individual destiny is based on a universally significant motive. Personal, not taken fully. Evidence of not yet overcome distrust of the individual - unique, valuable in itself.
The democratism of the “Russian song” made this genre a kind of tuning fork, revealing the true significance of a particular poet. For example, the ponderous epics of the classicist Mikhail Kheraskov have been forgotten, and his song “Lovely view, sweet eyes...” has survived not only its author, but has survived to this day.
These were songs for everyone - for the noble intelligentsia, urban philistinism, and peasants. Because they sang in these songs about happiness and unhappiness individual person, about the torments and “delights” of love, about betrayal and jealousy, about “cruel passion”, which was taken quite seriously then and only now, perhaps causing a condescending smile.
In the genre of “Russian song” the opposition of three artistic and aesthetic systems was overcome - classicist, sentimentalist, pre-romantic on the way to musical and poetic realism. Another removal of boundaries at the point of “completion of times”, carried out in the “Russian song”.
In the first decades of the 19th century, the “Russian song” was transformed into the so-called “Russian song” with its sentimental and romantic experiences. This was what could be called the everyday romance of those times.
“Russian Song” is addressed to folk poetry and assimilates its artistic and social experience. But even then, in the works of progressive thinkers of that time, who treated folklore with care, warnings against archaization and stylization were heard. They insisted on mastering the versifier experience of the “newest folk songs”, in contrast to conservative figures focused on the old days. The collections of “Folk Russian Songs” by I. Rupin and “Russian Songs” by D. Kashin (30s of the 19th century), as researchers note, were the first fundamental collections of “Russian songs” - a special form of Russian romance of the Pushkin-Glinka period.
The creative collaboration of the poet A. Merzlyakov and composer D. Kashin is evidence of the living development of the genre. About Merzlyakov, V.G. Belinsky wrote: “He was a powerful, energetic talent: what a deep feeling, what an immeasurable melancholy in his songs! “Among the flat valley...”, “Black-browed, black-eyed...” are masterpieces of song and romance lyrics by Alexei Merzlyakov.
“Not a fine autumn rain...”, “The Nightingale” are examples of the song-romance creativity of Anton Delvig, who in his own way comprehended the folk song origins and traditions of the contemporary “urban romance”. Composers A. Alyabyev, M. Glinka, A. Dargomyzhsky are his co-authors.
Nikolai Tsyganov and Alexey Koltsov are classics of “Russian song”. Their works most clearly reveal the features of this genre. “Don’t sew me, mother, a red sundress...” Tsyganova-Varlamova became a world-famous romance song. The same can be said about Koltsov’s “Khutorok”.
Studying the genre in its most characteristic examples allows us to determine its essential features. These are, first of all, conscious imitations of folk songs of trochaic, or trimeter (mainly dactylic), rhythmic pattern with inherent folk songs parallelisms, negative comparisons, repetitions, rhetorical appeals to birds, forest, river. Symbolic allegories are typical (he is a falcon, she is a dove or a cuckoo; river - separation, bridge - meeting); traditional attributes (the mother of cheese is the earth, a clean field, wild winds, silk grass, clear eyes, a beautiful maiden, good fellow); synonymous pairs (storm - bad weather, stranger - far side); flexural variations (diminutive suffixes, dactylic endings of poems); melodiousness, minor scale...
“Russian song” should be recognizable. People of different social groups empathize with the fate of others as if they were their own.
But the intensification of melodramatic moments broke the natural structure of the “Russian song” and exalted the melodic pattern. And then the Russian song-romance became a gypsy song-romance, a picture of gypsyism with its not so much “beautiful” as “luxurious” suffering, already satisfying other needs and aspirations. The boundary within the poetics of the genre itself.
At the same time, the “Russian song” is a poetic classic of the 30s of the 19th century. Let’s just name “The Ring of the Soul-Maiden...” by Zhukovsky, “Beautiful Maidens...” by Pushkin, “Scarily howling, howling...” by Baratynsky.
From the “Russian song”, brought to a complete “fatal” plot, rapidly developing, dialogically intonated, ornamented with ominous symbolism and with a tragic, as a rule, ending, a new variety of Russian romance grows - the romance ballad. Musical language also different: expressive, with a recitative-declamatory vocal part, a “stormy” accompaniment that recreates the natural background of the dramatic action. Again, going beyond the boundaries of the original genre into another variety. "Svetlana" by Zhukovsky - Varlamov, "Black Shawl" by Pushkin - Verstovsky, "Airship" by Lermontov - Verstovsky, "Wedding" by Timofeev - Dargomyzhsky, "Song of the Robbers" by Veltman - Varlamov - a transitional form within the romance-ballad. This is a “well done”, “robber” song. The crisis of the poetics of Russian romanticism was clearly reflected in the melodramatic vicissitudes of the so-called “cruel romance.”
But all this - the romance-ballad and its varieties - is a natural development of the “Russian song” as an everyday romance.
The romance-elegy becomes the artistic epicenter of Russian musical and poetic culture. Actually, this is romance in its classical character.
