Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Alyabyev (1787-1851) - Overture in f
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Composer: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Alyabyev (1787-1851)
Work: Overture in f
Performers: Mοscοw PhiIharmonic Orchestra
Painting: Gérard de la Barthe (1730-1810) - View from the balcony of the Moscow Kremlin Palace in the Moskvoretsky bridge (1797)
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2jbpWmd
Further info: https://www.amazon.com/Alyabyev-W-Mozart-J-Hummel/dp/B000XSG4JK
Listen free: https://open.spotify.com/album/5j3WnMaNy1xYoKvUfX7iSu
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Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Alyab'yev [Александр Александрович Алябьев]
(Tobol'sk, 4 August 1787 - Moscow, 22 February 1851)
Russian composer. Alyab'yev’s father, the governor of Tobol'sk, was a pioneer of local culture; his brother, Vasily, was a poet and playwright. At 14 Alyab'yev entered government service and in 1812 enlisted with the army; during the war he participated in the army’s entry into Dresden and Paris. He was discharged from the service in 1823. Alyab'yev displayed considerable musical talent at an early age. When he was 16 he studied with Heinrich Miller in St Petersburg; later he took piano lessons with John Field, to whom he dedicated his Grande polonaise (1811). His first large-scale composition was a string quartet in E flat major (1815), which shows a gift for instrumental part-writing and melody as well as an effective use of mild chromatic harmonies. It was the first of many chamber works which included two more string quartets, a trio in A minor for piano, violin and cello, a wind quintet in C minor, a violin sonata in E minor and several unfinished ensemble pieces. Early in the 1820s Alyab'yev started to compose for the stage. His earliest vaudeville, Novaya shalost', ili Teatral'noye srazheniye, composed in collaboration with A.N. Verstovsky and L. Maurer to a text by Nikolay Khmel'nitsky, was given in Moscow in 1822; its success led to the production of two new works in the following year, Lunnaya noch', ili Domovïye, Alyab'yev's first venture into comic opera (libretto by P.A. Mukhanov and P.N. Arapov), and his most popular vaudeville, Derevenskiy filosof, to a text by M.N. Zagoskin. It was at the same time that he wrote his famous song Solovey to words by Anton Delvig. Several prima donnas, including Pauline Viardot, Adelina Patti and Marcella Sembrich, incorporated this song into the singing-lesson scene in Act 2 of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia; it was later also transcribed for piano by Liszt, and was used by Glinka as the theme for a set of piano variations. Alyab'yev composed about 170 songs to texts chosen widely from the literary and poetic works of his contemporaries, including Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Lermontov and Ogaryov. In a card game on 12/24 February 1825, Alyab'yev allegedly struck one of his guests, who died some days later.
Alyab'yev was imprisoned, and, after legal proceedings lasting nearly three years, was found guilty of murder and exiled to his native town in 1828. Although the evidence was inconclusive, the imperial authorities were clearly anxious for Alyab'yev to be away from the capital, most probably because of his connection with eminent figures in the Decembrist movement. Alyab'yev continued to compose vaudevilles in prison and during his Siberian exile contributed much to local musical life, conducting and organizing concerts. His compositions of this period include a symphony in E minor, inscribed ‘Tobol'sk 1830; 30 October’, of which only the first movement survives. In 1831 he was allowed to travel from Tobol'sk to the Caucasus to cure an eye complaint. Here he met the Decembrist poet Aleksandr Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, author of the novella on which Alyab'yev’s final opera Ammalat-Bek was based. While in the south Alyab'yev became interested in folk music and in 1834 published a collection devoted entirely to Ukrainian melodies. On medical advice he moved north to Orenburg and arrived in Moscow in 1836, remaining there, with only brief trips away, until his death. The years in Moscow were successful both professionally and privately: he became established as a composer, particularly of stage music, and in 1840 married Yekaterina Aleksandrovna Ofrosimova (née Rimsky-Korsakov). Shortly after his arrival in Moscow he produced incidental music to three plays, his brother Vasily’s Otstupnik, ili Osada Korinfa in 1837, Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Pushkin’s Rusalka, both in 1838. He also wrote two Shakespearean operas in the 1830s: Burya, and Volshebnaya noch', composed in 1838-39 and based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Alyab'yev continued to compose in spite of ill-health, working on the opera 'Rïbak i rusalka, ili Zloye zel'ye' between 1841 and 1843 and on his last opera, Ammalat-Bek, from 1842 to 1847; the latter was the inspiration behind an opera of the same name by Nikolay Afanas'yev, performed in 1870. #ClassicalMusic