What is Russian folk music?
A huge number of musical and poetic works are passed down from generation to generation. Their totality constitutes what is commonly called folk music or musical folklore.
The oldest folk songs were composed in villages, then in cities. Folk songs were not written down, but were sung by ear, passed on from one person to another, from family to family, from village to village, from generation to generation. The bearers of folk music were not professional musicians, but self-taught ones. Moving from performer to performer in the process of collective co-creation, the folk song undergoes changes, its variants arose.
Later, when trained musicians appeared, they began to record folk songs. Currently, many wonderful Russian folk songs have been recorded.
Music of magic
Another discovery of Glinka was the depiction of magical creatures and, in general, everything otherworldly using symmetrical modes and harmonies.
Major and minor, in which the vast majority of all classical music from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth is written, are initially asymmetrical, that is, the seven notes within an octave are not evenly distributed in pitch, but are at different distances from each other. Similarly asymmetrical, but each in its own way, the modes of folk music in different cultures. And for the first time in history, Glinka consciously and purposefully used a whole-tone (or whole-tone) scale to portray the wizard Chernomor in the opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” that is, a symmetrical mode in which the distance between all sounds within the octave is the same - equal to a whole tone. In honor of this technique, the whole-tone scale is sometimes also called the “Chernomor scale.”
Symmetrical modes of different structures were regularly used by composers to depict “other” characters and phenomena in music. These include, for example, the famous “tone-semitone” scale, which is repeatedly found in Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas, starting with the “marvels of the sea” scene in the opera “Sadko”. All over the world it is commonly called the Rimsky-Korsakov gamma.
When and where was Russian folk music born?
The origins of Russian folk music go back to the folklore of the Slavic tribes that lived on the territory of Kievan Rus, the first Russian state that emerged in the 10th century. The songs of the ancient Slavs were associated with ritual forms of pagan religious beliefs and ritual actions. The performance of rituals was accompanied by singing, playing musical instruments, and dancing with elements of theatrical action, which turned into “games.”
Folk music originated functionally, that is, in connection with some everyday necessity: rocking a child to sleep; express joy or sorrow; beg nature for rain or sun, harvest, etc.
Russian romances
Another intonational source of Glinka’s music was Russian urban romance. This was a favorite genre of secular circles in St. Petersburg and Moscow, which often combined talented versification and expressive musical accompaniment. Being a secular man, Glinka was friends with famous poets of the time, in particular with Alexander Pushkin.
It is no coincidence that romances occupied a significant place in his work, the texts for which were the works of Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Zhukovsky and Mikhail Lermontov. Since then, writing romances to poems by famous Russian poets has become a good tradition for many Russian composers, even quite serious ones, for whom opera or symphony were the main genres.
Main directions and styles in folk music
The genre system of Russian folklore includes the following main types: calendar, ritual, wedding, lyrical songs, ditties;
epic; dance genres. Instrumental music occupies an incomparably smaller place than vocal music: the church ban on the use of musical instruments in the temple, apparently, also influenced folklore. The cycle of calendar songs occupies a special place in song folklore.
The first calendar holiday was celebrated on the night of January 24-25, that is, when the day began to increase after the winter solstice. This cheerful night was called a carol among the Eastern Slavs. The youth went from hut to hut singing majestic caroling songs. The carol songs praised the beauty and hard work of the hostess, the intelligence and courage of the owner, who were wished for health and happiness, for which the singers received gifts. The holiday, which began on January 24 and lasted until February 6, was called Christmastide. The girls sang songs and told their fortunes to the sound of music.
At the end of winter there was another holiday - farewell to winter, Maslenitsa. At the end of the holiday, the image of Maslenitsa was burned in the forest and at the same time they sang: “Maslenitsa-wettail, get out of the yard,” which was supposed to contribute to the speedy arrival of spring. The spring holiday - "green Christmastide" - was associated with the cult of plants. The girls wove wreaths, decorated their homes with birch branches and sang.
There were many important events in people's lives that were reflected in folk music. And one of them was the wedding ceremony. It was a whole theatrical action, which was accompanied by songs and round dances. Wedding songs were divided into majestic, comic and dance songs. Not only the young people, but also all the guests were honored, and these songs were performed by a special singing ensemble.
On long winter evenings, both old people and young people gathered in someone’s spacious hut and here, sometimes doing some small chores, they sang lyrical songs.
The lyrical songs told about the experiences of lovers, about the hard lot of women, about soldier's service, about farm labor, and about much more.
