Is the romance modern in our time? The position of romance in modern Russian culture

This strange neighborhood of beauty and suffering was presented to us by Sergei Yesenin, who turned to a Horossian Persian from border Persia, which he so wanted to visit, but never did:

Goodbye, peri, goodbye May I not be able to unlock the door, You gave beautiful suffering I will sing about you in my homeland ...

Yesenin wrote the poems of this cycle in Baku. In the neighborhood of Persia, but still not in it. SM 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 created the illusion of Persia in Baku to Yesenin? Look how he wrote, as if he was in Persia ... ". “In the summer of 1925,” Chagin recalls, “Yesenin came to my dacha. This, as he himself admitted, was a true illusion of Persia: a huge garden, fountains and all sorts of oriental ideas ... ".

This commentary confirms the illusory-romantic pathos of Persian Motives. 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 Semiramis, and the mysterious doors, which remained unlocked, did absolutely right, strictly following the poetics of the genre. But what genre?

MAYBE,

"SUFFERING BEAUTY"?

So the poems themselves are a derivative 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 "decorate" the pain, but so that this pain is compassionate. The boundary between the original chant and the decorative object of this chant.

Let's change the semantic accent - instead of beautiful suffering, let's say suffering beauty - and the peri from Khorossan will disappear. It is true, perhaps, the Persian princess Stenka Razin will appear from the Volga depths. Let's take away the suffering, and Pushkin's "I drink to Mary's health" will remain, also peri, only different, powerless to bestow not only beautiful, but in general any suffering. And beauty - ringing and light - yes. Borders within the lyrics, within its genres.

Pay attention: "I will sing about you in my homeland." Sing someone else's image of "beautiful suffering"; while maintaining this alien image, but at home.

Isn't it true, little by little we get used to this strange neighborhood of suffering and beauty? We have almost got used to how from the depths of historical memory a terrible ancient Roman legend grows about one local music lover who invented a monstrous musical instrument - a golden box with iron partitions in it. This musical affairs maestro drove a slave into the box, closed the shutter and began to heat his torture organ over low heat. The inhuman screams of the roasted alive, repeatedly reflected from the partitions located there in a special way, were transformed into captivating sounds that delighted the ears of aesthetically sophisticated listeners. Suffering incomprehensible to the mind has become a beauty comprehensible to the ear; chaos of scream - harmony of sounds. The aesthetic, which is on the other side of the ethical, is there. The border of the artistic has been irrevocably crossed.

But the beautiful suffering "in the days of ... the troubles of the people" or in memory of these troubles must be supplanted by a different aesthetics, which does not tolerate plausibility, but requires truth:

... And the soldier drank from a copper mug Wine with sadness in half

on the ashes of a hut burned down by the Nazis;

Friends do not stand in the neighborhood, There is a movie 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 lyric-epic vision.

These tragic poems are also sung, but they are sung differently, as, incidentally, are Simonov's "yellow rains" of expectation. Here beauty of a different kind is the beauty of an act that conceals the particularity of a beautifully passive gesture. Again the genre boundary: between the epic song and the elegy romance. An essential border for defining the genre of romance as an ethical and aesthetic reality at the same time, corresponding to the "Russian-Persian" Yesenin formula, which paradoxically combined suffering and beauty.

“... Each cultural act essentially lives on the borders: this is its seriousness and significance; distracted from the boundaries, it loses its ground, becomes empty ... ".

So is the romance, which is on the border of aesthetic and ethical, artistic and social. To understand this, it is necessary to go out of the “sounding” space into another “listening” space.

What are they, the boundaries of perception of a romance lyric word (if, of course, a modern listener is able to hear the root lyre in the lyrics, which can be picked up by a pinch, tested on the sound and put on the voice)?

"HOW DOES IT TAKE FOR THE SOUL?"

The thirties, marked by the shock marches of the first five-year plans, are polemically included in the love poems in honor of Natalia by Pavel Vasiliev:

Summer drinks in her eyes from brushes, We are not afraid of your Vertinsky yet - Bloody flyer, wolf feed. We still knew Nekrasov, We still sang Kalinushka, We have not yet begun to live.

The chamber world of Alexander Vertinsky, in the tragic grandeur of the prodigal son, who returned from "foreign cities" to the vastness of the "Moldavian steppe" of his Motherland, is just "rubbish". It is said harshly, but with a tinge of doubt about the success of the debunking - "so far ... not terrible."

In about the same years, Yaroslav Smelyakov, in a no less love poem "Lyubka Feigelman" about the same intimate lyre, puzzledly asks:

I do not understand, How is it What it is Takes for the soul?

To answer this question means to understand, perhaps, the most important thing in our subject.

In Vasiliev, the salon romanceist is opposed by Nekrasov. Obviously: Nekrasov "Korobeynikov", but Nekrasov is hardly the most gentle lyricist.

Sorry! Do not remember the days of the fall Longing, despondency, bitterness, - Don't remember storms, don't remember tears Do not remember the jealousy of threats!

Nekrasov ... But almost romantic tears!

And in the same salon world we hear the wide-ranging "We drove in a troika with bells", which attracts not by semantic, but by lexical association, not someone else's, but again Nekrasov's:

Do not catch up with you a mad three: The horses are strong, and well-fed, and strikers, - And the driver is drunk, and to another A young cornet rushes like a whirlwind.

The key (not all, of course) words of the romance dictionary are indicated: a mad troika, a driver drunk, a young cornet ... Vocabulary is perhaps the main reality of the genre definiteness of the romance. And then the "troika with bells" performed by the chamber singer, and the "mad troika" with a young cornet are lexically one-order vocal and lyric phenomena.

The opposition did not take place. What takes the soul, and how it does it, should be looked for outside the pure genre: in later times, for romance, at first glance, there were few intended.

"ARE YOU ALL ABOUT LOVE ..."

Although the era of scientific and technological revolution tried to reject the romance as an area of ​​"tears, roses and love", but it not only failed, but, on the contrary, appeared bards and minstrels of the neo-romantic warehouse, filling the palaces of culture and red corners of the pinchingly courageous fingering of a seven-string guitar connected , if the ceilings are high, and the hall is echoing, to the city power grid.

However, the world of "tears, roses and love", ousted to the periphery of public consciousness, has always been a cherished aspiration.

The same Smelyakov on the years of "industrial" literature, testifying to this unnatural situation, wrote:

Books about casting were created, Books about the Ural cast iron, And love and its messengers Remained somehow aside.

But even here, as a true poet, he discovered a weak but evergreen blade of love.

A romance for a new city, new townspeople - in every home. Guitar song on a glued-re-glued magnetic track. And even under the campfire - a guitar.

And nearby, on almost the same small-format stage, Ruzana and Karina Lisitsian sing the famous "Do not tempt ...". In the monophony of a loving heart, a second, inner voice is revealed, adding both 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 each and every one.

