Composer Vasily Andreev

Composer Vasily Andreev was born in 1861 in a merchant family. He did not become a trader, but was carried away by music. Thanks to him arose the fashion for Russian folk instruments, which received considerable public recognition and distribution on the concert stage. Andreev was not just a composer, but also an organizer, and also a propagandist of this field of art.

Virtuoso and theorist

Vasily Andreev formed his first orchestra in St. Petersburg. It included lovers of ghusl, zhalek, tambourines and other folk instruments. Concerts of the orchestra spread throughout the country a passion for playing the balalaika. Vasily Andreev himself masterfully mastered this instrument.

The composer in fact created a new field of musical creativity, which received the name of Russian folk-instrumental art of written tradition. It merged both professional and academic, and folklore elements. That is why everything that Vasily Andreev did is considered unique. The composer came to the idea of creating a new kind of musical art far from immediately, although the balalaika fascinated him from childhood. Most of all, he liked the original timbre of this instrument and its executive techniques.

Vasily Andreev is a composer, who was distinguished by his fanatical purposefulness in implementing his own plans. On the one hand, he was a virtuoso of live performance, and on the other - a thoughtful theorist who wrote a huge number of articles and books on his favorite topic.

The first chromatic balalaika

Although Vasily Andreev specialized in folk instruments, academic music also influenced him. For three years he was engaged in violin, taking lessons from the outstanding conductor and violinist Nikolai Galkin, a former professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. That is why Andreev with time more and more presented to the balalaika requirements, characteristic for a concert instrument. Movable ladder pads gave only a diatonic scale. The composer used a fixed chromatic temperament. He became a reformer of performing equipment.

In 1887, together with the talented master Franz Paserbsky Andreev created the first chromatic balalaika. The tool immediately gained popularity. In the summer of the same year, the book "School of Balalaika" was published. The Paserbsky pattern was of fundamental and cardinal importance for the whole life of Andreev. For the first time, a balalaika appeared, which became an academic instrument and retained its characteristic folkloric properties (number of strings, triangular shape of the deck, tricks of the game, system). There were prospects for mastering the classical musical heritage on it.

Popularization of balalaika

In fact, Andreev presented the country with a balalaika in an improved and improved form. Prior to this, the nationality of this instrument consisted of its ethnographic origin, and now it has become popular also in its mass distribution. Many experts consider this phenomenon unique in the history of music.

In just ten years, the balalaika has gone the way that other instruments took centuries. At the beginning of the XXI century in Russia there were about 200 thousand (while in St. Petersburg there were about 65 thousand).

Advantages of the Andreev model

The instrument for which Vasily Andreev wrote many articles and created a new executive technique, determined the musical fashion of his era. The new balalaika has been improved in such a way that it has become much more accessible for initial mastering by beginners. Her sound was more intonation more distinct and sonorous than the sound of her predecessors.

The form of the balalaika has become more convenient, and most importantly, more compact. The advantages did not prevent the tool from remaining cheap and easy to manufacture. He equally approached both for the lyrical intimate folklore song, and for the temperamental dance. The totality of all these pluses attracted all new enthusiasts who wanted to master the unknown musical skill.

The emergence of the orchestra

After the appearance of the new chromatic balalaika, Andreev acquired a large number of pupils. It was they, together with their teacher, who created the most popular St. Petersburg orchestra (the initial composition - 8 people). His first concert took place on March 20, 1888. This date is the birthday of the orchestra of Russian folk instruments.

The instrument parts were duplicated and had a clear functional division (chord accompaniment, bass, melody). The Balalaikas played in unison. Later, in the 1890s, the orchestra expanded to 16 people.

Propaganda of music in the army

Getting acquainted with the tool for which Vasily Andreev wrote plays, created orchestras and wrote books, we should not forget that a significant contribution to his success was made by a competent campaign to popularize the balalaika. Becoming famous in the capital, the composer began to organize thematic circles in military units. He believed (and believed correctly) that the soldiers demobilized and returning to their native places would cultivate the love of a balalaika from friends and relatives.

So in the villages, in the factories and plants, the folklore revived, and the broad strata of the people received aesthetic and musical education. At least for this reason Vasily Andreev takes a worthy place in the galaxy of great musicians-enlighteners. The composer's plays became widely known and used by many enthusiasts as the starting material for their studies.

In 1897, Andreev succeeded in establishing in the army a teaching staff engaged in the propaganda of playing the balalaika. Many soldiers who learned from the composer played at the Mariinsky Theater. At the concert, dedicated to the 10th anniversary of Andreev's collective, there was an orchestra consisting of 380 balalaika students.

