Collection of the best Russian folk songs. Most Popular Artists List of Popular Folk Songs

Since today, Buranovskiye Babushki has been incredibly popular. This is easily explained. Sincere, soulful performance of folk songs is close to people. We decided to tell you about other, no less beautiful, but less well-known folklore performers from the Russian hinterland.

"Aliyosh" songs of the village of Plekhovo

A striking feature of the musical culture of the village of Plekhovo in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region is "alilesh" songs performed to the dance, a developed tradition of instrumental playing, specific choreographic genres - tanks (ritual dance) and karagoda (round dances).

Local tunes that made Plekhovo famous all over the world - "Timonya", "Chebotukha", "Father", "It's hot to plow" - are performed by an ensemble with a unique set of instruments: kugikly (Pan's flute), horn (zhaleyka), violin, balalaika.

The performing style of the Plekhovites is distinguished by the richness of improvisation, complex polyphony. Instrumental music, singing and dancing are inseparable components of the Plekhov tradition, which all true masters master: good singers they often know how to play the cugikles, and violinists and horn players sing with pleasure - and all, without exception, deftly dance in karagoda.

There are traditional rules in instrumental performance: only women play the cugicles; on the horn, violin, accordion - only men.

"Oh, what a marvel this is." Karagodnaya song for Maslenitsa performed by residents of the village of Plekhovo

Suffering in the village of Russian Trostyanka

The song tradition of the village of Russkaya Trostyanka, Ostrogozhsky District, Voronezh Region, is distinguished by the loud chest timbre of female voices, the sound in the upper register of male voices, colorful polyphony, a high level of performing improvisation, the use of special singing techniques - “kiks”, “dumps” (specific short ejections of voice in another , usually high case).

The genre musical and folklore system of the village includes calendar, wedding, drawn-out, round dance, game songs. A significant place in the repertoire of local residents is occupied by ditties and suffering. They could be performed both solo to the accordion or balalaika (“Matanya”, “Semyonovna”, “Lady”), and in chorus without instrumental accompaniment (“I start to sing suffering”, “Puva, puva”).

Another feature of the song tradition of the village of Russkaya Trostyanka is the presence of special spring songs, performed from Krasnaya Gorka to Trinity. Such songs, marking the season, are the lingering “Behind the forest, the forest, the nightingale and the cuckoo flew”, “We had a good summer in the forest”.

The lingering song "My Nightingale, Nightingale" performed by the folklore ensemble "Peasant Woman" from the village of Russkaya Trostyanka, Ostrogozhsky District, Voronezh Region

Ballads of the Dukhovshchinsky District

Lyrical songs are one of the dominant genres in the song tradition of the Dukhovshchina region. In the poetic texts of these songs, the emotional states and emotional experiences of a person are revealed. Among the plots there are even ballads. The melodies of lyrical songs combine exclamatory-cry and narrative intonations, expressive chants play an important role. Songs are traditionally timed to coincide with calendar periods (summer, winter) and individual holidays (Maslenitsa, Spiritual Day, patronal holidays), autumn-winter gatherings, seeing off to the army. Among the features of the local performing tradition is a characteristic timbre and special performing techniques.

The lyrical song "Girls Went" performed by P.M. Kozlova and K.M. Titova from the village of Sheboltaevo, Dukhovshchinsky District, Smolensk Region

Lamentations in the village of Cuckoo

The village of Kukushka, in the Perm region, is like a reserve of Komi-Permyak traditional singing. The area of ​​specialization of the ensemble members is the art of singing, traditional dances, dances and games, folk costume. The "massive", timbre-tense, "full" ensemble singing, typical for Kochevsk Komi-Permyaks, acquires special brightness and rich emotionality in the performance of Kukushan songwriters.

The ensemble includes residents of the village of Kukushka, connected with each other by family, relatives, and neighborly ties. The team members collect all genres of the local song tradition: drawn-out, lyrical Komi and Russian songs, dance, game, round dance songs, songs of the wedding ceremony, spiritual poems, ditties and choruses. They own the tradition of lamentation, they know the children's folklore repertoire, fairy tales and lullabies, as well as dance, dance, game forms of local folklore. Finally, they preserve and reproduce local ceremonial and festive traditions: an old wedding ceremony, a ceremony of sending off to the army, commemoration of the dead, Christmas games and Trinity meadow festivities.

Dance song (“yoktӧtan”) “Basok nylka, volkyt yura” (“ Beautiful girl, smooth head") performed by an ethnographic ensemble from the village of Kukushka, Kochevsky District, Perm Territory

Karagod songs of Ilovka

The traditional songs of the southern Russian village of Ilovka, Alekseevsky district, Belgorod region, belong to the song style of the Voronezh-Belgorod borderlands. V musical culture Ilovki is dominated by lingering wide-singing songs and round dance (karagoda) songs with crossed dancing.

In the singing tradition of the village, signs of the South Russian style are also clearly manifested: an open, bright voice, the use of high registers for men and low registers for women in joint singing, the influence of the style of round dance songs.

There are very few calendar and ritual song forms in the Ilovskaya tradition. The only calendar song that has survived to this day is the carol “Oh, Kaleda, from under the forest, forest!”, Which is performed in many voices. There are few seasonally timed songs, among them we can note the Trinity round dance “My All-Mighty Wreath”.

Round dance song "My All-Wreath" performed by residents of the village of Ilovka, Alekseevsky district, Belgorod region

Brazhnichanie in the Afanasyevsky district

Residents of the villages of the Kirov region remember, love and carefully preserve the local singing traditions.

Lyric songs are one of the most important parts cultural heritage areas. There is no special term for the genre of lyrical songs in the Afanasyevsky district of the Kirov region. Most often, such songs are characterized as long, lingering, heavy. In the stories of the performers, they are also mentioned as ancient, since they were sung in the old days. Names associated with the absence of a song being associated with a date (simple songs) or with their belonging to holidays (holiday songs) are common. In some places, memories of singing certain lyrical songs while seeing off to the army have been preserved. Then they are called soldiers.

Lyrical songs here, as a rule, were not confined to certain life situations: they sang “when it suits”. Most often they were sung during field work, as well as on holidays, both by women and men: "whoever wants, he sings."

An important place in the tradition was occupied by beer holidays, when guests drank. The participants in the feast made folds - each brought honey, mash or beer. After spending an hour or two with one host, the guests went to another hut. At these festivities, lyrical songs were sure to sound.

