Evstignei Ipatievich Fomin. The meaning of Fomin Evstigney in a brief biographical encyclopedia, a Soviet composer who composed mainly hits and romances

Evstigney Ipatievich (Ipatovich) Fomin(5 (16) August 1761, St. Petersburg 16 (28) April 1800, ibid.) Russian composer.

Biography

Born into the family of a gunner in the Tobolsk Infantry Regiment, he was orphaned early.

At the age of six he was sent to the Educational School at the Imperial Academy of Arts, then studied in music classes at the Academy of Arts, where he mastered playing the harpsichord, music theory and composition. Among his teachers was Hermann Raupach, the author of the then popular Singspiel "The Good Soldiers".

After graduating from the academy in 1782, Fomin was sent to Bologna to improve his musical skills under the guidance of Padre Giovanni Battista Martini. Martini's health, however, was already weak at that time; he could not devote much time to teaching, and Fomin studied mainly with his student Stanislao Mattei. In 1785, under the name Eugenio Fomini, Fomin was elected a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy.

In 1786, Fomin returned to St. Petersburg, where he wrote his first opera, “The Novgorod Bogatyr Vasily Boeslavich” to the libretto of Empress Catherine II. The opera in five acts, completed by the composer unusually quickly within one month in the same year, was already staged at the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg. The details of Fomin's subsequent biography until 1797 are little known. He failed to occupy a prominent place at the imperial court; according to some sources, in 1786-1788 he served in the office of G.R. Derzhavin, who in those years was the governor of Tambov (according to other publications, there are no documentary sources for this). In Tambov in 1788, the libretto of Fomin’s opera “Coachmen on a Stand” was published anonymously. A copy of the libretto manuscript, discovered in Derzhavin's archives in 1933, belongs to Nikolai Lvov, the poet's brother-in-law.

In 1788, Fomin wrote one of his most famous operas, “The Americans,” to a libretto by 19-year-old Ivan Krylov. The directorate of the imperial theaters did not accept it for production, and only in 1800 did this opera see the stage. Another famous work by Fomin is the melodrama “Orpheus and Eurydice” based on the text by playwright Yakov Knyazhnin, written in 1791. In 1797, Fomin was hired as a tutor at court theaters, where he helped singers learn opera parts.

Creation

Fomin is one of the first professional Russian composers, whose work had a significant influence on the further development of Russian opera. Fomin's legacy, however, remained little known until the mid-20th century, when some of his operas were staged in theaters in Moscow and Leningrad. Many of the composer’s manuscripts have been lost (in particular, the operas “Parties, or Guess, Guess, Girl, Guess, Red” and “Clorida and Milo”).

The scores of “Coachmen on a Stand”, “The Americans”, “Orpheus and Eurydice”, as well as the chorus from the music for Ozerov’s play “Yaropolk and Oleg” (1798) have survived to this day. The operas “The Novgorod Bogatyr Vasily Boeslavich” and “The Golden Apple” (the last of the composer’s famous works) have been preserved in the form of orchestral parts. Fomin’s authorship was also attributed to other operas written in the second half of the 18th century, including “The Miller the Sorcerer, the Deceiver and the Matchmaker” (in our time, Mikhail Sokolovsky is considered its author).

Soviet composer who composed mainly hits and romances

Biography

Fomin's musical abilities manifested themselves early: at the age of 4 he learned to play the accordion. His parents initially took this negatively, because they wanted to see him as a major official, officer or scientist, but not as a musician.

However, later he was sent to a real school. At the same time, he took lessons from pianist A. N. Esipova.

After the First World War and the October Revolution of 1917, his father was offered a position in the new government apparatus, and in 1918 the family moved to Moscow.

In 1919 he went to the front, then worked on the restoration of front-line railways. After some time, he began giving concerts right at the front.

Returning to Moscow, he continued composing music and tried himself in many musical genres, such as operetta and ballet. However, his vocation was romance.

Upon returning from the front, he immediately declared himself a master of romance. One of the first is the one that later went around the whole world and is still performed today - “Only once in a life does a meeting happen.” He dedicated it to the gypsy singer Maria Fedorovna Masalskaya. Among other romances, “The Long Road” with lyrics by K. Podrevsky is famous (the English version called “Those Were the Days” became a hit in 1968 performed by Mary Hopkin), “Hey, guitar friend”, “Your eyes are green” and many other.

However, at the All-Russian Music Conference in Leningrad in 1929, romance was recognized as a counter-revolutionary genre and, accordingly, banned. After this, Fomin’s work was consigned to oblivion.

In 1937, Fomin ended up in Butyrka prison, where he spent about a year.