Life passed in labor and short holidays. And when a person died, his funeral was also accompanied by a musical ceremony. Relatives or a special mourner performed deeply tragic lamentations and laments, which expressed a feeling of irretrievable loss, love and respect for the departed.
The life history of one generation of people was not forgotten by the next generation. The most important events and the heroes of their days were told in “antiques” or epics. Created in the 10th and early 11th centuries, they glorified the power and greatness of the Russian people. The defense of the homeland from foreign invaders was told in historical songs that arose later. Songs about Stepan Razin and the Patriotic War of 1812 enjoyed great love among the people.
The emergence of folk round dance songs is also attributed to the Old Russian era, when they were obviously performed along with ritual songs. Usually round dance songs were performed in a singing circle, a round dance of young people who moved along the “sun”. Each song, when performed, was immediately “played out” within the circle according to its content - this is the special purpose of round dance songs and determined their theme and artistic style.
Plots and images of Russian folk music
The song plots were a small picture of life, an episode, an event in which the song characters not only feel, but also act: the walk of a young man and a girl, round dance “actions”, farewell to the army, a soldier’s campaigns and his death in an open field, a path-road coachman, etc.
A lyrical appeal to the forces of nature, which in songs are often bright song landscapes, serves as a poetic background against which the main characters are depicted and the musical plot unfolds.
The songs personify the image of a girl with a “white swan”, “dove”, “birch tree”, “willow tree”, “strawberry-berry”; the symbol of a young man is the image of a “clear falcon”, “gray eagle”, “clear moon”; the bride and groom - “dove and doves”; mother-in-law - “bitter wormwood” or “nettle”; a married woman - a “bitter cuckoo” or a “gray duck”. There are also general images-symbols in the songs: joy and fun (“green garden”, flowers, “green grove”); sadness and sadness (fallen flowers, dried up garden, “white-flammable stone”); true love (golden ring); fate (“share”), etc. The songs have various epithets for greater emotionality, lyricism and poetic expressiveness: “blue flowers”, “clear eyes”, bitter sadness”, “burning tear”, etc. The words with diminutive endings.
Russian folk song has always been and, I hope, will be the embodiment of the life of the people and their culture, their memory, their historical existence, their everyday everyday life: work and rest, joy and grief, love and separation. The Russian person in the song personifies the world of nature, projects his spiritual properties and experiences onto it: “What is clouded, the clear dawn ...”, “The centuries-old linden tree stands above the river ...”, “Kalinka ...”. We comprehend this personification of nature with some special heart-aching sadness in “Thin Rowan”:
Why are you standing, swaying, a thin rowan tree, bowing your head to the very tine?
According to the famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, the direct existence of the Russian people is a river and a forest, a steppe and a field, thereby affirming the fusion of man with nature, rootedness in it. And in the Russian song, the immeasurable breadth of the Russian character is affirmed, corresponding to the immensity of the Russian vast expanses: “Oh, you, wide steppe ...”, “Down along Mother, along the Volga ...”, “I have traveled all over the universe ...”. The image of the Motherland is insightfully captured in the song “Native” based on the poem by F.P. Savinov:
I hear the songs of the lark, I hear the trills of the nightingale. This is the Russian side, this is my Motherland!
Russian polyphony
In Berlin, Glinka studied classical Western European polyphony under the guidance of the famous teacher Siegfried Dehn. Since then, rigor, theoretical impeccability and careful development of the polyphonic fabric, with the general romantic nature of the music, have been characteristic features of Glinka's symphonic and choral scores. He brought “Russian folk” polyphony into conformity with the classical principles of German musical science.
Thus, starting with Glinka, the basis of Russian classical music was the intonation of folk songs, decorated in the manner of bel canto, developed according to the rules of European theory and enclosed within the harmonious framework of classical musical forms.
Author: Alexey Skanavi
Outstanding folk singers
Russian folk song is becoming even more famous and popular thanks to the great
Russian performers , among whom the first places were and are occupied by Fyodor Chaliapin, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Lydia Ruslanova, Boris Shtokolov, Lyudmila Zykina, Dmitry Hvorostovsky and many others.
Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin
A special place in this list is occupied by F.I. Chaliapin (1873-1938), who, being an opera singer, constantly gave concerts and performed Russian folk songs. In his autobiographical book “Mask and Soul. My forty years of life in the theater,” he repeatedly noted the importance of Russian folk song for his development as an opera singer. According to his conviction, mathematical fidelity in music and the best voice are dead until mathematics and sound are inspired by feeling.