The lyrical song "Steep mountains are merry" performed by P.N. Varankina from the village of Ichetovkiny, Afanasyevsky district, Kirov region

Shchedrovki in the village of Kamen

The song tradition of the Bryansk region is characterized by the dominance of wedding, round dance and late lyrical songs. Wedding, round dance, lyrical and calendar songs are still popular in the village of Kamen. The calendar cycle is represented here by the genres of the Christmas period - schedrovka and songs that accompanied the driving of a goat, and Shrovetide songs, performed during the Maslenitsa festivities.

The genre most often found in the Starodub region is wedding songs. One of the few “living” genres today is lyrical songs. Local singers believe that they have undeniable beauty, they say about them: "Beautiful songs!"

Wedding song "Oh mother-in-law waited for the son-in-law for the evening" performed by residents of the village of Kamen, Starodubsky district, Bryansk region

The biography of Marina Devyatova, a performer of Russian songs, began in December 1983. It was then that the future singer was born in the family of the people's artist Vladimir Devyatov, in Moscow. Marina's artistic abilities appeared already at the age of three. Her childish voice sounded harmonious, the girl felt the tonality and rhythm of the melody. After watching their daughter for some time, the parents decided to send the child to a music school, which was done in 1990, when Marina was 7 years old. Thus, the biography of Marina Devyatova opened her next page.

Education at the music school

For a full eight years, the young student comprehended the basics of musical science, harmony and solfeggio, and also studied choral conducting. After school, Marina entered School of Music named after Schnittke, and four years later she continued her studies at the famous Gnesinka, the Academy of Music, where she studied vocals for several years. Musical education allowed the girl to believe in herself and continue to improve in the performance of Russian folk songs.

First concerts

In October 2008, the singer Marina Devyatova, whose biography was constantly updated with new pages, organized her first concert, which was held under the sign of Russian singing traditions. The success was stunning, after the concert the young singer decided to devote herself entirely to Russian folk song and the study of folklore. And in March 2009, the biography of the singer Marina Devyatova was marked by another event that excited the girl to the core, she received an invitation to participate in a reception organized by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in honor of Queen Elizabeth of England and her entire family.

Solo albums

Exactly one and a half years later, Marina presented her own program, with the ingenuous title "I'll go, I'll go out," at the Moscow Variety Theater. At the same time, her album "I didn't think, I didn't guess" was released. Critics unanimously suggested that Marina Devyatova neither thought nor guessed that Russian songs performed by her would receive such wide popularity. And when, at the end of 2011, Marina's next album, entitled "I'm happy", was released, no one had any doubts that the singer, by and large, had found herself and would continue to develop in the field of Russian folk song.

Foreign concerts

Marina regularly visits various countries of the world with concerts, and she is already considered the "ambassador" of Russian culture. At the same time, the biography of Marina Devyatova develops in a given direction and new creative pages appear in it. The singer loves to work with children's groups, talented guys add a resounding note to her performances, and Marina is just happy from this, like her little helpers. She is also assisted on tour by a Russian folklore group, the show-ballet "Young Dance", which includes professionally trained dancers who own the technique of native Russian dance.

Religious beliefs

The biography of Marina Devyatova, in addition to creative pages, contains information about the religious beliefs of the singer. By her own admission, Marina is a Hare Krishna. Being a vegetarian, the singer tries to convey her beliefs to every person with whom fate brings her one way or another. Marina Devyatova, among other things, with difficulty, but finds time for yoga, which, according to her assurances, is the key to physical and moral health.

Name : Collection of the best Russian folk songs
Performers : different
Year : 2015
genre: Other
Duration : 05:21:05
Format/Codec :MP3
Audio bitrate : 256 kbps
The size: 618 MB

Description: A collection of the 100 best folk songs. All those songs that all the Russian people know and sing! Sing along with us!

Free download collection of the best Russian folk songs can

Song List:
001. Lidia Ruslanova - Golden Mountains
002. Sergey Zakharov - Troika
003. Russian song - Marusya
004. Nadezhda Krygina - Mosquitoes
005. Lyudmila Zykina - Dropped a ring
006. Lyudmila Nikolaeva - Black-browed, black-eyed
007. Georg Ots - It's not the wind that bends the branch
008. Tatyana Petrova - My gilded ring
009. Ivan Skobtsov - Here comes the postal troika
010. Nikolay Timchenko - Along the Piterskaya
011. Joseph Kobzon - You are waiting for Lizaveta
012. Nikolay Erdenko - I remember, I remember
013. Sergey Lemeshev - How Vanyusha walked and walked
014. Olga Voronets - I'll go, I'll go out
015. Nikolay Gedda - Oh, my dear
016. Evgeny Nesterenko - Evening bells
017. Alexandra Strelchenko - Charming eyes
018. Evgenia Shevchenko - We rode on a boat
019. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - How my mother saw me off
020. Ivan Surzhikov - Wife
021. Nikolay Timchenko - I'll go outside
022. Olga Voronets - Someone is not there, someone is sorry
023. Olga Kovaleva - There are two flowers on the window
024. Nadezhda Kadysheva and the Golden Ring Ensemble - Katyusha
025. Maxim Mikhailov - Oh, you share my share
026. Vladiyar - Oh, frost, frost
027. Lydia Ruslanova - Kamarinskaya
028. Ivan Skobtsov - The night is dark, catch the minutes
029. Tamara Abdullaeva - How a soldier served
030. Sergey Zakharov - The moon shines
031. Lyudmila Nikolaeva - Gypsies drove
032. Tatyana Petrova - As in the evening, in the evening
033. Olga Voronets - With the people in a round dance
034. Sergey Lemeshev - Snowstorm
035. White day - Oh, how I like you!
036. Vika Tsyganova - Peddlers
037. Nadezhda Kadysheva and the Golden Ring Ensemble - Someone came down the hill
038. Galina Nevara - Nightingales
039. Maria Pakhomenko - It's better not to have that color
040. Nikolay Erdenko - Joy
041. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - Pretty, young
042. Alla Bayanova - Holiday in the village
043. Nadezhda Krygina - Ukhar-merchant
044. Ivan Skobtsov - Among the valleys are flat
045. Maxim Mikhailov - Oh, you share my share
046. Sergey Lemeshev - I'm sitting on a stone
047. Nadezhda Kadysheva and the Golden Ring Ensemble - If only I had golden mountains
048. Olga Voronets - Bird cherry sways under the window
049. Ivan Skobtsov - Steppe and steppe all around
050. Lyudmila Nikolaeva - Matanya
051. Sergey Zakharov - Along the river
052. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - Lullaby
053. Sergey Zakharov - Hey, coachman, drive to Yar
054. Lidia Ruslanova - Through the wild steppes of Transbaikalia
055. Zinaida Sazonova - Oh, yes, not evening
056. Tamara Sinyavskaya - Mother, that the field is dusty
057. State Voronezh Russian folk choir - Ducks are flying
058. Vladiyar - My consolation lives
059. Lidia Ruslanova - I went up the hill
060. Tatyana Petrova - my Vanyushka
061. Karina and Ruzana Lisitsian - Meadow duck
062. Lyudmila Zykina - From under the pebble
063. Ekaterina Shavrina - The moon turned crimson
064. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - Like on a hill in the mountains
065. Lyudmila Zykina - Under the arc of the bell
066. Lydia Ruslanova - Valenki
067. Vocal ensemble Voronezh girls - Thin mountain ash
068. State Academic Choir, conductor. A. Sveshnikova - Oh, you are a wide steppe
069. Alexandra Strelchenko - Along the Murom path
070. Sergey Zakharov - I'm the whole universe
071. Anna Herman - Because of the island on the rod
072. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - Oh, my fogs
073. Ivan Skobtsov - Dubinushka
074. Vika Tsyganova - Red viburnum
075. Lyudmila Zykina - You sing in the garden nightingale
076. Sergey Zakharov - Spinner
077. Boris Shtokolov - Night
078. Olga Voronets - Kalinka
079. Viktor Klimenko - Coachman, don't drive horses
080. Nadezhda Kadysheva and Golden Ring Ensemble - Ural mountain ash
081. Maria Maksakova - Over the fields, but over the clean
082. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - When we were at war
083. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - And who knows
084. Lyudmila Nikolaeva - Oh, why this night
085. Maria Mordasova - Enticer
086. Nadezhda Kadysheva and the Golden Ring Ensemble - You are my fallen Maple
087. Russian folk choir. M.E. Pyatnitsky - Along the street
088. Anna Litvinenko - Golden-domed Moscow
089. Vika Tsyganova - Oh, viburnum blossoms
090. Tamara Sinyavskaya - Katyusha
091. Olga Voronets - One, two, I love you
092. Nadezhda Kadysheva and the Golden Ring Ensemble - Blossomed under the window
093. Evgeny Nesterenko - Here comes the daring troika
094. Ekaterina Shavrina - Luchinushka
095. Lyudmila Nikolaeva - Walking along the Don
096. Irina Maslennikova - Ant Grass
097. Lyudmila Zykina - The Volga flows
098. Olga Voronets - Overgrown stitches-tracks
099. Anna Litvinenko - There was a carriage at the church
100. Maria Mordasova - Ivanovna

