Serov composer biography

The life and work of the Russian composer Alexander Nikolaevich Serov was born on January 11 of the year in St. Petersburg, in the family of an official. At the insistence of his father, who dreamed of his son’s bureaucratic career, he entered the school of law, which he graduated with honors in the year. During the years in the school, Serov was engaged in music with a passionate enthusiasm, studying the game on the piano and cello at Knecht and K.

Service in the Ministry of Justice, where Serov entered at the end of the school, graved him. He, by his own admission, "instead of Senate notes, he was still sitting at Bas General." His meetings with Glinka had a huge impact on Serov’s musical development. Creative communication with the great Russian composer, the serious and in -depth study of “Ivan Susanin” and other immortal creations Glinka contributed to the development of Serov’s views on musical art.

In his subsequent musical and critical activity, he became the forerunner of the advanced ideas of nationality and realism in music. A fiery patriot, selflessly loving the Russian people and native art, Serov became a selfless fighter against reactionary criticism. He fought for the assertion and development of Russian national musical culture, against Lakes of low worship in front of the West.

In his multilateral journalistic activity, a wonderful critic relied on the advanced aesthetics of Belinsky and Chernyshevsky. Having completely devoted himself to music, Serov, in the end, left his service and was forced to conduct a difficult life full of material deprivation and exhausting struggle. In numerous journalistic performances that compiled an era in the development of Russian musicology, Serov warmly advocated the advanced, high -edition musical art, close and understandable to the wide circles of listeners, folk in spirit, realistically truthful in content.

An outstanding Russian musical critic warmly supported the new, progressive, boldly opposed the old, dilapidated canons. Following the covenants of Glinka and Dargomyzhsky, Serov fought for the vital, folk, national-suction opera, such as “Ivan Susanin” Glinka and the “mermaid” of Dargomyzhsky. He fought for a truly democratic, understandable and close to the people a musical drama, which would organically combine poetry, music and drama.

Serov firmly defended the realistic principles of instrumental music programmings. Along with the musical and critical activity of Serov, he devoted a lot of time and effort to creativity. His thoughts were directed to the creation of the opera. In years, he conceived the comic opera “Mill in Marley”, remaining unfinished. Another comic opera remained incomplete - May Night -, according to Gogol’s story of the same name.

The first opera, set on stage and brought its creator a wide recognition as a composer, is “Judith”- on the basis of a biblical legend, the composer created a folk heroic opera, chanting the greatness of a selfless feat in the name of the people. Expanded folk scenes, the heroic elation of images ensured a great success of “Judith” with the audience. Young Tchaikovsky positively appreciated the first opera of Serov.

At the same time, “Yudifi” also has significant drawbacks - the lack of real psychological depth in the development of characters, superficial melodramaticism. The second opera - “Rogned” - - even more strengthened the fame of the composer. Her premiere passed with outstanding success. In Rogneda, Serov sought to create a Russian national musical drama. Based on the material of the Old Russian Tradition, he decided to portray the struggle of Christianity with paganism, in the victory of Christianity - to reveal the idea of ​​affirming Russian statehood.

However, this plan remained not embodied in life. Despite a number of undoubted musical advantages of the score, magnificent choirs, the use of Russian folk songs, separate bright and expressive arias, for example, the famous Varangian ballad Rognedya, the opera as a whole remained far from the ideals of musical drama promoted by Serov-critic. Externally spectacular scenes and episodes in the spirit of the “big” opera pushed into the background the important and significant idea of ​​the “Horned”.

The best creation of Serov is his last, posthumous opera “Enemy Power”. In a stubborn search for the plot from Russian folk life, the composer, in the end, stopped his choice on A. Ostrovsky’s drama, “not as much as you want”. At his suggestion, the great Russian playwright himself wrote a libretto. In an effort to create a realistic, folk tragedy, the composer rejected the prosperous denouement of the play.

This caused large disagreements, and then the gap between Serov and Ostrovsky. As a result, the last two actions of the Libretto were processed according to the composer’s plan, P. Kalashnikov and A. The images of the opera are bright, convex, each KZ - psychologically deep and versatile. Extremely juicy and colorfully written folk scenes. The sudden death from the gap of the heart interrupted the composer's work on this opera.

Serova - talented composer and N.Outstanding Russian musical critic and composer Alexander Nikolaevich Serov died on January 21 of the year in St. Petersburg.