Chaliapin absorbed this lofty spirit from folk songs. A song is not a random combination of sounds, but the result of a creative act of the people. “I consider it significant,” he wrote, “and highly typical of Russian life, that simple Russian craftsmen encouraged me to sing. Russian people have been singing songs since birth. This is how it was in the days of my adolescence. The people who suffered in the dark depths of life sang painful and despairingly cheerful songs. And how well they sang! They sang in the field, sang in the haylofts, on rivers, by streams, in forests and behind a splinter. From nature, from everyday life, the Russian song is from love. After all, love is a song.”
Chaliapin studied singing in a church choir, like many singers from the people of that time. Thanks to his natural abilities, and Chaliapin had a heroic physique, he was a true hare; he was characterized by immeasurable talent and some kind of special robber prowess. He embodied a certain standard of a Russian person on stage.
Nevertheless, he always emphasized that the spiritual beginning, the state of the soul must be in every word, in every musical phrase, and they are impossible without imagination. The actor’s imagination must come into contact with the author’s imagination and grasp the essential note of the character’s plastic existence. Nothing can save a singer who has no imagination from creative sterility - not a good voice, not stage practice, not a spectacular figure.
Chaliapin illustrates this thesis by sharing his experience of performing the folk song “I remember, I was still young.” “The singer must imagine what kind of village it was, what kind of Russia it was, what kind of life it was in these villages, and what kind of heart beats in this song.” You have to feel all this so that the singer will feel pain if he imagines how they worked in the village, how they got up before dawn, in what dry conditions the young heart awakened.
These Chaliapin thoughts were repeatedly confirmed in practice; he tells how they performed “Luchina” together in nature with the miller Nikon Osipovich, what nuances, what subtleties he borrowed and was able to implement in his concert activities. Thanks to sound recordings, we can still listen to the sound of Chaliapin’s voice as he sang “From behind the island to the core...”, “Dubinushka” and many other songs. The crowning number in every Chaliapin concert, undoubtedly, was the well-known song:
Oh, along Piterskaya, along Tverskaya-Yamskaya, along Tverskaya-Yamskaya, and with a bell...
I.A. Ilyin in his article “Chaliapin’s artistic vocation” analyzes the influences under the influence of which the artist’s talent awakened, grew and strengthened. This is, first of all, a Russian folk song that has been flowing throughout Russia from end to end for many hundreds of years. Her sincerity and emotionality, her expressiveness made Chaliapin, as a national phenomenon, possible. We know that Chaliapin listened to her enough and moved away from her.
There is no doubt that the gypsy song also gave Chaliapin its own. Church Orthodox chant influenced Chaliapin. Only in the best prayer places of his roles can one trace some tradition of spiritual chants. It was these influences that laid the foundation for Chaliapin's creative path. “Chaliapin did not just sing, but breathed into your soul with his sound: in his massive, bell-like deep sound, the breath trembled, and in the breath the soul trembled; his voice had the power to take the listener and bring him immediately to suggestive submission; in order to make him sing with himself, breathe with himself and tremble with himself; breathing and breathing gave life to sound; the sound ceased to be a ringing, but became a groan: you heard in it the rising and falling, thickening and thinning line of feeling - and your soul floated in it and lived by it; the result was a sound extremely saturated with animation, commandingly enveloping the soul of the listener.”
However, I.A. Ilyin, to some extent and rightly, points out the negative traits of his character. All this led to the fact that Chaliapin did not create or leave behind a school, like the school of K. Stanislavsky, in which it would be worth embodying the method of his creativity and a living school of new operatic art. Chaliapin's song legacy has always been a kind of tuning fork and model for many generations of professional singers and lovers of Russian folk song.
Lidiya Andreevna Ruslanova
The great Russian singer
Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova (1900-1973) was born in the village of Chernavka, Saratov province (real name - Agafya Leikina).
Throughout the 20th century, she was one of the most popular performers, and her performance of Russian folk songs is considered to be the standard. Ruslanova had a beautiful and strong voice with a wide range. She created her own style of performing folk songs, which she collected all her life. Among her most popular songs are “Steppe, and steppe all around”, “Golden Mountains”, “The Moon Is Painted with Crimson”, “The Moon Is Shining”, “Valenki”, “Century Linden Tree” and many others. She was one of the first to perform “Katyusha” by M. Isakovsky. For some time, thanks to the help of teacher M. Medvedev, Ruslanova studied at the Saratov Conservatory, but then decided that her life should be connected with folk song: “I realized that I could not be an academic singer. My whole strength was in spontaneity, in natural feeling, in unity with the world where the song was born.”