I see a wonderful pleasure

I see fields and fields...

This is Russian expanse,

This is Russian land!

F.P. Savinov

1. Russian philosophers and writers about folk song

Russian research national character will always be incomplete, truncated beyond the appeal to the Russian folk song. The laconic formula: "The song is the soul of the people" directly and directly expresses the meaning of the folk song. The song reveals such depths, such secrets of the Russian character, which are inexpressible, incomprehensible in others. life situations. Russian people sang and sing almost always - on a campaign, in short moments of rest, in sorrow and joy, on weekdays and holidays, in youth, adulthood and old age. The song so fully expresses the features of the national character that this was noted by many Russian thinkers. “Show me how you believe and pray; how kindness, heroism, a sense of honor and duty wake up in you; how you sing, dance and read poetry, - said I.A. Ilyin, - tell me all this, and I will tell you what nation you are the son of.

Folk song is the most democratic, accessible to all form of familiarization with musical creativity. Where, if not in a song, one can comprehend the character of the people: its boundless breadth, kindness and generosity, native disposition, prowess and youthful enthusiasm. In the song, as in prayer, there is a purification of the soul, catharsis, as the ancient Greek sages said. Unfortunately, today, in the context of universal globalization, we are witnessing negative trends in the development of Russian culture, including the oblivion of Russian folk songs and their displacement by pop music. For modern mass media, the Russian song turned out to be “out of format”. It turns out that the graduates of the “star factory” incubator, numerous rock ensembles and inveterate entertainers-laughers correspond to the format of the media and TV.

As my personal teaching experience shows, students of the last two decades do not actually know Russian folk songs. Imagine for a moment the following situation: in a youth student camp where students different countries, a concert is held in which folk songs are performed. Each of the participants in this impromptu concert performs the songs of their homeland with fervor and genuine pathos. And only a Russian student, who has erased folk songs from his memory, is left to shrug or mumble something in bad English, which many people do today.

All this is a great misfortune, which was the result of erasing the deep foundations of Russian national identity at the present stage. According to the artistic director of the Academic Chapel. M.I. Glinka, People's Artist of the USSR V. Chernushenko, the song is the repository of the soul of the people, and without the soul there will be no people. In the ensemble of choral singing, which Russia has always been famous for, souls and hearts unite in harmony, and if the people stop singing their songs, then it will cease to exist as a nation. In choral singing, catholicity is expressed to the maximum extent, as the most important feature of the Russian national character. Today we are faced with a life-meaning dilemma: will we be the heirs of the great Russian culture, including songwriting, or will we become Ivans who do not remember kinship.

It is very difficult, almost impossible, to make a folk song an object of reflection. Singing, the very act of performing a song, is more connected with emotional experience than with rational comprehension. Therefore, in the study of this topic, we will have to turn to Russian fiction and Russian philosophy, where we find precious placers that testify to the Russian song, its significance for understanding the originality and originality of the Russian national character. Another way of analysis is to turn to the work of outstanding experts in Russian folk songs from Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin to modern performers.

Russian folk song - the main type of musical creativity of the Russian people - from ancient times; sung solo, ensemble, choir ("One cannot sing, artel - it's easier"). Closely connected with life and everyday life, transmitted orally from generation to generation, it is polished in the process of execution in all strata of the people. Folk song is rich in various genres: labor songs, ritual, calendar, wedding, choral, game, dance, historical songs and spiritual poems, romances, lyrical lingering songs, ditties, etc. An old peasant song is characterized by a polyphonic warehouse in the form of sub-vocal polyphony, harmony, rhythmic freedom, singing without musical accompaniment. City songs have their own specifics, diverse in content and style, created by various social groups (workers, soldiers, students, petty-bourgeois). These songs are distinguished by their harmonic structure, alternation and combination of major and minor intonations.

Since the end of the 18th century, Russian folk songs have been recorded and published; she played a significant role in the formation of the Russian school of composers. Choral folk song has long been a favorite form of everyday music-making. The song has always been an organic combination of words (text) and music. new life Russian folk song found in Soviet times, thanks to its wide distribution (amateur choirs, professional groups, radio programs, gramophone records and tape recorders), the study of song heritage and the emergence of new songs that began to be considered folk ("Katyusha", etc.).