However, with the outbreak of the war, a new upsurge began in his work. During the war, he composed 150 front-line songs, and together with friends he created the front-line theater “Yastrebok” at the Ministry of Internal Affairs club - for many months it was the only theater in Moscow, which also produced concert programs and performances in tune with the times. Many of Fomin’s songs - “And not once, not twice”, “Wait for me”, “Quietly in the hut”, “Letter from the front” immediately after the premiere scattered across the country.

At the end of the war, Fomin was overtaken by a new wave of oblivion. He died in 1948. He was buried at the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

At the end of the 18th century, in an era when musical life in Russia was most closely connected with Italian and French operas, and it was led by invited foreigners, a new star shone brightly on the Russian horizon. The great Empress Catherine II herself wrote the libretto for this composer’s operas. He was a friend of Derzhavin and was distinguished by his complete rejection of the injustice and violence that reigned at that time. And this man’s name was Evstigney Ipatovich Fomin.

He was born on August 5, 1761 in St. Petersburg in the family of a gunner of the regimental artillery of the Tobolsk infantry regiment. Apparently, the child showed his artistic inclinations early, because at the age of six he was included in the list of pupils of the newly opened Academy of Arts. Here, for nine years, the students of the Academy had to undergo general education training. Taught: God's law, Russian language, foreign languages, arithmetic, drawing, geography, history, physics, natural science, architecture. And only after undergoing such training, the Academy student began a special study of the chosen form of art, which took another six years. Among other classes, there was a special class of musical composition. In 1782, Fomin graduated with honors from the Academy of Arts and was sent to Italy to continue his musical education. Fomin studied at the Bologna Philharmonic Academy for three years. He was one of the best students of the then famous contrapuntist Padre Martini, from whom he received a good knowledge of counterpoint and supplemented his musical and historical education. On November 29, 1785, at a meeting of the Council of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, Evstignei Fomin was elected a member of this academy.

Upon returning from Italy, Fomin settled in St. Petersburg. In 1786, at the request of Empress Catherine II, he wrote music for her work “Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslavovich”. This comic opera by Fomin was first staged at the Hermitage Theater in November 1786. The plot and images of the Russian epic are a story about a quarrel, massacre and reconciliation with the Novgorodians of the hero, reveler and brawler Vasily Buslaev. In the opera, not only dances and dances were presented using ballet means, but also fist fights and folk fights. This opera was followed by another, with a libretto now by Fomin himself, “Coachmen on a Stand.” In it, the composer made extensive use of Russian folk song melodies. From 1788 to 1800, Fomin wrote five more operas, including “Orpheus and Eurydice,” where the composer’s outstanding abilities were fully demonstrated. Here he solved one of the most important tasks facing Russian musical art of that time: for the first time he managed to master a great tragic theme and show that Russian music is no longer limited to genre and everyday themes, but boldly invades the world of big ideas and deep feelings.

Here it should be recalled again that at that time in Russia foreigners remained at the head of the musical life of the capital. Productions of Italian and French operas dominated. And despite the Highest Decree of Catherine II to Count Olsufiev dated July 12, 1783: “over time, to achieve in all the skills (arts) in theaters the necessary replacement of foreigners with their natural ones,” for a long time there was no such “replacement” and continued to lead the development of opera music in Foreigners invited to Russia. Against this background, Fomin’s life path was not easy. His talent was literally “out of place” in the Russian capital. His work was not accepted by the empress and her entourage. Foreign maestros, authors of ceremonial hymns and oratorios, were held in high esteem, and Fomin had to earn his living by working as an accompanist and teacher. Only shortly before his death, academician of the Bologna Academy Evstigney Fomin received a modest position as a tutor of opera parts. At the end of April 1800, at the age of 39, the composer died.

Traditionally indifferent to its geniuses, Russian society remained indifferent to this loss. There wasn't even a single response in the press. And until now, only a few lines in the music encyclopedia remind us that the Russian composer Evstignei Fomin lived and wrote wonderful music in Russia.

(1761-1800) - Russian composer. He studied in music classes at the Academy of Arts, then studied for three years in Italy, at the famous Bologna Philharmonic Academy (after graduation he was elected a member of this academy). In the last years of his life he worked as a tutor for court theaters. Fomin's work, appreciated only in our days, played an outstanding role in the formation and development of the national opera. Fomin's most significant works are the operas "The Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslavich", "Coachmen on a Stand", "The Americans" (libretto by A. I. Krylov), "The Golden Apple", the melodrama "Orpheus and Eurydice". In his music, the composer relied on the intonations of Russian folk songs and everyday romance, skillfully combining them with the techniques of European music of the 18th century.

Evstigney Ipatovich Fomin was born into the family of a gunner of the Tobolsk infantry regiment, and was orphaned early.