During the First World War, Ruslanova was at the front as a nurse. In the 20s, her style in performance, behavior on stage, and selection of concert costumes was finally formed. These were peasant sundresses, colored scarves and shawls. In the 30s, the singer toured throughout the Soviet Union. Her voice had great strength and endurance, and she often took part in 4-5 concerts in one evening.
From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Ruslanova went to the front as part of one of the best concert teams. Once, in 17 days, this brigade gave 51 concerts. The song “Valenki” became the “calling card” of the popularly beloved singer. They had to perform in the open air, in trenches, in dugouts, and in hospitals. With her songs, Ruslanova poured the elixir of life into the souls of the soldiers - the Russian national spirit. Using her funds earned while touring the country in the pre-war years, Lidia Ruslanova purchased two batteries of Katyusha guard mortars, which were sent to the First Belorussian Front.
Ruslanova sang on the front line, under fire, in the back of a truck, wearing a bright Russian national costume. She sang about Russia, about the Volga, about the Motherland, reminding someone of her mother, someone of her wife, someone of her sister. And after the concert the soldiers went into battle. Once on the front line, Ruslanova gave a three-hour concert, which was broadcast on the radio through amplifiers. For three hours there was not a single shot fired from either side of the front.
During these three hours, the redeployment of our troops was carried out, and preparations for the counter-offensive were completed. And in defeated Berlin several concerts of Lydia Ruslanova took place - at the Reichstag building and at the Brandenburg Gate. In total, she gave more than 1,120 concerts on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. For all these achievements, Ruslanova was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
Ruslanova's performing style goes back to the singing traditions of the peasants of the Volga region. She had a deep, chesty voice (lyric soprano, turning into a dramatic one, but of a “folk nature”) of a large range and could move from contralto to the upper notes of a soprano sound. Possessing perfect pitch and excellent musical memory, Ruslanova did not strive to perform the same repertoire all the time, collecting Russian folk songs.
She knew so many songs - Volga region, Central Russian, northern, Siberian, Cossack - that she could surprise even experienced folklorists. She performed memorable, heroic, brave, robber, drawn-out, mournful, cheerful, game, circular, round dance, dance, joke, barge hauler, buffoon, ritual, wedding, ghoul, sub-bowl, woman's, gathering songs, as well as epics, laments, patches and thoughts. Each song became a small performance.
The ease with which Ruslanova performed folk songs was achieved through hard work. She said more than once: “Singing well is very difficult. You will be exhausted until you comprehend the soul of the song, until you unravel its riddle. I don't sing the song, I play it. It’s a whole play with multiple roles.” Ruslanova was rightly called the “Queen of Russian Song” and the “Singer of the Guard” during the Great Patriotic War. And today, in a number of Russian cities, folk song competitions named after Lydia Ruslanova are held (Saratov, Volgograd, Penza, Kozelsk, etc.). In her work, Ruslanova fully embodied the best features of the Russian national character - spiritual generosity, immensity, passion, talent, conciliarity and patriotism.
Lyudmila Zykina
Lyudmila Zykina was born on June 10, 1929 in Moscow into a working-class family. During the war years she worked as a turner at the Moscow Machine Tool Plant. After the war, she worked as a nurse in a military clinical hospital near Moscow, and then as a seamstress in a hospital. Moreover, at that time, by their own admissions, the cherished dream of both Lyudmila herself and her father was to become a pilot.
Her creative biography began in 1947 with participation in the All-Russian competition for young performers, after which she was accepted into the choir named after M.E. Pyatnitsky. The competition during the reception reached 1,500 people per place, in the end the commission selected four: three boys and one girl - Lyudmila.
In 1957, Zykina became a laureate of the Sixth Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, and in 1960, the winner of the All-Russian Competition of Variety Artists.
Since 1960, Lyudmila Zykina has been a soloist of the Mosconcert . In addition to Russia, Zykina was popular in all republics of the USSR and in many countries of the world.
In 1977, Zykina created the Russian folk ensemble “Russia”. Zykina's voice is full-bodied, soft and mezzo-soprano. Throughout her life she adhered to the Russian folk style of singing, first choral, then solo. It should be noted that Zykina’s national fame was brought not so much by Russian folk songs, but by Soviet, stylized folk songs, songs of small villages and working-class outskirts, written by composers Mr. Fradkin, Grigory Ponomarenko and others.
Famous performing groups. Choir named after Pyatnitsky
The Pyatnitsky Choir is one of the oldest in Russia.