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Russian folk song in the formation of national identity and national character, what today is called the mentality characteristic of the Russian people. According to I.A. Ilyin, a child should hear a Russian song even in the cradle. Singing brings him the first spiritual sigh and the first spiritual groan: they must be Russian. Singing will teach him the first spiritualization of spiritual nature - in Russian; singing will give him the first "non-animal" happiness - in Russian. “The Russian song,” he wrote, “is deep, like human suffering, sincere, like prayer, sweet, like love and consolation; in our dark days, as under the yoke of the Tatars, it will give the child's soul an outcome from threatening bitterness and stoneness.

In life, a Russian sings at every step, especially peasant girls, during and after work, passers-by, soldiers on the march, students at the first opportunity, and all sectors of society during some hard and boring work. Ilyin gives the point of view of a person of a different nationality. In 1879, the Russian German prof. Westphal from Yuriev (Derpt) published a remarkable work on Russian folk song. On the basis of Yu.N.Melgunov's research, he established that the Russian folk song occupies a unique place in world music. It is sung in an exceptionally peculiar key, which resembles the Greek, but is not identical to it. These songs are notable for originality of harmony, voicing and cadenza, which sound great, but do not correspond to European music theory, the doctrine of harmony and compositional practice. They are performed by a peasant choir without any musical training, without a tuning fork and conductor, without accompaniment, a capella; this is a four-voice, in which there is never a bad and boring unison, and hence - free variations and mobile undertones, which from time to time improvise, proceeding directly from the inner feeling, hearing and taste. The richness of these songs is inexhaustible, sometimes their age cannot be established, their melody, rhythm and expressiveness are simply captivating, especially when performing ancient diverse wedding songs, sometimes plaintively sounding, sometimes thoughtfully blessing.

Russian people, according to I.A. Ilyin, have lived for centuries in a fluctuating rhythm: burning or calm, concentrated or relaxed, swiftness or drowsiness, jubilant or twilight, passionate or indifferent, "joyful to heaven - sad to death." It is like a flame that has been extinguished for the time being, a weakened concentration and a drowsy intensity that can be found in the glow of the eyes, in the smile, in the song and in the dance.

Who wants to get to know the Russian soul better, he should get acquainted with the Russian song. “When, for example, after the exercises, the soldiers return to the barracks in formation, or especially when, after a successfully completed review, the command is given to the troops: “Leaders, forward!” - then the choir marches ahead, singing folk songs, and the singer starts, and the choir joins in every second or third stanza of the song. You need to hear this enthusiasm, this excitement filled with humor. This freely syncopated rhythm, this suddenly exploding sharp whistle, these pickups, these frets that swell in the key. You will never hear a unison, you will never hear false voices, a song will never become a choral recitative. Everyone stands, captured by this, and cannot hear enough.

Russian classical literature XIX century contains numerous testimonies about the originality, mental structure and emotional depth of Russian folk songs. The amazing, enchanting power of a folk song was captured by N.V. Gogol in “ Dead souls': 'Rus! Russia! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful far away I see you: poorly scattered and uncomfortable in you ... But what incomprehensible, secret force attracts you? Why is your melancholy song, rushing along your entire length and width, from sea to sea, heard and heard incessantly in your ears? What's in it, in this song? What calls, and sobs, and grabs the heart? What sounds painfully kiss and strive to the soul, and curl around my heart? .

L.N. Tolstoy has a story “Songs in the Village”. But, perhaps, the story “Singers” in I.S. Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” makes the strongest impression. In this story, we are talking about a competition between two singers, which takes place in the Prytynny tavern. This competition is a kind of competition in which two heroes of Turgenev's story take part: a hawker and Jacob the Turk. The hawker was the first to sing a cheerful dance song with dashing prowess, and everyone present decided that he had won. But it was the turn of Yakov-Turk to perform his song. I.S. Turgenev describes in detail how the singer "enters the image", tunes in psychologically. “He took a deep breath and sang ...“ Not one path ran through the field, ”he sang, and it became sweet and creepy for all of us. I confess, I rarely heard such a voice: it was slightly broken and rang like cracked; he even at first responded with something painful; but there was genuine deep passion in him, and youth, and strength, and sweetness, and some kind of fascinatingly carefree, sad sorrow. The Russian, truthful, ardent soul sounded and breathed in him and so grabbed your heart, grabbed right by his Russian strings! The song grew and spread. Jacob, apparently, was seized with rapture: he was no longer shy, he gave himself entirely to his happiness; his voice no longer trembled - it trembled, but with that barely noticeable inner trembling of passion, which pierces the soul of the listener like an arrow, and incessantly grew stronger, hardened and expanded.

Turgenev repeatedly uses phrases - "Russian soul", "Russian heart strings", "Russian people", "Russian people", thereby emphasizing that such song creativity is fully an expression of Russian national identity and Russian character. “He sang, and from every sound of his voice there was something native and immensely wide, as if the familiar steppe was opening up before you, going into the endless distance. I felt tears boil in my heart and rise to my eyes; muffled, restrained sobs suddenly struck me ... I looked around - the kisser's wife was crying, leaning her chest against the window ... I don’t know how the general languor would have been resolved if Yakov had not suddenly ended at a high, unusually thin sound - like his voice broke off. Nobody called out, nobody even moved; everyone seemed to be waiting for him to sing more; but he opened his eyes, as if surprised by our silence, looked around with an inquiring gaze and saw that the victory was his ... ".

The very lengthy fragment I have cited from the story "The Singers" clearly represents one of the many Russian nuggets nurtured in the very midst of people's life. It is those who are characterized by the immeasurable breadth of the Russian soul, talent and ability to higher forms of experience. Turgenev, known to us as a writer-Westernizer, managed to show the originality of the Russian national character in songwriting with unusually expressive artistic means.

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 daily everyday life: work and rest, joy and sorrow, 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 dawn is clear ...”, “The centuries-old linden stands above the river ...”, “Kalinka ...”. We comprehend this personification of nature with some special heart-wrenching sadness in The Thin Rowan:

What are you standing, swinging,

thin rowan,

bowing head

To the very tyn?

In the words of 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 he affirms the fusion of man with nature, rooted 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, the steppe is wide ...”, “Down the mother, along the Volga ...”, “I traveled the whole universe ...” . The image of the Motherland is shrewdly captured in the song "Native" to the poem by F.P. Savinov:

I hear the songs of the lark,

I hear the trill of the nightingale.

This is the Russian side

This is my homeland!

