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Slavyanskaya Tarantella

play time 4:45


Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomïzhsky

Born in Troistkoye, Russia on February 14, 1813
Died in Saint Petersburg, Russia on January 17, 1869


Alexander Dargomïzhsky was born on one of his father's estates
as the family fled there to avoid the invading French Army under
Napoleon. Later moving to Saint Petersburg as a boy, he received
the ordinary training of aristocratic youth, including music lessons.

He became a government official in 1827 and was promoted regularly.
After meeting Mikhail Glinka in 1833, he decided to make music his
vocation and studied harmony and composition by borrowing Glinka's
notebooks taken during his studies with Siegfried Dehn in Berlin.

Glinka's music tended to be idealistic and lyrical, whereas Dargomïzhsky
composed a large number of songs in a more realistic and dramatic style,
many becoming popular. He resigned his government position in 1835
and began moving in fashionable circles, he becoming well known as an
amateur pianist and a composer of dilettante drawing-room songs.

After traveling abroad, he returned with a new nationalistic feeling
and started studying Russia's folk music and its typical speech intonations,
imitating these in his music, striving for direct expression of texts on everyday
subjects through a declamatory vocal line and simple chordal accompaniment.

In 1864 he visited Western Europe, but was able to gain a hearing only
in Belgium, where he performed his orchestral fantasies. On his return he
associated himself with Mily Balakirev's nationalist group,without
actually joining it.

Dargomïzhsky's main musical legacy was his ideas about musical
drama, giving him an important position in Russian music history.
He was the one that bridged the gap in Russian opera composition
between Mikhail Glinka and the later generation of "The Five"
(Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin) and Tchaikovsky.

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