It was founded in 1911 by the outstanding collector of Russian folk art Mitrofan Efimovich Pyatnitsky, who first introduced Russian peasant song into the sphere of high art and glorified it throughout the world. The basis of the repertoire is songs and dances from different regions of Russia, which are not only sung, but also “played” by the performers. In 1902, Pyatnitsky began creating a folk song ensemble. In 1910, Mitrofan Efimovich Pyatnitsky created a choir of folk singers from the Voronezh, Smolensk and Ryazan provinces. On March 2, 1911, the choir performed for the first time in the hall of the Moscow Noble Assembly. The hall was full. The curtain slowly parted, and an ordinary village hut appeared before the surprised spectators, along the log walls of which there were roughly built benches.
A Russian stove, cast iron pots, a poker, grips, a cradle, a spinning wheel, a dowry chest... Eighteen peasants took the stage. The concert was held to deafening applause from the audience. It was something completely new, combining folk song and theatrical performance. That first concert of the choir showed the beauty of Russian folk song and opened the way to the concert stage for its performers - ordinary Russian peasants.
In 1919, he again took up the task of forming a choir, uniting around himself performers and experts in folk songs who had moved to Moscow from remote villages and hamlets. Who was not in the revived Pyatnitsky choir! Workers and labourers, janitors and watchmen - natural singers who had no musical education, but had excellent hearing, vocal abilities and musical memory. We rehearsed at Pyatnitsky’s apartment, and he gave many free vocal lessons. After the death of Mitrofan Efimovich Pyatnitsky, the choir received his name.
The Pyatnitsky Choir has become one of the brightest national symbols of the Soviet state. His tour was seen by audiences in more than forty countries around the world. Nowadays, the choir again performs authentic Russian folk songs and dances from different regions of our homeland, such as: “Quadrille of the Prelensky Coachmen”, “Kasimovskaya Dance”, “Saratov Karachanka”.
Ensemble "Russian Song"
This is a kind of folk song theater, one of the leading popular groups in Russia. Created in 1975 by the famous Russian singer, talented musician and public figure, People's Artist of Russia Nadezhda Babkina. A mobile singing group of 9 people (6 female voices and 3 male voices) sings mostly unaccompanied. But for greater color, he uses folk instruments: beeps, rattles, accordions, etc. Individual numbers are accompanied by an instrumental group that owns a wide range of instruments, including pop ones.
Soloist of the ensemble Nadezhda Babkina . The future singer was born in 1950, on March 19, in the Astrakhan region, in the family of Georgy Ivanovich Babkin, a descendant of Cossacks who served in the White Army. Armenians, Kazakhs, Russians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, and Chechens lived in the village, so guests of different nationalities often appeared in their house.
The girl fell in love with singing in early childhood. Noisy companies often staged various masquerades with songs and dances, Nadezhda’s father played all kinds of musical instruments, so the girl grew up in a festive atmosphere and was a very artistic child. Already in the tenth grade, she earned recognition of her talent, taking first place in the All-Russian competition of young performers in the “Folk Song” genre. Her idol at that time was Lyudmila Zykina, whose songs she often covered.
Ensemble "Golden Ring"
The Russian pop folk music ensemble “Golden Ring” was created in 1988 by Alexander Kostyuk. Nadezhda Kadysheva became the ensemble's soloist.
A. Kostyuk’s song to the words of P. Chernyaev “A Stream Flows” became a national hit. Nadezhda Kadysheva was born on June 1 in the small village of Gorki. From an early age my favorite game was playing theater. They had never been to the theater, but this miracle awakened imagination and dreams. The artists were Nadezhda and Lyuba. They made “ballroom” dresses from curtains, walked “on their toes” like ballerinas, and sang something. “I will be an artist,” Nadezhda declared to her sisters. They applauded, supporting the performances.
But my childhood, albeit poor, but happy from the warmth of my mother and home, suddenly ended. The disease undermined the mother’s health and took her life at the age of 42. Nadezhda was 10 years old. Left with young girls, the father was forced to marry six months later. And the stepmother entered the house, bringing her children and fully justifying this word. Vera was the first to leave, going to work at a factory, then Maria was sent to live with relatives in the North, and Nadya and Lyuba were sent to a boarding school in Bugulma.
Conclusion
Having studied all the material, I can answer the problematic question of my project.
Folk songs deeply and truthfully reflect the history of the Russian people from ancient times to the present day. The talent and intelligence of many generations have been invested in them.
From songs we learn about the life of the people: their work and life, customs and traditions, suffering and hopes, thoughts and feelings.
The songs clearly reveal the features of the Russian national character: patriotism and courage, hard work, love for native nature.
From folk songs we learn a lot of information we need, so I think folk songs will always be interesting to us.