Lidia Ruslanova, speaking at a rally of coachmen in the late 1920s. of the last century, she said that there were more than 80 songs about coachmen, and she herself performed about 30 of them. In each of these songs, boundless Russian expanses and equally boundless passions and spiritual impulses are merged. Altai and Valdai, the Urals and Siberia, the Quiet Don and the Volga, Baikal and the Russian North are sung in Russian folk songs: “On the wild bank of the Irtysh ...”, “Glorious sea - sacred Baikal ...”, “Zhiguli”, “Along A young Cossack walks to the Don ... ". Even when the action of the song unfolds within the limits of the capital city of Moscow, and here there is the immense breadth of the Russian soul: “Golden-domed Moscow” and “Along the Piterskaya ...” - a song performed by the great Russian singer Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin.

Russian folk songs reflect both generalized and specific images of dear, especially revered, sacred natural phenomena for a Russian person - one of the diverse faces of Holy Russia. A Russian person communicates with them, talks, as if they were alive, personifies, personifies them, endowing them with their own, inherent only to man, properties. Especially widely known are songs that sing about more revered natural phenomena - the Volga, the Don, the sacred Baikal. All of Russia knew these songs. Some of them are joyful, others are sad, but in all the songs the rivers or lakes, as if alive, “their life” and the fate of the Russian people - the heroes of the song - are merged into one. With such songs, of course, revered natural phenomena of the Russian land are fixed in the memory of people for a long time.

Of no small importance is the folk song in school education and upbringing. Among the many terms that form the basis of the national character, the famous teacher of the early XX century. V.N. Soroka-Rosinsky calls a folk song. Such a song goes back to the archetypes of our ancestors, through it the involvement of new generations of Russian people in national shrines and moral values. “It is necessary,” he wrote, “that a schoolboy with early years heard his native song and got used to being inspired by its sounds and feeling in himself the blood of his people and all that heroic and sublime that lurks in the people's soul; it is necessary that the national song accompanies all the solemn moments of the student's life, so that he feels the need to express his feelings in those moments when the soul is full, as any normally developing people does - in a folk song performed by the choir, by the whole world.

2. Outstanding performers of Russian folk songs

The 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, Lidia Ruslanova, Boris Shtokolov, Lyudmila Zykina, Dmitry Hvorostovsky and many others.

A special place in this list is F.I. Chaliapin(1873-1938), who, being an opera singer, constantly gave concerts, performed Russian folk songs. In his autobiographical book “Mask and Soul. My forty years of life at the theater,” he repeatedly noted the importance of Russian folk song for his development as an opera singer. According to him, mathematical fidelity in music and the best voice are dead until mathematics and sound are inspired by feeling. Chaliapin absorbed this lofty spirit from a folk song. The 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 for Russian life, that simple Russian artisans encouraged me to sing. Russian people sing songs from birth. So it was in my boyhood days. The people who suffered in the dark depths of life sang songs of suffering and joyful joy to the point of despair. And how well they sang! They sang in the field, they sang in the haylofts, in the rivers, by the streams, in the forests and beyond the torch. From nature, from everyday life, a Russian song and from love. After all, love is a song.

Chaliapin studied singing in the church choir, like many singers from the people of that time. Thanks to natural data, and Chaliapin had a heroic physique, he was a true hare, he was characterized by immense talent and some kind of special plundering 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 imagination of the actor must come into contact with the imagination of the author and catch the essential note of the plastic being of the character. Nothing can save a singer who has no imagination from creative infertility - not even good voice, no stage practice, no showy figure.

Chaliapin illustrates this thesis by sharing the experience of performing the folk song “I Remember, I was still a young woman.” "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 a heart beats in this song." It is necessary to feel all this in order for the singer to feel pain if he imagines how they worked in the village, how they got up before dawn, in what dry atmosphere a young heart awakened. These Chaliapin reflections have been 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 embody in his concert activity. Thanks to sound recording, even today we can listen to the sound of Chaliapin's voice, as he sang "Because of the island to the rod ...", "Dubinushka" and many other songs. The signature number in every concert of Chaliapin, of course, was the well-known song:

Eh, along the Piterskaya,

Along Tverskaya-Yamskaya,

Along Tverskaya-Yamskaya, yes

With a bell...

I.A. Ilyin in his article "The Artistic Vocation of Chaliapin" 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 heard enough of her and went from her. There is no doubt that the gypsy song gave Chaliapin its own. Church Orthodox chanting influenced Chaliapin. Only in the best prayer places of his roles can one trace some tradition of spiritual chants. It was these influences that marked the beginning of Chaliapin's creative path. “Chaliapin did not just sing, but breathed into your soul with his sound: in his massive, to a bell-like deep sound, the breath fluttered, and in the breath the soul fluttered; his voice had the power to take the listener and bring him immediately to suggestive submission; in order to make him sing with him, breathe with him and tremble with him; breathing and breathing gave life to the sound; the sound ceased to be a ringing, but became a groan: you heard in it a rising and falling, thickening and rarefying line of feeling - and your soul floated in it and lived by it; the result was a sound extremely saturated with animation, commandingly embracing 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, did not leave behind a school, like the school of K. Stanislavsky, in which it would be worthwhile to embody the method of his creativity and the living school of the new operatic art. The song legacy of Chaliapin has always been a kind of tuning fork and a model for many generations of professional singers and lovers of Russian folk songs.

An outstanding performer of Russian folk songs was Nadezhda Plevitskaya(Vinnikova) (1884-1941). The nugget singer - Plevitskaya was born in the village of Vinnikovo near Kursk in a simple peasant family. The love of singing led her to church choir Trinity Monastery in Kursk, where she was a student for more than two years. The first big success came on tour in Nizhny Novgorod in 1909 at a charity concert during the days of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, where she performed at the invitation of L.V. Sobinov. A year later, Plevitskaya already sang triumphantly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. F. Chaliapin greeted her very warmly, who, after the concert, fatherly admonished the singer: “God help you, dear Nadya. Sing your songs that you brought from the earth, I don’t have those - I’m a Slobozhan, not a village one. All her life, Plevitskaya kept a photograph of Chaliapin with a dedicatory inscription: “To my dear Lark Nadezhda Vasilievna Plevitskaya, F. Chaliapin, who sincerely loves her.”

About how Plevitskaya sang, the testimony of an admirer of her talent, journalist A. Kugel, has been preserved: “She sang ... I don’t know, maybe she didn’t sing, but she said. The eyes changed expression, but with a certain artificiality. But the movements of the mouth and nostrils were like an open book. Plevitskaya's dialect is the purest, most sonorous, most charming Russian dialect. She twists her fingers, clasping her hands, and these fingers live, speak, suffer, joke, laugh. Many connoisseurs noted her rare musicality, flexible and juicy naturally delivered voice - a mezzo-soprano of a wide range.