Director Eldar Ryazanov creates a new film version of "The Dowry" by A. N. Ostrovsky, calling it "Cruel Romance". And if in the previous film adaptation the gypsy anguish "No, he did not love ..." looks like only a plug-in number, here the phenomenon of romance is interpreted 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 "in the end". Romance as destiny - destiny as romance. Not life, but being, but in the mirror of the genre. A self-conscious vision of the genre - with a "grain of salt" - reveals its hidden nature from the standpoint of new songs and new times, for a romance, so to speak, "poorly equipped".

At the same time, the present time is reviving the genre in its historical diversity. And the evidence of this is the sold-out at concerts of Elena Obraztsova, Valentina Levko, Galina Kareva, Nani Bregvadze, Dina Dian ... 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 what about Nadezhda Obukhova or Maria Maksakova, who brought the Russian romance out of the “spiritual” philistine life into the spiritual life of the singing people? ..

Vocal interpretations of romances of the past are sometimes unexpected, innovatively constructive (recall, for example, "The reed rustled ..." performed by Zhanna Bichevskaya and Elena Kamburova).

The culture of a new romance is developing to old words (Pushkin's cycle by G.V. Sviridov, for example) and to the poems of 20th century poets 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 “beautiful suffering” “takes the soul”?

"... GIVE YOU TO EVERYONE WHAT HIS DOESN'T HAVE ..."

Until we stay in our time and in our life. And let's 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 like 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 individually. And the street noise cannot drown it out for all the quietest penetration of this voice. Okudzhava's romance is fundamentally new, but it is in it that the key to understanding the old romance is, 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 for everyone personally, and only because of that - for everyone. These uniquely author's “to blame”, “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 the same "blue trolleybus" next to and on a par with everyone. It is a modern symbol of the genre's democracy in its original orientation towards love with its tragic end. Okudzhava-Schwartz's "Road Song" became a romance about a romance. Here they are - love and separation - in their almost banal, but essentially significant neighborhood, that is, in the primordially human proximity and distance. They are two friends, two wanderers, two roads, forever given to a heart seeking love. And this is the meaning-forming center of this, like any other romance in general. Its plot-meaningful duality, reconciled in the happy misfortune of the lyric hero. And then all the other attributes of the genre (“now the coast, now the sea, now the sun - now the blizzard, now the angels - now the crows ...”) is a necessary thing, but still secondary.

You cannot suffer more or less. Personal suffering is always full. But the "beauty of suffering", if, again, follow the Yesenin image, it can be more or less. The romance of Okudzhava as a consciously realized romance reveals the peculiarities of the genre in extremely pronounced forms. This refers especially to the affected "beauty" - in its contact with the decorative and ornamental life of Georgia, which is close to the poet. Look: before the poet's gaze, in reality, as in Pirosmani's paintings, “a blue buffalo, and a white eagle, and a golden trout…” are floating in reality. Much more picturesque than in Yesenin's Khorossan! Boundary and limit of the genre canon.

But the secret of "beautiful suffering" is revealed in the romance about Francois Villon: "... Give to everyone what he does not have."

All this for so - and no need to ask - gives a romance. And if you read it carefully, listen carefully, everyone for whom the poet asks lacks ... love. That is why the world of "beautiful suffering" exists in culture, as if filling the missing, carefully kept secret. For, Chekhov is right, every personal existence is kept in secret and is kept.

The romance reveals this secret, but only not in its alcove particular, but in general cultural musical and poetic objectivity. And in the sphere of perception, this objectivity becomes personal again. The illusion of dreams come true. For everyone sitting in the hall, but also for everyone in the same hall. In the collective-individual yearning for the happiness of love, but love is short and finite and therefore suffering; but suffering is ideal, that is, "beautifully."

WITH MUSIC ON A FRIENDLY LEG

"The fire of desire burns in the blood ...", "Do not tempt me unnecessarily ...", "Amid a noisy ball ...". This series can be continued for a long time.

You can build a row in a different way: "Khas-Bulat daring ...", "From the island to the rod ...".

And it can be completely different: "Only the evening will warm up blue ...", "My fire shines in the fog ...".

It is also possible like this: "We are only familiar ...", "Returning your portrait to you ...".

You can finally return to the classics, but the new classics: "You are my fallen maple ...", "There will be no one in the house ...".

Only one line is named, as at the same moment music appears with subsequent words, freely attracted to each other and all together - to music; completely definite 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 if they are unnamed); but such identities, which, when they met, showed a different quality. And this is a romance: elegiac, ballad, urban. Romance in its intuitively intelligible genre definition.

Fraternization of word and music; but a word, ready to become music, and music, also ready to become a verbally expressed love-life situation. The word in the text, which has not yet become a romance, is with music "on a friendly footing."

Remember;

He screwed up Schubert, Like a pure diamond;

To us with blue music It's not scary to die.

The grounded and the sublime side by side, to the end together. Another, primordially romance, overcoming the 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." The one who listens to the romance and at the same time listens to his soul and to the beats of his heart judges whether the transformation of words into music, music into words has taken place.

The coincidence of word and music, logos and voice is the composer's innermost aspiration. Isn't that why the history of Russian romance knows several dozen musical versions of the same poetic text? "Don't sing, beauty, with me ..." Pushkin. Glinka, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov wrote music to 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. On the text of Baratynsky "Where is the sweet whisper ..." Glinka, Grechaninov, Vik met in a creative duel. Kalinnikov, C. 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 Cherepnin heard in it a two-part piece of music, and Cui created a musical picture based on this text. Thus, it is also not easy for a romance to become itself: the polysemantic nature of a poetic text intended for a romance life opposes its purpose, meeting with music that has a view to 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 to an indefinite area of ​​music, into which I went, as far as my strength was.” Music in its initial indeterminacy, as it were, reveals the fragility of the romance word for all its semantic uniqueness as a word.

Composers also understand this theoretically based attraction. PI Tchaikovsky writes: “... Fet, in his best moments, goes beyond the limits indicated by poetry, and boldly takes a step into our area ... This is not just a poet, but rather a poet-musician, as if avoiding even those that are easily expression in words. " The composer and musicologist Caesar Cui wrote: "Poetry and sound are equal powers, they help each other: the word gives certainty to the expressed feeling, music enhances its expressiveness, adds sound poetry, complements the unsaid: both merge together and act with redoubled force on the listener." According to Cui, the word is not completely defined, because it can be finished with music. Thus, the composer is the first person from the public who listens to the romance in its development, which has not yet begun, but is ready to begin, with its unsaid - unsaid - mystery. Music in its indefiniteness is called upon to redefine the word, which seems to be semantically defined. Cui saw "the artistic task of vocal lyrics" 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, which tends 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-CLASSIC CLASSICS

But it is hardly only aesthetic criteria that determine this overcoming.

The great Glinka writes music to the verses of the third-rate poet Puppeteer, and as a result - the brilliant "Doubt", "Only the evening will warm up blue ..." by Alexei Budishchev (who knows this poet now?) Is set to music by A. Obukhov (and who, tell me, knows this composer?). The result is a popular urban romance known as "The Gate", without which not a single evening of the old romance is complete.