It is clear that the “purity of the genre” of the romance-elegy narrowed the circle of performers and the circle of listeners, giving it, at least in its time, a certain elitism in comparison with the “Russian song” and the romance-ballad. But the future turned out to be his - the romance-elegy, which took shape in the first half of the 19th century and grew out of the folk-poetic and folk-melodic song elements of the same time. The second half of our century listens to the romance classics of the past not as a musical and poetic rarity, but as the voice of a native and modern culture. They, these living examples, are not only in memory, but also in hearing: “I remember a wonderful moment...” Pushkin - Glinka, “I am sad because you are having fun...” Lermontov - Dargomyzhsky; later, second half of the 19th century- early 20th century, musical versions - “For the shores of the distant fatherland...” by Pushkin - Borodin, “Fountain” by Tyutchev - Rachmaninov. One has only to name how the text is reproduced, voiced, enters consciousness, and takes place.
But no less impressive and not quite equivalent communities: “I go out alone on the road...” Lermontov - Shashina, “The bell rattles monotonously...” Makarova - Gurilev.
The fundamental uncertainty of the formal and stylistic features of the romance-elegy distinguishes it from both the “Russian song” and the romance-ballad. It is here that the possibilities of creative individuality of both the poet and the composer are revealed. Accuracy psychological drawing, the realistic gesture of the lyrical hero, the meaningful nature of the accompaniment, the intensity of verbal and musical expression, rhythmic and melodic regularity - the features of this type of romance.
Not far from the romance-elegy there are other songs, close to it, but others about something else: romantic experiments on the themes of alien love and heroic events, perceived by the Russian song muse; freedom-loving songs of outcasts and imprisoned. The famous “Swimmer” (“Our sea is unsociable…”) by Yazykov - Vilboa is nearby. Let's add to this the free songs performed among the exiled Decembrists in the Herzen-Ogarevo circle. Many of them passed on to later times, testifying to the living revolutionary traditions of the people. At the other pole of song freedom live drinking, hussar, and student songs.
So, to mid-19th century century, the main artistic forms of Russian romance culture emerged, which determined its history in subsequent times.
The development of democratic tendencies in Russian literature required a radical revision of the understanding of the nationality of Russian art, including the phenomenon of “Russian song” in its archaic-stylized quality. External signs of a falsely understood nationality are no longer needed. The folk character of “book” poetry is no longer determined by “word of mouth” and “leavened” attributes. Genuine nationality lies elsewhere - in the deep comprehension of the Russian character, capable of leading Russia to new historical frontiers for the fulfillment of national aspirations. Reinterpretation of the “Russian song” as a kind of antique was necessary. Without this, the development of vocal lyricism as a realistic and generally democratic kind of Russian poetry would have become difficult. A calculation with the inhibitory influences of the “Russian song”, which became especially noticeable by the middle of the 19th century, was made by the democratic critic V.V. Stasov: “In the 30s, as we know, we had a lot of talk about nationality in art... They also wanted they demanded the impossible: an amalgam of old materials with new art; they forgot that old materials corresponded to their specific time and that new art, having already developed its forms, also needs new materials.”
Genuine nationality, which does not need pseudo-national surroundings, is new material, cast in new forms. For example, the same romance-elegy, precisely because of its formal uncertainty, turned out to be especially susceptible to all forms. And then the signs of “nationality” of the “Russian song” are just an unacceptable means for new goals and objectives: the objectives are internationally universal, and the means are national-ethnographic.
There was a long-term discussion about the nationality of Russian art, including vocal lyrics. The “founding fathers” of the “Russian song” were critically discussed: Delvig, Tsyganov, Koltsov. Was viewed with skepticism song creativity Surikova, Drozhzhna, Nikitina, Ozhegova. Musical authorities were also overthrown (for example, Alyabyev, including his and Delvig’s famous “Nightingale”). The contemptuous label “Varlamovism” with light hand A. N. Serova noted “Russian song” as a genre for a long time. There was a lot of polemic in this criticism, and therefore not entirely fair. But the main thing was grasped: the “Russian song” little by little gave way to everyday romance and a new song.
It would be unfair not to talk about the life of the “Russian song,” which at that time became, in the best examples, evidence of overcoming a genre within a genre (“Don’t scold me, dear...” by A. Razorenova, “Between the steep banks...” by M. Ozhegova). They, these truly popular songs, are accompanied by songs, so to speak, for group purposes. But because of this, their nationality is diminished. These are anthemic, propaganda, satirical songs, funeral marches. And here there are magnificent choral examples (“Tortured by heavy captivity...” by G. Machtet, “There is a cliff on the Volga...” by A. Navrotsky). Their vibrant life in the revolutionary-democratic environment of Russian society is well known. This is an obligatory choral background, setting off the monophony of the urban romance. On the border of choir and muteness. Between them is the voice of personal fate: lonely, and therefore all-heard and all-responsive in their own way to everyone. Romance truly lives in its lyrical separation from everything else - one voice set to music. The heart is in the palm of your hand, and the soul is in the people.
The second half of the 19th century was marked by an even sharper separation between “everyday” romance and “professional” romance. According to researchers, their ratio is also changing. Everyday romance, presented by its “non-professional” creators, finds itself on the periphery of culture, but that does not make it any less popular among its rather varied and not particularly aesthetically demanding audience. But there are genuine masterpieces here too. Let’s take Apukhtin’s “A Pair of Bays” beyond the walls of home classrooms; but within their walls they will still remain: “Under the fragrant branch of lilac...” by V. Krestovsky and “It was a long time ago... I don’t remember when it was...” by S. Safonov.
New composers are again turning to the romance lyre of the first half of the 19th century. Balakirev, for example, writes a romance based on Lermontov’s poems “Song of Selim.” The young people of the sixties listen to it so seriously that they sing it themselves not only in living reality, but also in artistic reality. (Remember the “lady in mourning” singing this thing in Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?”.)