Plevitskaya's repertoire was huge. She performed well-known Russian folk songs: “Peddlers”, “Ukhar-merchant”, “Troika”, “Stenka Razin”, “Along the Murom path”, “Among the flat valley”, “Along the wild steppes of Transbaikalia” and many others. She sang at the evening of K.S. Stanislavsky in the presence of Russian masters of the Art Theater. In 1910, Plevitskaya received an invitation to Tsarskoye Selo, where she successfully spoke to Emperor Nicholas II and his family. The emperor liked Plevitskaya's singing so much that subsequently she repeatedly performed before the Sovereign, the Grand Dukes and the highest ranks of the Russian Empire. During the First World War, Plevitskaya performed in concerts in front of Russian soldiers, and during the years civil war- in front of the soldiers of the Red Army.

V further fate Plevitskaya developed very tragically. The outstanding singer ended up in exile. In 1937, she was arrested by the French government in connection with the kidnapping of General E.K. Miller. Despite the lack of direct evidence, the court sentenced Plevitskaya to 20 years in hard labor, where she died in 1941. The name of Plevitskaya still lives in Russia in legends, songs and romances.

Great Russian singer Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova(1900-1973) was born in the village of Chernavka, Saratov province (real name - Agafya Leykina). Throughout the 20th century, she was one of the most popular performers, and her performance of Russian folk songs is considered to be a reference. 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, yes steppe all around”, “Golden Mountains”, “The month has turned crimson”, “The moon shines”, “Valenki”, “Century Linden” and many others. One of the first she performed "Katyusha" by M. Isakovsky. For some time, thanks to the help of teacher M. Medvedev, Ruslanova studied at the Saratov Conservatory, but after that she decided that her life should be connected with the folk song: “I realized that I should not be an academic singer. My whole strength was in immediacy, in a natural feeling, in unity with the world where the song was born.

During the First World War, Ruslanova was at the front as a sister of mercy. In the 1920s, her style was finally formed in performance, behavior on stage, and in the selection of concert costumes. These were peasant sundresses, colored scarves and shawls. In the 30s, the singer went on tour throughout the Soviet Union. Her voice had great strength and endurance, often in one evening she participated in 4-5 concerts. 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 team gave 51 concerts. The song "Valenki" became the "calling card" of the popularly beloved singer. I had to perform in the open air, in trenches, in dugouts, in hospitals. With her songs, Ruslanova poured into the soul of the soldiers a vital elixir - the Russian national spirit. With her own funds earned while touring the country in the pre-war years, Lidia Ruslanova acquired two batteries of Katyusha guards mortars, which were sent to the First Belorussian Front.

Ruslanova sang on the front line, under fire in the back of a truck in a bright Russian national costume. She sang about Russia, about the Volga, about the Motherland, reminding someone of a mother, someone of a wife, someone of a 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 from either side of the front. During these three hours, the redeployment of our troops was carried out, preparations for the counteroffensive were completed. And in defeated Berlin, several concerts of Lydia Ruslanova took place - near the Reichstag building and at the Brandenburg Gate. In total, on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, she gave more than 1120 concerts. For all these achievements, Ruslanova was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree.

Ruslanova's performing style goes back to the singing traditions of the peasants of the Volga region. She had a deep, chesty voice (a lyrical soprano, turning into a dramatic, but "folk plan") of a large range and could move from contralto to the upper notes of a soprano sound. Possessing absolute pitch and an 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, Central Russian, northern, Siberian, Cossack - that she could surprise even experienced folklorists. She performed memorable, heroic, valiant, robber, lingering, mournful, funny, playful, circular, round dance, dance, joker, burlak, buffoon, ritual, wedding, ghoul, spy, woman, gathering songs, as well as epics, laments, lamentations and thoughts. Each song became a small performance.

The ease with which Ruslanova performed folk songs was given by hard work. She said more than once: “It is very difficult to sing well. You will be exhausted until you comprehend the soul of the song, until you solve its riddle. I don't sing the song, I play it. It's a whole play with several roles." Ruslanova was rightly called the "Queen of Russian Song" and "Guard Singer" during the Great Patriotic War. And today, in a number of Russian cities, competitions of folk songs named after Lidia Ruslanova are held (Saratov, Volgograd, Penza, Kozelsk, etc.). In her work, Ruslanova fully embodied best features Russian national character - spiritual generosity, immensity, passion, talent, catholicity and patriotism.

Such talented Russian nuggets as Fyodor Chaliapin, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Lidia Ruslanova - flesh from flesh, blood from the blood of the Russian people - expressed in their work the best properties of the Russian national character. The song is the embodiment of the life of the people, their culture; is and has always been an expression of sincerity, emotionality, and expressiveness folk soul. And as you tighten the song - and hard work is not a burden, and grief is not grief, and trouble is not a problem. For a Russian person, singing is like a prayer: in a song you will cry, and you will repent, and you will confess, and you will lighten your soul, and the weight will fall off your soul like a stone. A huge contribution to the popularization of Russian folk songs was made by famous opera singers- Sergei Lemeshev, Ivan Kozlovsky, Boris Shtokolov, Alexander Vedernikov, Yuri Gulyaev, Elena Obraztsova, Dmitry Hvorostovsky. In the second half of the 20th century, the Russian song was constantly performed in the concerts of Lyudmila Zykina, Claudia Shulzhenko, Valentina Tolkunova, Vladimir Troshin and many other performers.

3. "Burn, burn, my star..."

Romance is another and very important component of the treasury of Russian songwriting. According to the People's Artist of Russia Isabella Yuryeva, romance is an amazing phenomenon in our song culture. Romance - pure Russian phenomenon. In the Russian romance, as well as in the old Russian song, the soul of our people was expressed with its subtle lyricism, with its inescapable melancholy and dreaminess; with her cheerful prowess and desperate recklessness.

What is the difference between the Russian romance and other genres, other vocal forms? What specific features inherent in the romance can be called? First of all, this is a simple plot. The space of romance plots is limited by the sphere of human experiences: the first meeting, love, betrayal, separation, loneliness, the death of a beloved (lover) is something that is accessible to the understanding of every person. To this we must add the simplicity and accessibility of forms, if the way of expression becomes more complicated, the language of the romance ceases to be understandable. All feelings are expressed directly, openly. The content of the romance is saturated with words-symbols, behind each of which a real story is hidden:

Everything was just lies and deceit

Farewell to dreams and peace

But the pain of unclosed wounds

Stay with me.

Sensitivity, the ability to evoke human feelings is another essential feature of Russian romance. The more sentimental the romance, the higher its popularity. The most important thing in a romance is intonation, which is confidential, but not familiar with the listener. This is another advantage of the Russian romance. It is in the intonation that the elusive charm of the romance lies, which gives it genuine depth, sincerity of the feelings experienced, elegiac mood, light sadness. A distinctive feature of the Russian romance is a specific language, in which there are a lot of Slavicisms that give the romance a high style:

I will cover with kisses

Mouth, and eyes, and forehead.

