This is the unedited version of my article on the five founders of the Russian art-song tradition which, once edited, will be published onto RBTH.com. Please enjoy reading.
With a devotion to conveying the honest messages of the human soul, the Russian romance has become an everlasting symbol of not only Russia’s Tsarist or Petrine “domestic intimacy” and salon beatitudes, but farther back still. Within the musical lines of folk-inspired melodies and heart-grabbing strains, evocative images of the Cossackian, Slav, and Muscovite day-to-day, as well as the agrarian pastures of farmers watching the sun set, their lover walk away, or recounting harrowing journeys and difficult lifes shine through. However, this popular genre has a long history and a greater amount of historical contributors to match too.
The Russian romance, according to Dr. Frolova-Walker, is a mixture of “French chanson, German lied and Italian opera,” however it was Spain where the true essence of the romance derived. The cancon, or song in Spanish, was originally nothing more than a singer and his guitar, strumming heroic tales, ballads of unrequited love, and adventurous excursions, to either listeners passing by, beauties under their window [look at Se il mio nome], or the nobles and their gentry. But surely enough, as Russian and Spanish cultures infused throughout the 14-19th century, more than Orthodoxy, food, and taste for morallic living was traded. The Spanish taste for allegories and their devotion to conserving their folk traditions must have lit a match in the Russian sensibility, as following Napoleon's failed Invasion into Russia of 1815, a desire for a national identity began to emerge! Thus, with the arrival of the piano industry in the early 1800s, salons began popping up and the need for repertoire too!
The early Russian romance, circa the 18th century, was originally sung in French and drew from a very poorly kept pool of collected folk repertoire, often recorded orally and improperly transcribed. Once a nationalist spirit had sprung, however, it was OUT with French and IN with Russian, and a new fervor for folk-song collection began, leading to the birth of the Russian romance in-turn. Praised for their thematic malleability, composers often ingrained their societal vantage points and qualms within the very songs and chosen texts themselves. As Valentina Maslova says, everything ”a lyrical insight, a publicistic monologue, a satirical sketch, and an elegiac confession” could be found within the melodious quatrains of Romance composers. However it was the latter that was most popular. The elegy, another name for threnody, was the morosly vivid, albeit natural, airing of one’s fraught existence and hardships, although such hardships kept going under the Soviets in 1917.
Naturally, the Romance became split into two different groups once class, venue, and location disparities got involved! On one end you had the Professional Romance, often called Classical or High Romance, coming from the St. Petersburg school. Resulting from the close proximity to administrative and bureaucratic regulations, songs were often compositionally refined, melodically and vocally lyrical, and harmonically complex, while using only the most anapestic texts of the time and featuring themes of introspection and self-discovery. On the other end you had the Amateur or Everyday Romance, emanating from the Moscowian school. Mostly composed of “Enlightened Amateurs,” those who had limited or no formal training but with a strong interest in music and cultural development, these more attainable and easily playable songs were structurally and harmonically manageable [and predictable!]. They often used catchier and more popular tunes of the day, with texts and themes from more recognizable folk-lore and humbler experiences like heartbreak, friendships, and individual patriotic spirits. More could be said, but safe to say that these camps ALWAYS crossed then and now, the likes of Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev showing that trait!
Once the Russian romance became embedded into the Russian consciousness as a national style all its own, it quickly began diversifying as quickly as it was made. When composers wanted to marry harmony, melody, and form into something easily ascertainable, they’d made an Urban Romance. Say they wanted heavier textual life and more sophisticated, often dramatic harmonicity? They’d reach for the Gypsy Romance, the progenitor of the Russian Chason and even Russian Hip-Hop itself! But if they needed something more emotionally dark and harmonically dejected, they’d search for the Cruel Romance. And if they wanted something hardier, more instinctual to the heart of the Russian man? Then they’d have a go for a Cossack Romance. During the Soviet era, sappy melodies and florid harmonies were banned for graspable alternatives and “stronger” themes in order to build the ideal Soviet man. But emigres did their job, and once the 60s came, many of the banned songs were released, and by the 80s and 90s, not only was folk songs and culture protected but put on the silver screen and sent abroad!
To get you familiar with the Russian romance’s progenitors,
here are five early composers of the Russian romance!
Alexander Alayebyev (1787-1851)
Best known for his flighty, coloratura-laden romance “Nightingale” [Соловей], Alyebyev is the best-known, and most political, composer on this list. Provided with ample training in his youth, he would go on to have not only a celebrated military career but an artistic one too. He wrote seven operas, 200+ songs, and significantly impacted how psychological dispositions, poetic circumstances, and musical expressiveness is handled by composers within the genre.
Fun fact: He was banned for a time and was one of the first musical setters of Pushkin’s poems.
Mikhail Lukyanovich Yakovlev (1798-1868)
Despite having little formal training, Yakovlev would befriend and impress not only Glinka, but Pushkin and his contemporaries with his adeptive work, including his baritone voice! He began his formal career with high-administrative duties, following in his father’s footsteps before turning himself to literary then musical arts, mastering the violin and composition. Although not hugely popular today, he’s a good example of some of the first cases of a Russian, Amateur composer.
Fun fact: Glinka had reworked Yakovlev’s “When, my soul, you asked” into a duet and you can listen here!
Nikolai Titov (1800-1875)
Considered to have written the very first Russian romance, namely “Solitary Pine” in the mid 1820s, Nikolai Titov may be the most under-considered composer on this list. Coming from a musical lineage of historic proportion, Titov became the face of both home music-making and the Russian salon, hosting venerable attendees and writing class-crossing compositions to popular appeal all around, forever blurring the line of Amateur and Professional repertoire.
Fun fact: He became friends with some mighty people like Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, and Varlamov!
Alexander Egorovich Varlamov (1801-1848)
Having had the most formal training of the five, entering the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella at only age nine, being appointed Voice Teacher at The Russian Court Church in Holland, Varlamov became a highly-influential composer, performer, and pedagogue. Praised for his easy-going, buoyant, yet adroitly effective style and Symbolist naturality, sourced from folk and quasi-folk material, he became known throughout Russia as a true representative of the Russian heart.
Fun fact: Glinka was a close friend, Titov praised him, and was a highly sought-after salon singer!
Aleksander Gurilyov (1803-1858)
Born into a family of serf musicians, Gurilyov rose not only above his station but to notoriety, an impossible feat in the 19th century. His works bore the thematic underpinning of a downcast, yet steadfast, observer of life, his compositions often featuring well-developed accompaniments, albeit with first-hand folk lyricism alla a proto-Glinkian realism and a minor tinge to them. His works have all been ignored, but his serf-to-composer legacy remains a harrowing one.
Fun fact: His relationship with Varlamov kept him from excessive depression due to his poor status throughout his life.
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