“You will soon forget me...” Y. Zhadovskaya - Dargomyzhsky, “I came to you with greetings...” Fet - Balakirev, Tchaikovsky’s romances - “I would like in a single word...” (L. May), “Among the noisy ball...” ( A.K. Tolstoy), “I opened the window...” (K.R.). True masterpieces of romance lyrics of the second half-century of the golden nineteenth!
In many cases, romance in its musical and poetic integrity is the most reliable repository for those poetic works who would be lost without music.
The vocal and poetic life of nineteenth-century romance lyrics labeled “classical” continues in our century in new musical versions - by Rachmaninov, Taneyev, Prokofiev, Grechaninov, Glier, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Myaskovsky, Sviridov. Another border is the convergence of centuries: the classical nineteenth and the twentieth, open to all cultural sides of the world. New poetry is coming, which decades later will become new classics, including romance: Bunin, Blok, Yesenin, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Zabolotsky.
The romantic twentieth century, especially its first half, has a special mosaic coloring. " Spring waters"Tyutchev - Rachmaninov are adjacent to "The Pied Piper" by Bryusov - Rachmaninov, "In the Invisible Haze..." by Fet - Taneyev with the romance "Sad Night..." by Bunin - Gliere.
History of Russian romance - living history, and therefore has the right to count on the future. The liveliness of this story is akin to the genre: the story, like the romance itself, lives on the borders, in the incompleteness of formation. But this is exactly how someone who listens to a romance lives as their own or someone else’s lyrical destiny.
The time has come to turn to texts that can clarify the fundamental features of the genre, but again - at the moment when it itself goes beyond its own limits.
“WHEN WOULD HE KNOW...” - “TELL HER...”
Where does the song begin? Is it possible to find out the secret of the announcement of the word in romance singing, to reproduce this secret?
A comparison of the famous song - the romance-ballad “When I served as a coachman at the post office ...” with its original source (a poem by the Polish poet Vladislav Syrokomli translated by L. Trefolev) will help us understand how the original text is transformed into a song.
Let's look first at what they sing. The coachman may not be telling his story for the first time.
The death of his beloved, who suddenly appeared before him frozen in the middle of a snowy field. Actually, what else can I say? However, the last line of the song (“I can’t tell anymore”) suggests something more. But could there be anything more than this terrible horror in the middle of a field, wind and snow? And this is more that remains outside the text, each listener is called upon to personally speculate. And then what happened to the poor coachman happened to each of those listening. Of course, this is not exactly the case, but in the experience of possible interrupted love, the narrator and the listeners are equal.
Meanwhile, listening is active listening. The secret of the unsaid is deciphered by everyone in their own way. A romance-ballad monologue is, in fact, a dialogue, where the second voice (second voices) are the listeners and at the same time the unsung part of the coachman himself, which remains behind the text, but is mentally experienced by everyone as the unsung song of their own destiny.
Now let's look at the original source, which in its original form did not become a romance song. The poem is called "The Coachman". The beginning is purely narrative. The tavern's regulars ask the driver why he is so gloomy and unsociable; they ask him to tell him his grief, promising him a drunken glass and a tightly packed pipe in return. The coachman begins his story from the fourth stanza. from that very textbook line - “When I’m at the post office...”. At first the plot develops as in a song version. But... further!
Among the whistles of the storm I heard a groan, And someone asks for help. And snow flakes from different sides Someone gets carried away in the snowdrifts. I urge the horse to go and save it; But, remembering the caretaker, I’m afraid, Someone whispered to me: on the way back You will save the Christian soul. I felt scared. I could barely breathe My hands were shaking with horror. I blew the horn to drown it out Faint dying sounds.
Here is an inner voice about the return journey, and a horn that drowns out the “faint sounds of death,” and fear of the caretaker. Every gesture is motivated; future behavior is also motivated. There is nothing left for speculation. The story is equal to itself. Voice upon voice, extinguishing one another. The supposed denouement is contained in the last stanzas:
And so at dawn I go back. I still felt scared And, like a broken bell, it’s out of tune My heart beat timidly in my chest. My horse got scared before the third mile And he ruffled his mane angrily: There the body lay, a simple canvas Yes, covered with snow...
It turns out that not only the death of his beloved ruined the life of the unfortunate coachman, but also reproaches of conscience to the end of his life. Fate is spelled out in its entirety and without omissions. There is no gap between the accomplished and the possible. The listener only listens to what happened not to him. The text in this form cannot be a romance-song, but it can become (which, in fact, it became) material for reciters, concert number in its epic completeness. The lyrical openness in the text does not appear in a single line. You can cry, but you can't sing. But... I want to sing. The last stanza convinces us of this:
I shook off the snow - and my bride I saw extinct eyes... Give me wine, let's hurry, There is no point in telling further!
As you can see, the endings are almost the same. But if in the romance version speculation is possible, then in the original source it is only a rhetorical figure; but it’s still such rhetoric that it forces you to “edit” the text, take it into a song-romantic voice - turn it to everyone individually, and only because of that - to everyone. And the original text is for everyone, but not for everyone, because everything is told and therefore has become an instructive example.
And one more feature of the romance style. Compare two single-sense endings - the source poem and the ballad romance:
Give me some wine, let's hurry...
Pour, pour me some wine quickly...