Replace these words with modern ones and all the aroma and charm of the romance will crumble and disappear.

The most valuable thing in the music of the Russian romance is a rich and expressive melody. The wide chant, flexibility and plasticity of the romance are inherited from the Russian folk song. It should be noted that some romances, far removed from folk song sources, never lose touch with them. Often Russian romances were also performed by the gypsy choir, which led to an increase in melodramatic moments, exalted the pattern of the melody. And then the Russian romance became, allegedly, gypsy. In this case, forget Russian origin romance (“Oh, talk to me at least, seven-string friend” by A. Grigoriev, “Dark Eyes” by E. Grebyonka.)

Romance-elegy became the artistic epicenter of Russian musical and poetic culture in the 19th century. Romance has always been a synthetic art - the unity of word and sound. On the part of poetry, the development of the romance was deeply influenced by the work of the great Russian poets - A.S. Pushkin, F.I. Tyutchev, A.A. Fet, A.K. Tolstoy. However, talented composers- M.I. Glinka, A.A. Alyabiev, A.N. Verstovsky, P.P. Bulakhov, A.L. Gurilev, A.E. Varlamov and many others gave the romance a variety and amazing musical forms. And today, classic romances are works based on Pushkin's poems "I remember a wonderful moment ...", on Tyutchev's poems "I met you ...", on A.K. Tolstoy's poems "Among a noisy ball ...". To this should be added numerous texts of poems by M.Yu. Lermontov, E.A. Boratynsky, A.V. Koltsov, A.A. Blok, S.A. Yesenin, which became the basis of romances. The pinnacle of romance creativity are the works of P.I. But this kind of romance resonates with the elite, not the mass public. Classical romance becomes intellectual, while losing lightness and innocence.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the romance became more of a performing art than a composer's and poet's. We can judge this by comparing the various performing manners of that time, thanks to the surviving records. These performers are the stars of urban romance - A.Vyaltseva, V.Panina, N.Plevitskaya, A.Davydov, N.Dulkevich; a little later - A. Vertinsky, P. Leshchenko, I. Yuryev, A. Bayanova and others. The appearance of the gramophone and records contributed to the popularization of the romance. The performance of romances was enthusiastically received not only by the regulars of restaurants, but also by visitors. concert halls and eminent artists. The performance of a romance always presupposes a coincidence, consonance of a spiritual impulse, an inner mood of the performer and listener, artist and audience. The listener is most often a person who has felt and suffered a lot, has heart wounds and unhealed scars. Only such a listener can fully comprehend the enchanting power of romance.

A documentary report by the famous Russian journalist of the early 20th century, Vlas Doroshevich, about the performance of Sasha Davydov in the opera performance "Gypsy songs and romances in faces ..." has been preserved:

“-I remember the performance in Lentovsky's Hermitage.

It was fun, crowded, chic.

There were "Gypsy songs".

Davydov sang "Cry" and "Nochenka".

And so he came to the ramp.

His face became stern and solemn.

A pair of bay harnessed with the dawn ...

The first performance of the new romance.

And from the second, from the third verse, the theater stopped breathing.

Where now, in what new goddess

Are they looking for their ideals?

The actress E. Hildebrandt swayed. She was taken off the stage.

Raisova - Stesha - leaned over the table and began to cry.

Beautiful chorus girls wiped away tears.

There were sobs in the hall.

The sobs grew.

Someone was carried out unconscious.

Someone ran out of the box crying loudly.

I glanced to my left.

In the box sat the opera actress Tilda, from the French opera Gunzburg, who was touring at the Hermitage at the time.

Big tears ran down her cheeks.

She didn't understand the words.

But she understood the tears with which the artist sang.

Former theater guest in Moscow French writer Armand Sylvester, a light, pleasant writer, a fat, cheerful bourgeois, shrugged his hands during the intermission:

Amazing country! Weird country! They cry in operetta.

You, only you, are faithful to her to this day,

A pair of bay... a pair of bay...

Davydov finished himself with a face flooded with tears

Under some general sobbing.

I saw such a performance only once in my life ... ".

Such a demanding judge as K.S. Stanislavsky, who was very far from the stage, wrote, evaluating the work of A. Davydov: was known to him. It is not surprising that the enthusiastic audience often literally carried their favorite performers of Russian romances in their arms after the concert.

We meet similar judgments from the famous Russian writer A. Kuprin, who attended the concert of Nina Dulkevich (Baburina): “I will never forget this sudden, strong, passionate and sweet impression. As if in a room that smelled of fashionable perfume, the scent of some wild flower suddenly wafted. I heard how the enchanted spectators gradually fell silent, and for a long time not a single sound, not a rustle was heard in the huge hall, except for that sweet, yearning and fiery motive ... You listen to her - and you listen not only with your ears, but with all your nerves, with all your blood and blood. with all my heart." N.Dulkevich often performed 30,40 and even 50 romances and songs during one concert! And this is without a microphone and other sound-enhancing equipment. It is unlikely that a "foreign" ear and another soul is capable of understanding the full depth, passion and magical power of the Russian romance. But all this is open to the Russian soul, which, according to cultural genetics, is able to merge harmoniously in the performance of the artist and the perception of the listener.

Russian romance has come a long way - through high-society salons, noisy hussar and student gatherings, soldiers' rests - has reached our time, continuing to excite people's hearts with its soft lyricism and sincere sentimentality. Russian romance - unpretentious and touching - has absorbed the whole gamut of human feelings: sublime love and fatal passions, inescapable sadness and cheerful prowess, desperate recklessness and sentimental daydreaming. Russian romance is eternal, just as the loving and suffering soul of a person is eternal.

4. Songs of our Victory

A special place in the songwriting of the Russian people is occupied by songs of the Great Patriotic War. Songs of the Great Patriotic War... And "Dugout", "Dark Night", "Nightingales" immediately come to mind. Why, despite the repeated change in fashion in pop songs, does the songs of the Great Patriotic War retain a warm, reverent attitude? Probably because they are simple, like a soldier's life, and sincere, like a memory of a loved one. They are amazingly melodic and easy to remember. They are distinguished by optimism, inexhaustible faith in friendship and love, all the best for which it was necessary to fight and win.

And today, more than half a century after the end of the Great Patriotic War, the heart of a Russian person stops and the soul trembles when a soft chant is heard:

Fire is beating in a cramped stove,

Resin on the logs, like a tear.

And the accordion sings to me in the dugout

About your smile and eyes.