However, one should not think that the organization of training became a simple enterprise for the composer. At first he had to fight with bureaucratic and bureaucratic apparatus in the military chancery, which belonged to folk instruments with a lot of prejudices and contempt.

The pupil of the composer

After Andreev's St. Petersburg orchestra, similar orchestras began to appear throughout the country, specializing in Russian folk music. Moscow became the second city with a new circle of fans of balalaikas.

The Andreevsky orchestra was also expanded, in which the most devoted pupils of the composer were. The most famous among them was Nikolai Fomin. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and brought in the circle additional academism and professionalism. It was Fomin who became the author of most of the transcriptions and processing of Russian folk songs for the orchestra. His works quickly passed into the category of classical. Of course, Vasily Andreev himself influenced the formation of Fomin. "Meteor", "Faun" and other his works have become a practical guide for several generations of musicians.

Andreev and domra

Over time, Andreeva ceased to satisfy the timbre homogeneous balalaika orchestra. He considered such a sound not sufficiently diverse. Therefore, the composer began to introduce into his orchestra all new instruments. They helped to update the concert program at the expense of more serious classical academic works. It is interesting that the expansion of the repertoire of the Andreev orchestra was encouraged by many famous figures of Russian art of that period. The music of balalaikas has carried away not only musicians. So, Andreev's correspondence with the great artist Ilya Repin was preserved.

Looking for suitable for the reconstruction of Russian folk instruments, Andreev decided to turn to string and plucked domra. Then the question of its affiliation was controversial. Andreev found an "heiress" of a domra in the Vyatka balalaika that had long since disappeared from widespread use. Their characteristic feature was a round body (different from the "classical" triangular).

For what instrument did Vasily Andreyev write plays? Most of his works are created for balalaikas. Nevertheless, the composer did a lot to popularize other instruments. An example of domra in this sense is the most revealing. Having reconstructed it, Andreev found a new source of timbre variety for his orchestra of Russian folk instruments.

Update the orchestra

The first domes on the Vyatka pattern were made in the summer of 1896. After their addition to the concert program, the Andreevsky orchestra was renamed the Great Russian. The composer explained the reason for the appearance of the new signboard by the fact that he and his pupils used instruments that are unique to the northern and central regions of the country. At the same time, the reconstructed helmet-shaped gusli appeared for the first time in the orchestra.

In addition to the balalaika, Vasily Andreev loved harmonic from childhood. On this instrument he played from an early age. At home in Maryino, along with the harmonica, the composer often rested after long concerts. At first the orchestra regularly alternated numbers on this instrument with balalaika. With the help of harmonica Vasily Andreev performed serious and detailed works. At the same time, the classical for the Great Russian Orchestra, this instrument did not. The fact is that the harmonica is more connected with the city song, while Andreev (with all his love for her) tried to revive the earlier layer of folklore.

Works of the musician

"Memoirs of Vienna", "Faun", "Butterfly", polonaise number 1 - that's not the whole list of works, whose author was Vasily Andreev. "Orchid" was also a widely known repertoire number of the Great Russian Orchestra. Even modern folk bands continue to process the song "Shines of the Month", created by the composer over a hundred years ago.

Vasily Andreev wrote plays instrumentally colorful, bright in melody and popular among the widest audience. They attracted all new fervent adherents to the acquaintance with the new orchestral folk culture.

Tour

Instrumental composition, compiled by Andreev, impressed even the most recognized academic composers. Among them was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Andreevskoe influence is felt in his opera about the city of Kitezh. The propagandist of the balalaika and other folk instruments himself welcomed the idea of composing new large-scale works for his own orchestra.

Becoming popular, Andreeva's staff began to give concerts not only in Russia, but also abroad. Performances of the Great Russian Orchestra were sold out in Germany, France, America and England. There is a case when the Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo refused to go to Berlin to premiere his own opera "Pagliacci" in order to at the same time attend a concert of Vasily Vasilyevich.

Until recent years, Andreev remained an energetic and dedicated performer. After the revolution, the Civil War began, and the composer went to the front with concerts. His performances enjoyed widespread popularity among the Red Army. During one of the concerts Vasily Andreev conducted in the cold in a light suit and seriously fell ill. He was sent to Petrograd. He died on December 26, 1918. The grave of Andreev is on the Composer's path of the Tikhvin Cemetery, where famous artists of music are buried.