The romantic gesture is more expressive, although here it is purely external. Much more important are the internal gestures of life itself, experienced by listeners of the romance-song in its intensely developing feeling, with visual realities. A. N. Tolstoy said: “You cannot fully feel an ancient lullaby without knowing, without seeing a black hut, a peasant woman sitting by a splinter, turning a spindle and rocking a cradle with her foot. A blizzard over the torn roof, cockroaches biting the baby. The left hand spins the wave, the right hand turns the spindle, and the light of life is only in the light of a splinter, falling like embers in the trough. Hence all the internal gestures of a lullaby.”
The coachman's story is close to the hearts of the listeners. After all, a snowy field, a snoring horse, a gusty wind, rearing snow, a secret hidden behind every bush and under every snowdrift - this is their field, their horse, the wind of their winters and their bad weather, their bushes and snowdrifts that keep the secret of their lives. And in a song there can only be external gestures, but they certainly point to the internal gestures of the everyday life of those who, listening, relive the romance.
To tell a personal fate means to abolish it as a romantic event, a romantic fate; suppress the possibility of dialogue, the initiative of the second voice; declassify the secret.
Let us turn again to the living element of Russian romance.
Before us is the poem by Evdokia Rostopchina “If only he knew!”:
If only he knew that with a fiery soul I secretly merge with his soul! If only he knew that bitter melancholy My young life is poisoned! If only he knew how passionately and how tenderly He, my idol, is loved by his slave... If only he knew that in hopeless sadness I will wither away, not understood by them!.. If only he knew!.. If only he knew... in the soul of his murder Love would speak its tongue again And the half-forgotten delight of youth It would warm him up and revive him again! And then, lucky girl!.. loved... Maybe they would love him! Hope flatters insatiable melancholy; He doesn’t love... but he could love! If only he knew!
It would seem that all you can do is sing this amazingly romantic poem! But no...
The first two stanzas (the second is omitted here) demand an answer, are addressed to it, ask questions, suggest a second voice, are confident in it, they themselves are filled with it. They are the first voice. They are themselves and... second.
But an answer is needed at this very moment. And so here it is - the last - stanza, with the desired answers, in fact, with one comprehensive answer; but the answer suggested by the one who asks.
The mystery has been abolished. What would a romance be without her?! Is this why the poem became a romance without this stanza that abolishes the mystery?
But this does not exhaust the vocal fate of the poem by Evdokia Petrovna Rostopchina, whose poetry was favorably treated by Zhukovsky, Pushkin, and Lermontov.
The affected questioning of the answer, in fact, caused the final stanza, rejected in musical and vocal existence. But the answer came from the outside - from N. A. Dolgorukov:
Tell her that with a fiery soul I secretly merge with her soul. Tell her that with bitter melancholy My young life is poisoned. Tell her how passionately and how tenderly I love her like a cherub God. Tell her that you are hopelessly sad I will wither away, soulless and unloved, Tell her!..
“If only he knew” and “Tell her!” composed a complete vocal and poetic composition: Rostopchina - Dolgorukov. Here we could put an end to this “ musical history" But…
At first hearing, all of Rostopchina’s questions are extinguished by Dolgorukov’s answers, as if composed exactly from the words of the questioner. The unsaid has been said. The first voice and the second voice merged into one. The romance with its mystery awaiting an empathetic response has disappeared. The question and answer became a concert number. But is this true?
Reading into the text casts doubt on everything that was first heard.
The one who answers considers her soulless, his soullessness and lack of love, like ice, chilling him loving soul; and his pretense and his coldness are forced. The answers are, of course, parodies, but parodies with a catch, with a game that leaves the possibility of the mystery of the unsaid. The romance continues, lives, inviting you to listen to yourself; attracts empathy.
Dolgorukov's parody answer, in addition to this direct task, is also the first reaction of the first listener of the original. The response romance does not replace the third stanza of the original, removed in the version for performance. This is a listener's speculation; but open speculation is personal, and therefore not for everyone. It is one of the possible ones. The discrepancy remains. Romance lives in the personal destinies of listeners as an individual and collective experience. Parody, in its fidelity to the nature of the object being parodied, reveals this with particular expressiveness. But is this true? And if so, then to what extent is this true?
It’s like a direct duel of romance gestures, their dialogic clash. Word for word. Speech to speech. But... let's listen: “If only he knew...” - “Tell her...”. About each other - in the third person. An appeal to a certain third person, who must, appointed by her and him as a mediator, convey her questions and convey his answers. In this third there are two love destinies as if they are objectified, becoming public property. A personal secret degenerates into an open secret. It is removed, made “out of sight.” The “redundancy” of the author-heroes is erased. The source texts become equal to themselves. But the love situation in this detachment through an objectified intermediary is fully aestheticized, framed as an object of admiration. The ethical goes beyond the text. What remains is “beautiful” in its parodic-objective purity. And the “suffering” disappears. The romance was really played like a number in a concert. And the romance substance is ready for exhibition. The miracle of “beautiful suffering” disappears, but reveals its nature.
Examples of romance classics also reveal the dialogical nature of the confessional lyrical monologue within themselves. “Doubt” by the Puppeteer - Glinka - the clearest example romance conjugate two-voice, manifested in one voice. An invitation to listen and participate in an intensely significant pause between “insidious vows” and no less “insidious slander.” Neither the author nor the listener is given a choice; but you are given the choice. And this is the satisfaction of romance aspirations for adherents of the genre, without which their personal life is not only incomplete, but is hardly possible at all. And then the album’s “excitements of passion” will not at all offend the sophisticated ears of connoisseurs of truly poetic words, if they, these connoisseurs, listen to romance today.