Or, finally, not the classic - everyday - romance "Just Once" by P. Herman - B. Fomin, but "takes my soul ...".

Classics and non-classical - poetic and musical - are equal in rights, because both are addressed to each and every one. And this is a remarkable feature of the Russian romance, a socially conditioned and deeply democratic phenomenon, but with heightened attention to the spiritual world of a person.

Perhaps that is why Lenin was so sensitive and interestedly addicted to the Russian romance in its best examples, who 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 ”,“ Amid the noisy ball ”,“ We ​​sat with you by the river asleep ”, and Dargomyzhsky's song“ We were not crowned in church ”... What a rest, what a pleasure for Vladimir Ilyich there were our songs! .. Poems by Nekrasov, Heine, Beranger were recited. "

Lenin's attraction to the element of the Russian romance with its deepest nationality, primordial love of freedom passed through his entire life, starting with youthful rehearsals with his younger sister Olga. DI Ulyanov recalls: they sang the duet "Our sea is unsociable", "Wedding" by Dargomyzhsky; Vladimir Ilyich sang himself. These were Gaines' Pretty Eyes:

... These wonderful eyes on the heart They stamped my sorrow From them I completely perish, Dear friend, what more to look for ...

“I am dying” - I had to strike a very high note, and Vladimir Ilyich said, stretching it out: “I have already died, I have died completely ...”. “It was sung ... not only for words,” continues DI Ulyanov. - It was sung because his soul was really eager for another life. She sang. But she did not languish, did not feel sad. With Vladimir Ilyich, I hardly remember singing the minor key. On the contrary, he always sounded courage, prowess, high rise, appeal. "

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 a Russian romance, love of freedom and heroism naturally coexist with subtle lyricism and love feelings, sadness and sadness - with a smile and slightly noticeable irony.

"ABOUT YOU IN HOMELAND I SING ..."

The semantic core of the romance is universal. This is, as a rule, a lyrical confession, a story about love in its eternal variations of a first date, jealousy, betrayal, youthful timidity, hussar bravado, separation, leaving for another or another, a memory of lost love. Eternal plots, knowing neither temporal nor spatial boundaries. The universal human basis of the romance presupposes the removal of national borders, the internationalization of the genre while preserving the national identity of each work separately.

"I drink to Mary's health ..." Pushkin's primary source is the poetry of Barry Cornwell; "Mountain peaks ..." Lermontov named him "From Goethe"; The Evening Bells by Thomas Moore, which has become a surprisingly Russian thing, is sung in the translation of Ivan Kozlov ...

This is enough to feel that the foreign-language sources of the above-mentioned texts, moreover still merged with music, turned out to be behind the scenes and flicker only as faint flashes of the former foreign language. Now these works are living facts of Russian culture, which is especially democratic in the romance.

The largest poets working in the genre of romance lyrics actively go out into foreign language spaces, into adjacent cultures, so to speak, to collect material. Interesting in this respect is the creative biography of "Songs of Zemfira" ("Old husband, formidable husband ...") by Pushkin, which he included in the poem "Gypsies". Commentators testify: while in Chisinau, the poet was interested in local folklore. He was especially interested, VP Gorchakov recalls, “the well-known Moldavian song“ Tu obeski pitimasura ”. But he listened with even greater attention to another song - "Arde - mà - frazhe ma" ("Burn me, fry me"), with which already at that time he intermarried us with his marvelous imitation ... ". Initially, the melody 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 attach notes of the wild melody of this song, heard by the poet himself in Bessarabia."

Alien, which became its own with an extremely caring attitude to 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 cultured.

The international character of Russian song and Russian romance is obvious. Exceptions only confirm this statement, which is well-founded by the researchers. The poem of Theodosius Savinov "Native" - ​​"I see a wonderful freedom ..." (1885), which has become a folk romance, is sung without the last stanza:

The "editorial" flair 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 in an amazing state of preservation, striking the ear of Western connoisseurs of Russian romance and songwriting. One German philosopher of the 19th century wrote with admiration: "... I would give all the blessings of the West for the Russian manner of grieving." This “manner of sorrow,” which surprised him, is rooted in Russian history, including the history of Russian romance.

"RUSSIAN SONG" - "RUSSIAN SONG" - ROMANCE

Romance (Spanish romance, literally - in romance, that is, in Spanish) is a chamber piece of music and poetry for voice with instrumental accompaniment. This is approximately how romance is defined in encyclopedic editions.

The dual nature of the genre is immediately revealed: musical - poetic, vocal - instrumental.

In some languages, romance and song are denoted by one word: for the Germans it is Lied, for the English - Song, for the French - Lais (epic folk songs). English romance means an epic ballad song, a knightly poem. Spanish romancero (romancero) - folk, most often heroic romances specially folded into a complete cycle. The fact that the main thing in a romancero (heroic passion) in a Russian romance is only an opportunity, overcoming a personal, intimate love principle, but testifying, however, to the closest connection of Russian song-romance culture with the historical fate of the people, the country.

Vladimir Dal places the romance as a homogeneous novel in the dictionary entry. He captures the German and French origins of the concept of the novel. Then there are the interpretations of the words romantic and romantic, and only after that the romance is "a song, a lyric 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 a household romance intended for solo monophonic performance under the harpsichord, piano, harp, and guitar.

This is almost the first time that romance as the title of a poem was used by Grigory Khovansky and Gabriel Derzhavin in their books of poetry, published in 1796. In any case, the "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 monophonic romance, begins.

The monophony of the "Russian song" is a fundamental phenomenon. "Russian Song" was preceded by the so-called cant - a chant for three voices, followed by the replacement of the third voice with accompaniment on flute and violin, which turned it into a duet: the path to a monophonic song-romance, a work that captures personal destiny in its universal eventfulness. The second and third voices went to listeners listening to the inner voice of the lyric hero.

One more essential point should be noted. G.N. Teplov, a composer and collector of cants of the 18th century, calls his, in fact, the first collection of this kind "Between business of idleness", denoting the non-business nature of not only composing songs, but also listening to them. Everyone has different things, but in "idleness" people are equal in empathy with universal human feelings. Kant's three-part voice, which has not yet become a monophonic "Russian song", testifies to the secular nature of the genre.

Composers F. M. Dubyansky and O. A. Kozlovsky defined the musical image of the "Russian song" at the end of the 18th century. "Russian song" is a rather vague concept. Its content is as variegated as the concept of Kant is variegated and diverse. But a different poetics is obvious. The folk song element and Kant's book culture naturally converged in this new genre, defining its book-folklore contradiction, reflecting the peculiarities of Russian urban life of the late 18th - early 19th centuries in all its social class heterogeneity. The "Collection of Russian Songs" by VF Trutovsky (1776–1795) is, perhaps, the first collection of romance-like songs, or "poetry," as they were called then. Action in verse, a fragment of fate, a feeling in development.