At the age of six he was sent to the Educational School at the Imperial Academy of Arts, then studied at the academy itself, where he mastered playing the harpsichord, music theory and composition. Among his teachers was Hermann Raupach, the author of the then popular Singspiel "The Good Soldiers".

After graduating from the academy in 1782, Fomin was sent to Bologna to improve his musical skills under the guidance of Padre Giovanni Battista Martini. Martini's health, however, was already weak at that time; he could not devote much time to teaching, and Fomin studied mainly with his student, Stanislao Mattei. In 1785, under the name Eugenio Fomini, Fomin was elected a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy.

In 1786, Fomin returned to St. Petersburg, where he wrote his first opera, “The Novgorod Bogatyr Vasily Boeslavich” to the libretto of Empress Catherine II. The opera in five acts, completed by the composer unusually quickly - within one month - was already staged at the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg in the same year. The details of Fomin's subsequent biography until 1797 are little known. He failed to occupy a prominent place at the imperial court; according to some sources, in 1786–1788 he served in the office of G. R. Derzhavin, who in those years was the governor of Tambov (according to other publications, there are no documentary sources for this). In Tambov in 1788, the libretto of Fomin’s opera “Coachmen on a Stand” was published anonymously. A copy of the libretto manuscript, discovered in Derzhavin's archives in 1933, belongs to Nikolai Lvov, the poet's brother-in-law.

In 1788, Fomin wrote one of his most famous operas, “The Americans,” to a libretto by 19-year-old Ivan Krylov. The directorate of the imperial theaters did not accept it for production, and only in 1800 did this opera see the stage. Another famous work by Fomin is the melodrama “Orpheus and Eurydice” based on the text by playwright Yakov Knyazhnin, written in 1791. In 1797, Fomin was hired as a tutor at court theaters, where he helped singers learn opera parts.

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Born on August 5, 1761 in St. Petersburg, in the family of an artillery soldier. In 1767 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, from which he graduated with honors in 1782. At the Academy, along with general education subjects, Fomin studied the clavichord and took composition lessons from Raupach and Sartori. Upon completion of his studies, Fomin was sent to Bologna for further improvement. In 1785, the composer was elected a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy. That same year he returned to St. Petersburg and devoted his life entirely to musical theater. In 1786, Fomin created the opera-ballet “Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslaevich,” based on epic material. In subsequent years, the composer wrote the operas “Coachmen on a Stand” (1787), “Parties, or Guess, Guess, Maiden” (1788), “The Americans” (1788), “The Sorcerer, the Sorceress and the Matchmaker” (1791), and the melodrama “Orpheus” "(1792), operas "Clorida and Milo", "The Golden Apple" (years of creation are unknown).

Fomin wrote music for the theater in a variety of genres and did a lot of practical work - he learned parts with singers, instrumentalized, edited, and completed individual scenes for the works of other composers performed on stage. In 1797, Fomin was appointed to the position of “tutor of opera parts.”

Evstignei Ipatievich Fomin died in April 1800.

Fomin is the predecessor of Russian classical composers; the features of realism and nationalism were clearly defined in his work. Emotionality, depth, internal content, significance of musical images, melody based on folk songs distinguish the works of the outstanding Russian composer of the 18th century.

Fomin’s deep interest in Russian folk life was especially clearly reflected in his one-act comic opera “Coachmen on a Stand.” This is an everyday sketch from life, realistic, colorful. Her music makes extensive use of coachmen's songs; the composer strives to show the beauty and expressiveness of Russian folk song. Musical scenes in the opera alternate with spoken dialogues, which reflect the peculiarities of folk speech.

One of Fomin’s most remarkable works is the melodrama “Orpheus”. The ancient mythological plot is embodied by the composer with enormous artistic truth and vitality. The music of "Orpheus" is distinguished by romantic emotion and sublimity of the narrative, the beauty of the melodies, and the bright colors of the orchestration.

Fomin owns the musical edition of the famous Russian comic opera “The Miller - the Sorcerer, the Deceiver and the Matchmaker,” written by the talented nugget, orchestra member of the Moscow Theater Sokolovsky.

This opera enjoyed enormous love from listeners and soon after its production on stage it became one of the most popular works of its time. “This play aroused so much attention from the public that it was played many times in a row, and the theater was always filled: and then in St. Petersburg it was presented many times at the Court, and in the free theater that happened at that time at the owner of Mr. Knipper, it was played in a row twenty-seven times,” noted a contemporary.

The famous Russian poet G.R. Derzhavin gives a high assessment of “The Miller,” noting that, in comparison with other modern Russian operas, “...everyone prefers Mr. Ablesimova’s Melnik, due to its natural plan, plot and simple language.”