Romance attracts the listener to empathize not with lines, but with a living feeling, ready for development. Perception is based on the stable modality of the romance event, appealing to complicit sympathy.
Lensky's famous aria from Tchaikovsky's opera "Eugene Onegin" "Where, where have you gone...", a farewell before his absurd death in a duel, is unlikely to evoke in the memory of an opera lover the way of introducing this lyrical digression into the text of Pushkin's novel. And this method is deliberately mocking. Listen:
Poems have been preserved just in case. I have them. Here they are: “Where, where have you gone, The golden days of my spring..."
The author's attitude towards his hero is immediately clarified by the context. But the composer’s attitude towards Pushkin, now towards his own hero, does not imply this context. The destruction of the stanza structure at the beginning of the aria is not significant for the vocal and musical development of the theme. The text is rethought, but the word music is preserved.
And now let’s return again to the folk element of Russian romance.
The voice of personal fate is adjacent to the voice of people's fate. These voices interact, transform into one another, and become almost indistinguishable. Pushkin’s “Prisoner” (“I’m sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon...”), as an example of purely verbal, non-musical lyricism, became a popular romance in the 70s of the 19th century, sung to a now well-known tune that arose in the song tradition of the revolutionary populist intelligentsia.
Personal lyrical love of freedom becomes folk-epic love of freedom. Individual authorship fades into history, but the longing for the will and desire for it of the oppressed people, singing this thing as a collective author, remains.
The “prisoner”, freedom-loving motif in romance and song creativity runs through the entire pre-revolutionary history of vocal and poetic genres.
In other guises, a different, no longer Pushkin’s, “Prisoner” emerges as a “new folk song”at the beginning of the 20th century - the famous “The sun rises and sets...”, which our contemporary can hear at performances of M. Gorky’s play “At the Depths”. “Tramp love of freedom” is an accurate description of this work, reflecting its existence in various social environments precisely at that time, the time of the maturation of the Russian Revolution of 1905.
And again, an almost direct reminiscence of Pushkin’s text: “The young eagle flies by will...”. Of course, with alterations and options. But what is important here is this: the romance-song word, first spoken by the poet, is greater than itself; it continues to live its own life, independent of the original source, capturing the social experience of the people, the experience of their soul, sensitively responding to historical time, the time of possible social changes in the life of the country. Thus, in the lyrical-epic word, the people's aspirations, hidden for the time being, seem to be realized.
But perhaps the most amazing thing is the personal-social duet of two solidary voices in the work of one poet. Thus, the march-revolutionary “Varshavyanka”, “Rage, Tyrants” and “Elegy”, marked by civic pathos, but strikingly personal, belong to the pen of one person. This is V.I. Lenin’s friend and comrade-in-arms, Gleb Maximilianovich Krzhizhanovsky, who in his own way comprehended and embodied in his works the traditions of Russian romance and song creativity.
“AH, THESE ARE BROTHERS, ABOUT ANOTHER THING!”
Now it is already obvious: to talk about romance, you need to talk about what it is not, but could become one under certain conditions. This research situation corresponds to the nature of our subject - internally borderline, structurally contradictory, living as a cultural integrity on the borders.
Let's remember these roll calls and crosshairs once again.
We thought about the suffering soul, but we had to talk about beautiful word; they tried to penetrate the aesthetics of romance, but talked about the ethics of love; delved into the mystery of reverently listening to the romance word, and came out of the 19th century into the present century; We were going to listen to the romance classics of the golden nineteenth century, but we heard the romances of the new day; They talked about the musical and poetic delights of the ear, but touched on almost the most important thing - what romance gives a person in his life, making up for what is missing, but necessary.
They considered the romance a song of a special purpose and a special artistic quality, but it immediately turned out that the romance is more than itself. With a certain turn of thought, it can be a drama, a story.
We delved into the romance word, and it became music, which in itself - separately - was just waiting to be verbally told, to be explained.
Romance was considered poetic and musical classics, when suddenly it turned out that “professionalism” and “perfection of forms” are the tenth thing.
Talking about romance, we lived in Russia; but ended up in Spain and Persia, on the hills of sad Georgia in the darkness of the night. And only then, with even greater force, did they again listen to the bright sadness of Russian romance.
We were about to drop in to listen to romantic elegies in the exquisite music salons and living rooms of the nineteenth century, when a simple, publicly accessible song suddenly flew into those same salons.
Turning to etymology revealed new boundaries - philological, linguistic properties. And immersion in history revealed the genre uncertainty of romance as a musical and poetic phenomenon.
Analysis of specific texts revealed the internal dialogic nature of the genre, the need for a second voice, suggested by the first voice of the lyrical hero of the personal and universal vicissitudes of a love event.
They were talking about something else, but they still talked about romance. We thought about romance, but touched upon personal, human existence, which in its non-romance existence is incomplete and flawed.
Romance as a general cultural human value, a necessary fragment of human existence, is a natural combination of authenticity and dreams. He is aspiration embodied. Even if the one who listens to the romance is in old age, then even then he will take his own from the romance: the aspiration will appear as it was in his youth (“Once upon a time we were trotters...”). More than that. Romance gives the illusion of the attainability of the unattainable.