By the turn of the century, "Russian song" appears in the following varieties: pastoral - shepherd - idyll, drinking song, elegiac song (close to classical romance), edifying chant, philosophical minnature. Poets Yuri Neledinsky-Meletsky, Ivan Dmitriev, Grigory Khovansky, Nikolai Karamzin fruitfully work in the genre of "Russian song".

The combination of texts into well-known musical images was a common occurrence at that time. Poems "to the voice" are evidence of the general character of music, but also the popularity of these pieces of music. Individual fate - on a generally valid motive. Personal, not taken in full measure. Evidence of the still unresolved distrust of the person - unique, self-valuable.

The democratism of the "Russian song" made this genre a kind of tuning fork, revealing the true significance of this or that poet. For example, the heavyweight epics of the classicist Mikhail Kheraskov are forgotten, and his song "The view is lovely, the eyes are lovely ..." has survived not only its author, but has survived to this day.

These were songs for everyone - for the noble intelligentsia, urban middle class, peasants. Because they sang in these songs about the happiness and unhappiness of an individual person, about the torment and "delights" of love, about betrayal and jealousy, about "bitter passion", 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 - classic, sentimental, pre-romantic - was overcome on the way to musical and poetic realism. Another removal of borders at the point of the "fulfillment 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 feelings. This was what could be called an everyday romance of those times.

"Russian Song" is addressed to folk poetry, assimilates its artistic and social experience. But even then, in the works of the progressive thinkers of that time, who were careful about folklore, warnings against archaization and stylization were heard. They insisted on assimilating the versification experience of the “newest common folk songs,” in contrast to the conservative leaders oriented toward the past. The collections of "Folk Russian Songs" by I. Rupin and "Russian Songs" by D. Kashin (30s of the XIX century), as the 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 the composer D. Kashin is evidence of the living development of the genre. About Merzlyakov V. G. Belinsky wrote: “It was a powerful, energetic talent: what a deep feeling, what an immeasurable melancholy in his songs! "Among the plain ...", "Black-browed, black-eyed ..." - masterpieces of song and romance lyrics by Alexei Merzlyakov.

“Not a small autumn rain ...”, “Nightingale” are examples of song-romance creativity of Anton Delvig, who in his own way interpreted the folk song sources and traditions of his contemporary “urban romance”. Composers A. Alyabyev, M. Glinka, A. Dargomyzhsky are his co-authors.

Nikolay Tsyganov and Alexey Koltsov are classics of the "Russian song". The features of this genre are most expressively revealed in their works. “Don’t tell me, mother, a red sundress ...” Tsyganova - Varlamova became a world famous song-romance. The same can be said about Koltsov's “Khutorok”.

The study of the genre in its most characteristic samples allows us to determine its essential features. These are, first of all, conscious imitations of folk songs of a choreic, or three-foot (mostly dactylic), rhythmic pattern with parallelisms inherent in folk songs, negative comparisons, repetitions, rhetorical appeals to birds, the forest, the river. Symbolic allegories are characteristic (he is a falcon, she is a dove or a cuckoo; a river is parting, a bridge is a meeting); traditional attributes (mother of cheese is the earth, the field is clean, violent winds, silk grass, clear eyes, a red maiden, a good fellow); synonymous couples (storm - bad weather, stranger - distant side); flexic variations (diminutive-affectionate suffixes, dactylic endings of verses); melodiousness, minor scale ...

"Russian Song" must be recognizable. People of different social groups empathize in her with someone else's fate as their own.

But the intensification of the melodramatic moments broke the natural structure of the "Russian song", the melodic pattern was exalted. And then the Russian song-romance became a gypsy song-romance, a picture gypsy with its not so much “beautiful” as “luxurious” suffering, which already satisfied other needs and aspirations. The boundary within the poetics of the genre itself.

At the same time, "Russian song" is a poetic classic of the 30s of the XIX century. Let's name only "The Ring of the Soul-Maiden ..." Zhukovsky, "Maidens-Beauties ..." by Pushkin, "Scary howls, howls ..." by Baratynsky.

A new kind of Russian romance - a ballad romance - emerges from a "Russian song" brought to a finished "fatal" plot, rapidly developing, dialogically intoned, ornamented with ominous symbols and with a tragic, as a rule, denouement. The musical language is also different: expressive, with a recitative-declamatory vocal part, "stormy" accompaniment, recreating the natural background of the dramatic action. Again, going beyond the original genre into a different kind. "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 a ballad romance. This is a "valiant", "robber" song. The crisis of the poetics of Russian romanticism is clearly reflected in the melodramatic twists and turns of the so-called "cruel romance".

But all this - a ballad romance and its varieties - is a natural development of the "Russian song" as an everyday romance.

The elegy romance becomes the artistic epicenter of Russian musical and poetic culture. Actually, this is a romance in its classical character.

It is clear that the "purity of the genre" of the elegy romance 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 ballad romance. But the future turned out to be after him - an elegy romance that took shape in the first half of the 19th century and grew out of the song folk-poetic and folk-melodic elements of the same time. The second half of our century listens to romance classics of the past not as a musical and poetic rarity, but as a voice of native and modern culture. They, these living samples, are not only in memory, but also by ear: "I remember a wonderful moment ..." Pushkin - Glinka, "I'm sad because you're having fun ..." Lermontov - Dargomyzhsky; later, the second half of the XIX - early XX 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 events.

But no less impressive and not quite equivalent communities: "I go out alone on the road ..." Lermontov - Shashina, "The bell is ringing monotonously ..." Makarov - Gurilev.

The fundamental uncertainty of the formal and stylistic features of the elegy-romance distinguishes it both from the "Russian song" and from the ballad-romance. It is here that the possibilities of the creative individuality of both the poet and the composer are revealed. The accuracy of the psychological drawing, the realistic gesture of the lyric hero, the meaningful nature of the accompaniment, the intensity of verbal and musical expression, rhythmic and melodic regularity are the features of this type of romance.

Not far from the elegy-romance there are other songs that are close to it, but others also about something else: romantic experiments on 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 ...") Yazykov - Vilboa is also nearby. Let's add to this the free songs performed among the exiled Decembrists in the Herzen-Ogarev circle. Many of them have passed into later times, testifying to the living revolutionary traditions of the people. Drinking, hussar, student songs live on the other pole of the song of freedom.

