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Old March 13th, 2016 #25
Alex Him
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Alexander Dargomyzhsky - "Bolero" and "Baba-Yaga"







"Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869) - (Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Даргомы́жский) was a 19th-century Russian composer.

He was already known as a talented musical amateur when in 1833 he met Mikhail Glinka and was encouraged to devote himself to composition. His opera Esmeralda (libretto by composer, based on Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame) was composed in 1839 (performed 1847), and his Rusalka was performed in 1856; but he had little success or recognition either at home or abroad, except in Belgium, until the 1860s, when he became the elder statesman.

His last opera, The Stone Guest, is his most famous work, known as a pioneering effort in melodic recitative. With the orchestration and the end of the first scene left incomplete at his death, it was finished by César Cui and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It was premiered in 1872, but never became a lasting standard operatic repertoire item.

Dargomyzhsky also left some unfinished opera projects, among them an attempted setting of Pushkin's Poltava, from which a duet survives. Besides operas, his other compositions include numerous songs, piano pieces, and some orchestral works."

Text by Wikipedia.





"Болеро" / "Bolero"


Orchestra: The State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Conductor: Evgeny Svetlanov









"Баба-Яга" / "Baba-Yaga"


"In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs (or sometimes a single chicken leg). Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out. She sometimes plays a maternal role, and also has associations with forest wildlife. According to Vladimir Propp's folktale morphology, Baba Yaga commonly appears as either a donor or villain, or may be altogether ambiguous.

Andreas Johns identifies Baba Yaga as "one of the most memorable and distinctive figures in Slavic European folklore," and observes that she is "enigmatic" and often exhibits "striking ambiguity."

Text by Wikipedia.




Orchestra: State Academic Symphony Orchestra St. Petersburg
Conductor: Stanislav Kochanovsky