Russian romance is a phenomenon national culture, but a special kind of phenomenon. He has the property of being in it and at the same time, as it were, going beyond its limits, revealing a peculiar accomplishment of the times of a separate human destiny- remembering the past, calling to the future, fully testifying to the illusory realized “beautifully-suffering” present.
Russian romance is a living lyrical response from the soul of a people creating its own heroic history.
Without exaggeration, the most famous singer from Kazan in the world can be called Yulia Ziganshina, performer of ancient and modern Russian romances, domestic and foreign songs, Honored Artist of Tatarstan. She has been developing and supporting such a unique genre as “Russian romance” for many years, visiting various parts of the world with concerts and running the “Kazan Romance” salon in her hometown. “Russian Planet” talked with the singer about what changes the genre has undergone over the past few centuries, and what it can give to modern man.
- Julia, how has Russian romance changed over the course of its history?
Romance came to Russia at the end of the 18th century from Spain, where street musicians began to sing not in Latin and not about the love of God, but in their native Romance language and about love for a woman. In our country, romance fell on fertile soil; society felt the need for sentimental personal experiences. The romances fell into the reliable hands of the great poets and composers of the Golden Age - Pushkin, Glinka, Lermontov, Dargomyzhsky. The next surge is at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, when the salon, everyday romance is born. It is interesting that during this period, romances, with some exceptions, were written to poems by semi-professional poets. High poetry Silver Age ahead of its time, it was sometimes incomprehensible to the average person. And romance is a human genre, earthly in every sense of the word. Romances began to be written based on Silver Age poems at the end of the 20th century. And cinema played an important role in the history of romance of this time. In the 1920s, the government decided that romance was an alien, bourgeois genre; performing and writing it was life-threatening. And he returned to the masses only along with the poetry of the Silver Age through films such as “The Irony of Fate” and “Cruel Romance.”
- What happened to the romance in terms of plots and the range of feelings it expresses?
Musically, intonationally, of course, something changes. Human thinking develops and vocabulary expands. We began to think more complexly, although this is not always necessary. Romances today are often performed with orchestras, previously mostly with guitar and piano. The range of feelings in the romance - from categorical hatred to deep love. Moreover, we are talking about earthly love in all its nuances - the expectation of love, love as a memory, bright or sad, love in the process.
- What kind of sensory experience and what technique should a performer of a romance have?
All genres require labor and work from the performer. But I am sure that romance is the most complex genre despite its apparent simplicity. There is still an opinion that romance is a trinket that is easy to perform. Many dramatic, opera and jazz artists think that singing a romance is very simple: “If I sing an opera, won’t I really sing a romance?” But you won’t sing! There are catastrophically few real romance singers.
Let me explain. Opera, in my opinion, is about vocals. Jazz is freedom. An author's song is a text. Folklore is a state. Rock music is about rhythm. Pop music is show and exterior. But romance is a sense of proportion. And with this feeling, as you know, the greatest tension is not only in music. A romance also requires vocals, and competent and delivered ones, however, if there is too much of it, then, as a rule, the text disappears. When there are few vocals, this is also bad, because romance is still vocal genre, without vocals it turns out to be an amateur performance. The text should also be in moderation: you can’t have enough: romance is dramatic work, and you can’t do too much - there is a danger of going into the author’s song.
The state is necessary, but just enough so that in three or even two verses you have time to immerse yourself in the work, immerse the listener, and come out of there together - impressed, inspired. Show and exterior are necessary. A concert costume, and not a simple one, but an appropriate one, is an integral part of the romance program. A show, or better yet, a mini-theater, is the basis of a romance concert, but again in moderation so that the spectacle does not overshadow the romance itself; after all, romance is a fragile, easily vulnerable genre, and the “interior” in it is no less important than the exterior.
Russian romance is a brand, it is unique, says Yulia Ziganshina. Photo: from personal archive
As for personal experience, it is not required. The singer must be observant and imaginative, able to arouse feelings - from his past, present and imaginary life, from the memory of ancestors, and so on. This is called memory of the heart.
- WhatAre you a fan of romance today?
This is a man who just has life experience. Of course, these are mostly people who are... How much? It's hard to say. I sang romances to a children's audience, and the children listened with interest. Who didn’t fall in love in the first grade or experience feelings in the seventh? Experience that is beyond the control of years, which can be gained at 7, and at 25, and at 70. There is a person who has lived his whole life and has not understood anything. Listeners belong to different social strata. It happens at concerts more women: I think because they are not afraid to show their feelings, men tend to be reserved.
- What does romance give to modern man?
An opportunity to feel like a person, to remember your feelings. Many people say that romance heals their soul. What kind of treatment is this? Tension is relieved, feelings and thoughts come into harmony, and the heart is cleansed.
- How is Russian romance received in the world?
I often perform abroad - not only for Russian audiences, but also for foreigners. For example, I recently returned from Italy, there was a concert in Parma for an Italian audience, there we worked with translators of Russian literature: before each romance, I talked a little about the romance itself, conveyed it summary, so that the audience understands where to direct their feelings. And it works.
Russian romance is a brand. He is unique. There is no analogue to this genre anywhere. Everything that is sung with a guitar abroad is more like an art song than a romance. The genre of everyday salon romance cannot be found in any other country. However, as often happens with us, we treat our loved ones badly.
- In romanceIs continuity important?
Now there are a number of singers who have taken the style of performers of the early 20th century and joyfully sit on it. I think this is unacceptable. When they tell me that this is the same as Vertinsky or Piaf, I answer that I’d rather listen to the original. Singers who copy achieve some success, they have fans, but they do not need fresh experiences, but the past, memories, antiques.