Thus, by the middle of the 19th century, the main artistic forms of Russian romance culture had developed, 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-stylistic quality. External signs of a falsely understood nationality are no longer needed. The folk character of "book" poetry is now determined not at all by "word of mouth" and "leavened" attributes. The true nationality is different - in the deep comprehension of the Russian character, capable of leading Russia to new historical frontiers for the realization of the national aspirations. Reconsideration of the "Russian song" as a kind of antiques was necessary. Without this, the development of vocal lyrics as a realistic and general democratic kind of Russian poetry would have become difficult. Democrat critic V.V. Stasov calculated with the inhibiting influences of the “Russian song”, which became especially noticeable by the middle of the 19th century: “In the 30s, as you know, we had a lot of talk about nationality in art ... demanded the impossible: amalgams of old materials with new art; they forgot that the old materials corresponded to their definite time and that new art, having already worked out its forms, needs new materials. "

A genuine nationality, which does not need a pseudo-folk entourage, is a new material cast in new forms. For example, the same elegy romance, precisely because of its formal indeterminacy, turned out to be especially susceptible to all forms. And then the signs of the "nationality" of the "Russian song" are just an unacceptable means for new goals and objectives: the tasks 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. The songwriting of Surikov, Drozhzhna, Nikitin, Ozhegov was perceived skeptically. Musical authorities were also overthrown (for example, Alyabyev, including his and Delvig's famous "Nightingale"). The contemptuous label "Varlamovism", with the light hand of A. N. Serov, marked the "Russian song" as a genre for a long time. In this criticism, there was a lot of polemical, and therefore not entirely fair. But the main thing was captured: "Russian song" little by little gave way to everyday romance and a new song.

It would be unfair not to say about the life of the "Russian song", which at that time became in the best examples the evidence of overcoming the genre within the genre ("Don't scold me, dear ..." A. Razorenov, "Between the steep banks ..." M. Ozhegov). They, these really popular songs, are accompanied by songs, so to speak, of a group assignment. But that is why their Ng nationality is diminished. These are hymn, propaganda, satirical songs, funeral marches. And here there are magnificent choral samples ("Tortured by heavy bondage ..." by G. Machtet, "There is a cliff on the Volga ..." by A. Navrotsky). Their bright life in the revolutionary democratic environment of Russian society is well known. This is an obligatory choral background that sets off the monophony of an urban romance. On the border of chorus and dumbness. Between them is the voice of personal fate: lonely, and therefore all-hearing and all-responsive in their own way to everyone. The romance really lives in its lyrical separation from everything else - by 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 the "everyday" romance and the "professional" romance. Changes, as the researchers believe, and their ratio. The everyday romance presented by its “non-professional” creators finds itself on the periphery of culture, but that is why it does not become less popular in its rather variegated and not particularly aesthetically demanding audience. But there are genuine masterpieces here too. Let's take Apukhtin's "A Pair of Bay" outside the walls of home classrooms; but within their walls will still remain: "Under the fragrant branch of lilac ..." V. Krestovsky and "It was a long time ago ... I do not remember when it was ..." S. Safonov.

New composers again turn 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". They listen to the diverse youth of the sixties so seriously that they sing it themselves not only in living reality, but also in artistic reality. (Remember the "lady in mourning" who sings this song in Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done?)

"You will soon forget me ..." by Yu. Zhadovskaya - Dargomyzhsky, "I came to you with greetings ..." Fet - Balakirev, Tchaikovsky's romances - "I would like in a single word ..." (L. May), "Amid a noisy ball ..." ( A. K. Tolstoy), “I opened the window ...” (K. R.). Genuine masterpieces of romance lyrics of the second half century of the golden nineteenth!

In many cases, the romance in its musical and poetic integrity is the safest repository for those works of poetry that would have disappeared without music.

The vocal and poetic life of nineteenth-century romance lyrics with the label "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 the centuries: the classic nineteenth and the twentieth open to all cultural sides of the world. A new poetry is coming, which after decades will become a new classics, including romance: Bunin, Blok, Yesenin, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Zabolotsky.

The romance twentieth century, especially its first half, has a special mosaic color. "Spring Waters" by Tyutchev - Rachmaninov coexist with "Pied Piper" by Bryusov - Rachmaninov, "In the Invisible Haze ..." by Fet - Taneev with the romance "The Night is Sad ..." by Bunin - Glier.

The history of the Russian romance is a living history, and therefore has the right to count on the future. The liveliness of this story is akin to the genre: history, like the romance itself, lives on the borders, in the incompleteness of becoming. But this is exactly how the one who listens to the romance as his own, someone else's lyric destiny lives.

The time has come to turn to texts that can clarify the fundamental features of the genre, but again - at the moment it goes beyond its own limits.

"WHEN HE KNEW ..." - "TELL HER ..."

Where does the song begin? Is it possible to find out the secret of the pronunciation of a word in romance singing, to reproduce this secret?

Comparison of the famous song - 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 us first turn to what is sung. The coachman may not be telling his story for the first time.

Death of his beloved, who suddenly appeared before him frozen in the middle of a snowy field. Actually, what else to say? However, the last line of the song ("no more urine to tell") suggests something more. But can there be anything more than this terrible horror in the middle of the field, wind and snow? And this more, which remained outside the text, each listener is called to personally speculate. And then what happened to the poor coachman happened to each of the listeners. Of course, this is not exactly the case, but in the experience of possible interrupted love, the narrator and the audience are equal.

Meanwhile, listening is active listening. The mystery 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 driver himself, which remains behind the text, but is mentally experienced by everyone as an unsung song of their own destiny.

Now let us consider the original source, which did not become a song-romance in its original form. The poem "Coachman" is called. The beginning is purely narrative. The regulars of the tavern ask the driver why he is so gloomy and unsociable, ask him to tell his grief, promising for this a drunken glass and a tightly packed pipe. The coachman begins his story with the fourth stanza. from the same textbook line - "When I'm at the post office ...". At first, the plot develops as in the song version. But ... more!

Amid the whistle of the storm I heard a groan, And someone asks for help. And snowflakes from different sides Someone in the snow drifts. I will urge the horse to go save; But, remembering the caretaker, I am sorry, Someone whispered to me: on the way back You will save the Christian soul. I felt scared. I barely breathed Hands trembled with horror. I blew my horn to drown out Dying faint sounds.

There is an inner voice about the way back, and a horn drowning out "dying faint sounds", 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. A voice for a voice that extinguishes one another. The supposed denouement is in the last stanzas:

And so at dawn I am driving back. I still felt scared And, like a broken bell, out of tune My heart beat timidly in my chest. My horse got scared before the third mile And he raised 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 broke the life of the unfortunate driver, but also reproaches of conscience on the grave. The fate is spelled out in its entirety and without gaps. 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, a concert number in its epic completeness. 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 extinguished eyes ... Give me wine, let's hurry Telling further - no urine!

As you can see, the endings are almost the same. But if in the romance version conjecture is possible, then in the primary source there is only a rhetorical figure; but it is such rhetoric that it forces us to “edit” the text, to take it into a song-romance voice - to address it to each separately, and only because - to all. And the original text - to everyone, but not to everyone, because everything was told and therefore became an instructive example.

And one more feature of the romance style. Compare the two one-sense endings - the source poem and the ballad romance:

Give me wine, let's hurry ...

Pour, pour me some wine ...

The romance gesture is more expressive, although here it is purely external. Much more important is the inner gestures of life itself, experienced by the listeners of the song-romance in its intensively developing feeling, with visual realities. A. N. Tolstoy said: “You cannot fully feel the old lullaby song without knowing, without seeing a black hut, a peasant woman sitting by a torch, twirling a spindle and swinging a cradle with her foot. A blizzard over a sweeping roof, cockroaches bite a baby. The left hand spins a wave, the right one spins the spindle, and the light of life is only in the flame of a torch falling like coals in the trough. Hence all the inner gestures of the 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 lurking behind every bush and under every snowdrift 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 be only external gestures, but they certainly indicate the internal gestures of the everyday life of those who, listening, relive the romance anew.

To tell a personal destiny means to abolish it as a romance event, romance destiny; to suppress the possibilities of dialogue, the initiative of the second voice; declassify the secret.

Let us again turn to the living element of the Russian romance.

Before us is a 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 with bitter longing My young life is poisoned! If only he knew how passionate and how tender He, my idol, is loved by his slave ... If only he knew that in hopeless sadness I will fade, not understood by them! .. If only he knew! .. If only he knew ... in the soul of his murdered Love would speak again And half-forgotten delight of youth He would be warmed and revived again! And then, lucky girl! .. loved ... They would have loved, maybe! Hope flatters the unquenchable melancholy; He does not love ... but he could love! If only he knew!

It would seem that only to sing this amazingly romantic poem! But no ...

The first two stanzas (the second is omitted here) require an answer, are addressed to it, inquire, suggest a second voice, are confident in it, they themselves are filled with it. They are the first voice. They are themselves and ... the second.

But the answer is needed this very moment. And so here it is - the last - stanza, with the longed-for answers, in fact, with one comprehensive answer; but the answer suggested by the inquirer.

The mystery is abolished. And what a romance without her ?! Isn't that why sti-desire became a romance without this mystery-abolishing stanza?

But this does not exhaust the vocal fate of the poem by Evdokia Petrovna Rostopchina, whose poetry was favored by Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov.

Affected questioning of the answer, in fact, caused the final stanza, which was rejected in the musical-vocal existence. But the answer followed 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 longing My young life is poisoned. Tell her how passionate and how tender I love her like a cherub god. Tell her that in hopeless sadness I will fade, I do not love the soulless, Tell her! ..

"If only he knew" and "Tell her!" composed a complete vocal and poetic composition: Rostopchina - Dolgorukov. Here one could put an end to this "musical history". But…

At first hearing, all Rostopchina's questions are extinguished by Dolgorukov's answers, as if they were exactly composed of the words of the interrogator. The unsaid is finished. The first voice and the second voice merged into one. The romance, with its secret waiting for an empathic response, disappeared. The question - the answer became a concert number. But is it?

Reading into the text casts doubt on everything that fell on the first ear.

The one who answers, considers her soulless, his soullessness and dislike, like ice, cooling his loving soul; and their pretense and their coldness are forced. The answers, of course, are parodic, but parody with a catch, with a game that leaves the possibility of the mystery of the unsaid. The romance continues, lives, inviting to listen to oneself; 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 reciprocal romance does not replace the third stanza of the original, removed in the version for performance. This is listener's speculation; but open speculation is personal, and therefore not for everyone. It is one of the possible. The contradiction remains. The romance lives in the personal destinies of the listeners as an individual-collective experience. Parody, in its fidelity to the nature of the parodied object, reveals this with special expressiveness. But is it? And if so, to what extent is it so?

As if a direct duel of romance gestures, their dialogical collision. Word for word. Speech to speech. But ... let's listen attentively: "If only he knew ..." - "Tell her ...". Each other - in the third person. An appeal to a certain third, who must, appointed by her and him as a mediator, convey her questions and convey his answers. In this third, two love destinies are, as it were, objectified, becoming common property. A personal secret degenerates into a Punchinelle secret. It is removed, it is made "outside of the search". The "redundancy" of the heroes is being erased. Source texts become equal to themselves. But the love situation in this detachment through an objectified mediator is fully aestheticized, shaped into an object of admiration. The ethical goes beyond the text. The "beautiful" remains in its parodic-objective purity. And "suffering" disappears. The romance is really played as a number in a concert. And the romance substance is ready for display. The miracle of "beautiful suffering" disappears, but reveals its nature.

Samples of romance classics reveal the dialogical nature of the confessional lyric monologue within themselves. The Dollmaker - Glinka's "Doubt" is the clearest example of a romantically conjugated two-part voice, manifested in one voice. An invitation to listen and participate - in an intensely meaningful pause between "insidious vows" and no less "insidious slander". Neither the author nor the listener is given a choice; but given to choose. And in this lies the satisfaction of romance aspirations for the adherents of the genre, without which their personal life is not only incomplete, but generally hardly possible. And then the album "excitement of passion" will by no means distort the sophisticated ear of connoisseurs of a truly poetic word, if they, these connoisseurs, are listening to a romance today.

The romance attracts the listener to empathize not with the lines, but with a living feeling, ready for development. Perception is based on the stable modality of the romance event, calling for a participatory sympathy.

Lensky's famous aria from Tchaikovsky's opera "Eugene Onegin" "Where, where have you gone ...", farewell before the ridiculous death in a duel, is unlikely to recall 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 in case. I have them. Here they are: "Where, where have you gone, My golden days of spring ... "

The context immediately clarifies the author's attitude to his hero. But this context does not imply the composer's attitude to Pushkin's, now to his own, hero. The destruction of the structure of the stanza at the beginning of the aria is insignificant for the vocal-musical development of the theme. The text is rethought, but the word music is preserved.

And now let's return to the folk element of the Russian romance.

The voice of personal destiny is adjacent to the voice of people's destiny. These voices interact, transform into one another, and become almost indistinguishable. Pushkin's "The Prisoner" ("I Sit Behind Bars in a Damp Dungeon ...") as an example of purely verbal, non-musical lyrics in the 70s of the XIX century becomes a popular romance, sung to the now-famous melody that arose in the song tradition of the revolutionary populist intelligentsia.

Personal lyrical love of freedom becomes a folk-epic love of freedom. Individual authorship goes down in history, but the longing for will and the desire for it of the oppressed people, singing this thing as a collective author, remain.

The "prisoner", freedom-loving motif in romance-songwriting runs through the entire pre-revolutionary history of vocal and poetic genres.

In other guises, different, no longer Pushkin's, "The 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 Bottom". "Trample free love" is an accurate description of this work, reflecting its existence in various social environments at that time, the time of the maturing of the Russian revolution of 1905.

And again, an almost direct reminiscence of Pushkin's text: "A young eagle flies at will ...". Of course, with alterations and options. But here is what is important here: the romance-song word, first uttered by the poet, is greater than himself; it continues to live its own life, not dependent on the original source, capturing the social experience of the people, the experience of its soul, sensitively responding to the historical time, the time of possible social changes in the life of the country. Thus, in the lyric-epic word, as if hidden for the time being, folk, no longer personal, aspirations are realized.

But, perhaps, the most surprising thing is the personal-social duet of two solidary voices in the work of one poet. So the revolutionary marching "Varshavyanka", "Raging, Tyrants" and marked by civic pathos, but strikingly personal, "Elegy" belong to the pen of one person. This is a friend and colleague of V.I. Lenin, Gleb Maksimilianovich Krzhizhanovsky, who in his own way interpreted and embodied in his works the traditions of Russian romance and songwriting.