There is the other side of the issue - a complete denial of what was done before you. As they say, nothing is sacred. And again, the viewer can be attracted by such “innovation”, but, alas, not for long, because this speaks more of the artist’s stupidity than of originality: without taking into account the experience accumulated over centuries, he shows either lack of education or laziness. Here again the question arises about a great sense of proportion - where is the line so as not to fall into copying, but also not to leave the source? And here it is important to find guidelines.
- Why did you choose romance in your life?
Professionally, it all started when I became a laureate of the 1998 Romansiada competition. But long before that I was interested in this genre; in my early youth I tried to sing romances, but I could not learn the words by heart - I did not see the point in them. I was attracted to romances by their melody, a kind of languid melancholy, which, of course, was familiar to me, but I could not understand what they were about. And suddenly - the film “Cruel Romance”! An exact hit on me with an incredible combination of words, melody, guitars, keys, matching my condition, modernity of sound with the general surroundings of the 19th century! And most importantly - the voice! A voice where the text and experience were in the foreground. I can’t even say that it was the voice that struck me: real romance singers do not have a voice in its pure form - it is always a combination of sound, words, meaning and feeling. Then I bought a vinyl record and listened to it until I stumbled and scratched. And a strange thing - after some time, through the modern romances that were heard in the film, there came an understanding and awareness of what was being done in old romances- they acquired meaning, they contained logic, development, and an idea!
It is believed that romance originally appeared in Spain, in the 15th-16th centuries. Then the Spaniards called any poem written in a Romanesque “non-Latin” language a romance. The poem was not necessarily lyrical, it could talk about historical events and military exploits of heroes. In countries neighboring Spain, such poems were called ballads. From them musical works called “romances” were born. Set to music, they turned into small songs - usually with a four-line stanza without a refrain.
In the 18th century, romance reached France and Germany, and then to Russia. For us, “romance” meant a little musical composition, but exclusively of lyrical content, performed by voice and accompanying instrument. The greatest influence on the development of romance in Europe was exerted by the work of poets Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Heinrich Heine, composers Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Jules Massenet and Charles Gounod.
The genre of Russian romance took shape at the beginning of the 19th century in the wake of the wave that swept the domestic music world romanticism. The most famous romances of that period belonged to Alexander Varlamov. Then the romance took its rightful place in the works of the most famous Russian composers -,.
Many of the most popular romances of our time were written at the beginning of the 20th century. They are classified as urban, gypsy, “cruel romance”. At that time, romances were written by amateur composers such as Boris Fomin, Boris Prozorovsky, and Marie Poiret. And it was precisely this period that can be called the golden age of Russian romance: performances by Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Anastasia Vyaltseva, and Vera Panina filled the halls.
In the post-revolutionary years, romance was persecuted as a bourgeois relic that was corrupting the proletariat and peasantry. But even during this difficult period for romance, Isabella Yuryeva, Alexander Vertinsky, and Tamara Tsereteli continued to perform it with success. Many of these musicians emigrated to Europe, taking with them Russian romance, which was able to conquer even the public who did not understand the Russian language. For example, Boris Fomin’s romance “The Long Road,” “exported” by Alexander Vertinsky, was so loved by Europeans that a new, English text arose to Fomin’s music, and the British are to this day confident that the song was written on the shores of Foggy Albion.
Years later, Alla Bayanova, Alexander Vertinsky, Isabella Yuryeva returned to Russia and continued their careers in our country with incredible success. Romance has forever remained one of the most beloved musical genres in Russia, both among listeners and performers.
Target: acquaintance with the modern development of the romance genre.
educational: teach how to apply existing knowledge to modern music; introduce examples of modern romance;
developmental: development of independent thinking and creative activity of students;
educational: education of aesthetic taste and cognitive interest.
Equipment: stereo, CD, computer, piano.
Lesson structure:
Organizational moment;
Repetition;
New material;
Presentation;
Interview;
Listening to music;
Analytical work;
Listening to music;
Micro-summarization;
Problem-search situation;
Relaxation;
Reflection;
Performing a song.
Types of activities: thinking, interviewing, analytical, creative, listening, vocal and choral.
Teaching methods: retrospective method, emotional dramaturgy, reproductive, problem presentation, partial search, generalization method.
Technologies: cooperation, formation of listening and performing culture, health preservation.
UUD: personal, cognitive, regulatory.
On the board: topic of the lesson.
Lesson progress
Organizational moment: musical greeting, announcement of the topic of the lesson.
U: One of the genres of music related to romanticism is romance. Remember what romance is?
Student answers. View the presentation.
U: The history of this genre is as follows: romance is a Spanish term. The era of the emergence of Spanish R. is difficult to determine. The oldest poems known to us date back to the 15th, rarely to the 14th centuries. Initially, the term R. denoted a secular song in the Romance, that is, Spanish, language.
This term came to Russia from France and initially denoted works written specifically in French text. Such romances, following fashion, were composed in large numbers by Russian composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Works written in Russian text were called Russian songs. Over time, the meaning of the word romance expanded and the term began to mean a work for voice with accompaniment, written in a more complex form than a song.
The beginning of the heyday of romance --- the first half of the 19th century, a period generally characterized by a special interest in lyrical art, expressing inner world human personality. At this time, Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Alyabyev, Varlamov created their works. In the second half XIX century and at the beginning of the 20th century, the names of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky - Korsakov, Rachmaninov were added to the names of the first classics of romance. The romances they created are still constantly heard in concert programs, enjoying the unflagging love of listeners.