"AH, THIS IS BROTHERS, ABOUT ANOTHER!"

Now it is already obvious: in order to say about a romance, one must say that 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 us once again recall these rolls and crosshairs.

They thought about a suffering soul, but had to talk about a beautiful word; tried to penetrate into the aesthetics of romance, and talked about the ethics of love; delved into the secret of anxious listening to the romance word, and left the XIX century in the present century; gathered to listen to the romance classics of the golden nineteenth, and heard the romances of the new day; talked about the musical and poetic delights of hearing, and touched almost the most important thing - what gives a romance to a person in his life, filling up the missing, but necessary.

They considered the romance to be a song of special purpose and special artistic quality, as it immediately turned out that the romance is more than itself. At a certain turn of thought, it can be a drama, a story.

We delved deeper into the romance word, and it became music, which in itself - separately - was just waiting to be verbally told, finished.

The romance was considered a poetic and musical classics, when it suddenly turned out that "professionalism" and "perfection of forms" were the tenth thing.

Talking about romance, they lived in Russia; but ended up in Spain and Persia, on the hills of sad Georgia amid the darkness of the night. And only then, with even greater force, they again listened to the light sorrow of the Russian romance.

They were about to drop in to listen to the romance elegies in the exquisite musical salons and drawing rooms of the nineteenth, when a simple, public song suddenly flew into the same salons.

The appeal to etymology revealed new boundaries - philological, linguistic properties. And immersion in history revealed the genre uncertainty of the romance as a musical and poetic phenomenon.

An analysis of specific texts revealed the internal dialogic nature of the genre, the need for a second voice, assumed by the first voice of the lyric hero of the personal and universal vicissitudes of a love event.

They talked about something else, but still said about romance. They thought about romance, but touched personal, human existence, which in its non-romance existence is incomplete and defective.

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 he will take his own from the romance: the aspiration will appear as the former in his youth (“We were once trotters too ...”). Furthermore. The romance gives the illusion of the attainability of the unattainable.

Russian romance is a phenomenon of national culture, but a phenomenon of a special kind. He has the ability to be in it and at the same time, as it were, to go beyond it, showing a kind of accomplishment of times of a separate human destiny - remembering the past, calling into the future, fully testifying to the illusoryly realized "beautifully passive" present.

Russian romance is a lively lyrical response of the soul of the people making their heroic history.

It is believed that the romance originally appeared in Spain, in the 15th-16th centuries. Then the Spaniards called a romance any poem written in the Romanesque "non-Latin" language. The poem was not necessarily lyrical, it could tell about historical events and military exploits of the heroes. In the neighboring countries of Spain, such poems were called ballads. From them were born musical works called "romances". Set to music, they turned into small songs - usually with a four-line stanza without a refrain.

In the 18th century, the romance reached France and Germany, and then to Russia. In our country, "romance" meant a small piece of music, but already of exclusively lyrical content, performed by a voice and an accompanying instrument. The greatest influence on the development of romance in Europe was exerted by the work of the poets Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Heinrich Heine, composers Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Jules Massenet and Charles Gounod.

The genre of the Russian romance was formed at the beginning of the 19th century in the wake of the romanticism that swept the Russian musical world. The most famous romances of that period belonged to Alexander Varlamov. Then the romance took its rightful place in the work of the most famous Russian composers -,.

Many of the most popular romances in our time were written at the beginning of the 20th century. They are classified as urban, gypsy, "cruel romance". Then romances were written by amateur composers such as Boris Fomin, Boris Prozorovsky, Maria Poiret. And it is this period that can be called the golden age of Russian romance: performances by Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Anastasia Vyaltseva, Vera Panina gathered in full houses.

In the post-revolutionary years, the romance was persecuted as a bourgeois vestige that corrupted the proletariat and peasantry. But even in this difficult period for romance, Isabella Yurieva, Alexander Vertinsky, Tamara Tsereteli continued to perform it with success. Many of these musicians emigrated to Europe, taking with them a Russian romance, which was able to conquer even an audience that did not understand Russian. For example, the Europeans fell in love with Boris Fomin’s romance “A Long Way”, “taken out” by Alexander Vertinsky, that a new English text appeared to Fomin’s music, and the British are still sure that the song was written on the shores of foggy Albion.

Years later, Alla Bayanova, Alexander Vertinsky, Isabella Yurieva returned to Russia and continued their careers in our country with incredible success. Romance has always remained one of the most beloved musical genres in Russia, both among listeners and performers.

Without exaggeration, the most famous singer from Kazan in the world can be called Yulia Ziganshina, a performer of old and modern Russian romances, domestic and foreign songs, an honored artist of Tatarstan. For many years she has been developing and supporting such a unique genre as "Russian romance", visiting various parts of the world with concerts and keeping the salon "Kazan Romance" 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 a modern person.

- Julia, how has Russian romance changed throughout its history?

The 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 love for God, but in their native Romance language and about love for a woman. In our country, the 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 - these are Pushkin, Glinka, Lermontov, Dargomyzhsky. The next splash - the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, then a salon romance was born. It is interesting that during this period, romances, with some exceptions, are written on the verses of semi-professional poets. The high poetry of the Silver Age was ahead of its time, it was sometimes incomprehensible to the layman. And romance is a humane, earthly genre in every sense of the word. Romances on the poems of the Silver Age began to be written 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, and it was life-threatening to perform and write it. And he returned to the masses only with the poetry of the Silver Age through such films as "The Irony of Fate", "Cruel Romance".

- And what happened to the romance in terms of plots, the range of feelings it expressed?

Musically, intonationally, of course, something changes. Human thinking develops, vocabulary expands. We began to think more difficult, although this is not always necessary. Romances today are often performed with orchestras, formerly mostly guitar and grand piano. The range of feelings in the romance is 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 sensual 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 difficult genre for its apparent simplicity. There is still an opinion that romance is a trinket that is easy to perform. Many drama, opera and jazz performers think that it is very easy to sing a romance: "If I sing an opera, will I really not sing a romance?" But you can't sing! There are too few real romance singers.

Let me explain. Opera, in my opinion, is vocals. Jazz is freedom. An author's song is a text. Folklore is a state. Rock music is rhythm. Pop music is about 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. In a romance, vocals are also necessary, and competent, delivered, however, if there is too much of it, then, as a rule, the text disappears. When there is not enough vocals, this is also bad, because romance is still a vocal genre, without vocals, amateur performance is obtained. The text should also be in moderation: a little is not allowed: a romance is a dramatic work, and a lot is not allowed - there is a danger of leaving the author's song.
A state is necessary, but just enough so that in three, or even two verses, you can immerse yourself in the work yourself, immerse the listener, and get out of there together - impressed, inspired. Show and exterior are essential. A concert costume, and not simple, but appropriate, is an integral part of the romance program. The show, or rather the mini-theater, is the basis of the romance concert, but again in moderation so that the spectacle does not overshadow the romance itself; after all, romance is a fragile genre, easily vulnerable, 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 just isn't necessary. The singer must be observant and have imagination, be able to arouse feelings - from his past, present and imaginary life, from the memory of his ancestors, and so on. This is called the memory of the heart.

- Whatis a romance fan today?

This is a person who just has life experience. Of course, these are mostly people who are over ... For how much? It is hard to say. I sang romances for a children's audience, and the children listened with interest. Who didn’t fall in love in the first grade, didn’t have feelings in the seventh? An experience beyond the control of years, which can be gained at 7, 25, and 70. There is a person who has lived his whole life and did not understand anything. The listeners belong to different social strata. There are more women at concerts: I think because they are not afraid to show their feelings, it is customary for men to be restrained.

- What does romance give to a modern person?

The ability to feel like a person, remember your feelings. Many people say that romance heals their soul. What is this treatment? Tension is relieved, feelings and thoughts come into harmony, the heart is purified.

- How is Russian romance met in the world?

I often perform abroad - not only for the Russian audience, but also for foreigners. For example, I recently returned from Italy, there was a concert in Parma for an Italian audience, where we worked with translators of Russian literature: before each romance, I talked a little about the romance itself, passed on its brief content so that the audience could understand where to direct their feelings. And it works.

Russian romance is a brand. He is unique. There is no analogy to this genre anywhere. Everything that is sung with a guitar abroad looks more like an author's song than a romance. You will not find the genre of domestic salon romance in any other country. However, as it 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 happily sit on it. I think this is unacceptable. When they tell me that this is one to one Vertinsky or Piaf, then I answer that I'd rather listen to the original. Singers who copy achieve a certain degree of success, they have fans, but they do not need fresh experiences, but the past, memories, antiques.

There is a downside to the question - 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 it speaks more of the artist's stupidity than originality: not taking into account the experience accumulated over the centuries, he shows either ignorance or laziness. Here again the question arises about a great sense of proportion - where is the line not to fall into copying, but also not to leave the source? And here it is important to find landmarks.

- Why did you choose romance in your life?

It all started professionally 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 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 accurate hit in me with an incredible combination of words, melody, guitars, tonalities, compliance with my condition, modernity of sound with the general entourage of the 19th century! And the main thing is the voice! A voice where text and experience were in the foreground. It cannot even be said that it was the voice that struck me: real romance singers do not have a pure voice - it is always a combination of sound, word, meaning and feeling. Then a vinyl record was bought, listened to stumbling and scratching. And a strange thing - after a while, through the modern romances that sounded in the film, an understanding and realization came about what is being done in the old romances - they acquired meaning, they found logic, development, and an idea!

In music, there are many genres, forms and varieties of vocal and instrumental pieces. Only a professional in this field is obliged to know the features of each musical element, however, it is desirable for everyone to understand what the most common of them are. Therefore, in this article we will consider what a 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 the past centuries, this genre was more like serenades that men in love sang under the windows of their beloved. In the Middle Ages, when romance had just established itself in the art world as an independent genre, it had a pronounced text that was drawn out, its meaning concerned exclusively love themes. It was also characteristic that the pieces of such content were performed only to the accompaniment of the national Spanish instrument - the guitar.

What is romance in terms of music

It is believed that this vocal-instrumental genre is the most harmonious among all its counterparts. This is due to the fact that in a romance every word, every sung syllable is emphasized by its corresponding note. That is why a professional musician can immediately distinguish whether a simple melody sounds, or 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 both processes can be combined.

What is romance in the broadest sense of the word

These works gained their wide popularity in the second half of the 18th century, and by the 19th century, whole schools of romances had already formed. This happened because, firstly, just the end of the 18th century was the Golden period in Russian literature, and an equally significant period in the history of the development of European art. In those years, authors such 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 exclusively a 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, Italian vocal and instrumental pieces appeared, which were performed at social events and receptions.

Contemporary romances

Nowadays, it is rare to hear such a melody at any event, and even performed by a talented singer (or singer). However, every child who studies at a music school knows perfectly well what a romance is. Children who are naturally gifted with a beautiful voice and can perform in front of an audience always perform such works. As a rule, one has to choose from the classics, so the students sing compositions written by Prokofiev, Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, to the verses of no less famous geniuses of the pen.

It is customary to call a romance a vocal composition of necessarily lyrical content. In fact, it is a chamber piece of music for voice with instrumental accompaniment. Romances are performed by one performer to the accompaniment of usually one instrument.

The emergence of romance in Russia

For the first time this genre appeared in Spain in the XIII-XIV centuries. The first performers of such songs were itinerant poets, who performed their works in chant. These works were written in the Romance language, hence the name "romance".

Romance came to Russia from France in the 18th century. Due to the fact that it was at this time that Russian poetic creativity flourished, the new vocal genre took root and quickly spread, absorbing the features of Russian culture. Moreover, at first the romances were written exclusively in French. Vocal works with instrumental accompaniment in Russian were called Russian songs for a long time. In fact, it was folklore. Each performer supplemented such songs with his own words, changed the music in his own way.

Russian romance

The very concept of "Russian romance" appeared much later, when professional composers began to pay attention to the romance. They saw in Russian songs a source of inspiration and creativity, which is why Russian romances are so imbued with the Russian spirit. The creators of Russian romances were such composers as Glinka, Mussorgsky, Alyabyev, Dargomyzhsky, Gurilev, Varlamov, Balakirev, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninov.

Thanks to the work of composers, a gypsy romance appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. Subsequently, the gypsies themselves bring their own flavor to it and bring it to a high level, thanks to the unique style of performance.

Varieties of Russian romances

• Urban romance. It appeared at the end of the 19th century and existed as folklore. From the point of view of poetry, urban romance is distinguished by specificity in images, as well as a stepped composition. The main character seems to be experienced, and the object of love is unattainable. From the point of view of music - the harmonic minor and characteristic sequences are inherent in urban romance.
• Gypsy romance. The main theme of such romances is passionate love experience. From a musical point of view, gypsy romances have a professional origin, complemented by the manner of performance of the gypsies themselves. Later, under the influence of a gypsy romance, the Russian chanson developed.
• Cruel romance. In such a romance, the features of a ballad, romance and lyric song are synthesized. The main plots are clearly distinguished in it, and all of them are tragic and end with the death of the hero, murder or grief.
• Cossack romance. Such vocal creativity developed on the Don in the 19th century. In such a romance, the peculiarities of Cossack life and love are conveyed.

Many modern well-known romances were written in the 20-30s of the last century. The composers who wrote them were later banned, since in Soviet times the romance was read in a philistine genre. These are Boris Fomin, Boris Prozorovsky, Julius Hait. Their works were called old romances and were forgotten. But they were performed abroad, returning to Russia only in the 80s.

Now the Internet has come to the aid of lovers of romances. Lyrics on MorePesen.ru allows you to download your favorite music, lyrics in mp3 format.