Romance, like song, by its very nature is associated with poetry.
Good poems seem to “ask to be set to music.” Russian romance essentially reflects the entire history of Russian poetry, from Pushkin and even from his predecessors to the present day.
In the 20th century, before the revolution, romance largely gave way to the so-called. “thieves” songs; the latter are widely found among the bourgeoisie, and through it penetrate into the villages, competing with ditties related to them in theme (“suffering”).
In the post-revolutionary period, romance and “thieves” songs are still partly preserved in urban and rural environments as a kind of street folklore (“Murka”, songs of street children, etc.). Often their themes are influenced by low-quality pop production (“Gop with a bow”, “Black eyes”, “At the samovar, me and my Masha”).
In the post-October era, romance is gradually being introduced into the life of not only the various intelligentsia, but also the working class. The “face” of the romance, its content and richness are changing, becoming more appropriate to our era.
W: Do you think romances are created by our modern poets and composers?
Student answers (usually mixed).
T: Based on the definition of romance, try to find and give examples of modern romance.
Student answers.
W: Then let's listen to the recording.
One of M. Tariverdiev’s romances from the film “The Irony of Fate” is playing.
W: A familiar piece, isn’t it? Do you know who the authors are and who performs this romance?
Answers. Teacher's resume.
U: Let's listen to another fragment from the same movie. Find out the artist, you know well who it is. (A. Pugacheva)
U: This film contains romances based on poems by M. Tsvetaeva and B. Akhmadullina, the most famous poetesses of the 20th century. Here's another romance. Do you remember him and where he is from? (The romance “And finally, I’ll say” from the movie “Dowry” is played).
Interview.
Micro-generalization: the romance genre exists in our time, integrated with the art of cinema.
U: It would be wrong to think that in our time romances are written only for films. Modern romances are also performed in concerts. In the repertoire of many famous performers there are romances written in our time. Guess which famous singer performs a new, modern romance?
Problem-search situation. (A. Malinin, V. Tsyganova, Zh. Bichevskaya, G. Besedina, E. Otradnaya... Fragments of the romances “Vain Words”, “You told my fortune by my hand”) are heard.
U: Romance, by nature, can be different, depending on the text. Do you remember the stormy nature of the romance “Spring Waters” by S. Rachmaninov and his calm “Island”? Now I offer you relaxation to the sound of a calm romance performed by Zhenya Otradnaya. Take 3 deep breaths through your nose and exhale through your mouth (breathing exercises, “Flower” exercise). Sit back and immerse yourself in the music...
Listening to “Romance” in Spanish. E. Otradnaya.
Conclusion: modern romance exists and is in demand; he preserved the basics of classical romance. It is performed by famous contemporary singers.
Reflection:
What new did you learn in the lesson?
What did you like?
What didn't you like?
U: Romances are usually performed solo. I hope you're singing solo at home. And here we will all perform together a modern bard song “Spring Tango”. Lyrics and guitar are the two unifying genres of romance and bard song.
Performing a song.
Homework: create a presentation “Modern Romance”.
Exit from the classroom to the sound of the romance “I asked the ash tree” performed by S. Nikitin.
In music there are many genres, forms and varieties of vocal and instrumental pieces. Know the characteristics of each musical element Only a professional in this field is obliged, but it is advisable for everyone to understand what the most common ones are. Therefore, in this article we will look at what romance is, how long ago it was born and in what area of creativity it can be found.
Origin of the term
The word "romance" itself has Spanish roots and means a song performed by a voice accompanied by one or more instruments. In this country in past centuries, this genre was more like serenades that men in love sang under the windows of their lovers. In the Middle Ages, when romance had just established itself in the world of art as an independent genre, it had a pronounced text, the text was drawn-out, its meaning concerned exclusively love themes. It was also characteristic that plays of such content were performed only with the national Spanish instrument - the guitar.
What is romance from a musical point of view?
It is believed that this vocal-instrumental genre is the most harmonious among all its analogues. This is due to the fact that in a romance, every word, every sung syllable is emphasized by its corresponding note. That's why professional musician can immediately distinguish whether a simple tune sounds or whether the words, as a rule, are placed above the musical text, and as a result they can be sung or played on some instrument, and then combine both processes.
What is romance in the broad sense of the word?
These works gained wide popularity in the second half of the 18th century, and by the 19th century entire schools of romances had already formed. This happened because, firstly, the end of the 18th century was the Golden Period in Russian literature, and an equally significant period of time in the history of development European art. In those years, such authors as Lermontov, Pushkin, Goethe, Fet and many others wrote their masterpieces. Their poems were so melodic that they became the text for musical works.
Secondly, the romance gradually ceased to be considered an exclusively Spanish love song and acquired a broader, secular meaning. Russian romances appeared, written by such composers as Sviridov, Mussorgsky, Varlamov and so on. Along with them, German, French, and Italian vocal and instrumental pieces arose, which were performed at social events and receptions.
Modern romances
Nowadays, it is rare to hear such a melody at any event, and even performed talented singer(or singers). However, every child who studies at a music school knows very well what romance is. Children who are naturally gifted in a beautiful voice and can perform in front of an audience, they always perform such works. As a rule, they have to choose from the classics, so students sing compositions written by Prokofiev, Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, with poems by no less famous geniuses of the pen.