The song of the Great Patriotic War is a layer of the spiritual life of our country, our people. They are like a Russian folk song. My personal attitude to the military song is the attitude of a person belonging to a generation whose fathers died at the front. Therefore, the words from the song - “it’s not easy for me to reach you, but four steps to death” - I perceive not as a poetic device, but as a line from my father’s last front-line letter. Therefore, the victory of our army, our country, I have always perceived and perceive as my personal victory.

The song of the Great Patriotic War reflected the events of the war, became its musical chronicle. The themes, images, content of the song perfectly convey the emotional atmosphere of wartime. It presents all shades of heroics and lyrics of the war years: a high civic position and patriotism (“Holy War”); the spirit of courage and struggle ("The Treasured Stone"); soldier friendship and front-line fraternity (“Two Friends”); love for the hearth and the woman ("Wait for me"); a joke song that creates an atmosphere of youthful enthusiasm and fun (“Vasya-Vasilek”); front-line ditty, written on the topic of the day.

The English military journalist A. Werth, who was on the Eastern Front, said that the song could determine the psychological state of the Red Army. If "Dugout", he wrote, reflected the extreme degree of psychological breakdown in 1941, then "Dark Night" became an expression of faith and hope. The love for the song, the awareness that the song relieves physical and mental suffering, is very clearly expressed in the poetic lines:

After the fight, the heart asks

Music doubly.

A person, even in wartime conditions, cannot be endlessly in a state of constant anxiety and mental discomfort. With the greatest insight, this situation was reflected by A. Tvardovsky in the poem "Vasily Terkin":

And the accordion is calling somewhere

Far, easy...

No, what are you all guys

Amazing people(...)

The memory of a military song is the memory of its authors and performers. These are the composers A. Alexandrov, V. Solovyov-Sedoy - the author of the songs "Evening on the roadstead", "Nightingales", "On a sunny meadow"; N. Bogoslovsky - author of the song "Dark Night"; T. Khrennikov, M. Blanter, I. Dunaevsky. These are the poets A. Surkov, M. Isakovsky, A. Fatyanov, E. Dolmatovsky, V. Lebedev-Kumach, N. Bukin. This famous performers L. Utesov, G. Vinogradov, K. Shulzhenko, M. Bernes, L. Ruslanova, V. Bunchikov and V. Nechaev. These are, finally, the artists of the front-line concert brigades, unknown authors and performers.

More than a thousand songs were written by professional poets and composers during the first two months of the war. Not all of them received recognition and popularity, but one thing is certain: the song arsenal of the war is exceptionally large. Front-line songwriting gave rise to numerous adaptations to well-known motifs: “The sea spread wide”, “Katyusha”, “Oh, apple”, “Spark” and many others.

There are amazing collections of songs preserved for us by devotees of song art: songs of the Battle of Stalingrad, songs of the Southern Front, songs of the Karelian Front, etc. Once published in military newspapers, they testify to the scale of the song folk art. They reflect the motives of front-line life. Their heroes are the defenders of our Motherland. Therefore, even today a large and painstaking folklore-collecting work is needed.

The most popular war songs written after the war should be given their due. These are “Victory Day” (authors V. Kharitonov and D. Tukhmanov), “Cranes” (R. Gamzatov and Y. Frenkel), “He did not return from the battle”, “Common Graves” (V. Vysotsky). These songs are perceived by us today as front-line. One thing is clear: there is a huge song heritage that tells about the tragic and at the same time heroic pages of our history. Much has been forgotten, lost, erased by time, superseded by fashionable modern rhythms. The preservation of this heritage is similar to the creation of the Red Book, which will include disappearing spiritual values. We should save them, not lose them in the hustle and bustle. Perhaps the songs of the war years will help us overcome the upheavals and hardships that have fallen to our lot today.

May the road lead us to mass graves on each Victory Day, where "there is not a single personal fate - all fates are merged into one." Eternal memory to the defenders of our Motherland! Let our path lead us to the temple, where a prayer service will be served for the fallen soldiers of the Great Patriotic War. Let the few veterans of the Great Patriotic War who have survived to this day constantly feel our attention and care.

One thing is certain - the songs of the Great Patriotic War formed and today form the properties of the Russian national character - patriotism, heroism, national stamina, brotherhood, inexhaustible patience and a sense of catholicity. Today, in post-Soviet Russia, there is a shortage of these qualities. How necessary they are for new generations of Russian people.

5. "I love you, Russia..."

A huge layer of Russian song creativity is represented by songs of the Soviet era, which coincide chronologically with the second half of the 20th century. They continue the traditions of the classical Russian national song - in terms of content, intonation, and genre diversity. But most importantly, they have a cultural genetics identical to the Russian folk song, they express the basic features of the Russian national character. Among the diverse themes, plots and motives of these songs, I would like to dwell on two main themes.

The first theme is Russia, Motherland, Russian nature, the existence of the Russian people. The songs of this theme are characterized by immeasurable breadth, chant, boundless freedom and a deep patriotic feeling. These are “Moscow Nights” by M. Matusovsky; “The Volga is flowing” - L. Oshanina, “Russia is my Motherland!” - V. Kharitonova, "Russian Field" - I. Goff, "My Village" - V. Gundareva, "My Quiet Homeland" - N. Rubtsova, "Grass at the House" - A. Poperechny, "Hope" - N. Dobronravova , "Russia" - I. Talkova.

The boundlessness of Russia and the equally boundless love for the Motherland are shrewdly expressed in the song "Russia" by M. Nozhkin:

I love you Russia

Our dear Russia,

unspent power,

Unexplained sadness.

You are immense in scope,

There is no end to you

You are incomprehensible for centuries

foreign sages.

The second theme is Russian songs of the lyrical genre, which tell about love and separation, joy and sorrow, hopes and disappointments. They, like folk songs, are unusually melodic, sometimes sentimental, but in each of them the loving and suffering Russian soul trembles. The following popular songs can be attributed to this topic: “Orenburg downy shawl” to verses. V. Bokova, “Where can I get such a song” - M. Agashina, “Look at the dawn in the river” - O. Fokina, “A snow-white cherry blossomed under the window” - A. Burygina, “I am standing at a half-station” - M. Ancharova, “Ural mountain ash” - M. Pilipenko, “White birch friend” - A. Ovsyannikova, “What a song without button accordion” - O. Anofrieva. The list of these songs is endless.

During this period of the history of our song culture, many poems by S. Yesenin, N. Zabolotsky, N. Rubtsov were set to music. A. Safronov, V. Soloukhin and many other Russian poets. The popularity of Russian songs of this era became possible thanks to famous songwriters - A. Pakhmutova, E. Rodygin, G. Ponomarenko, as well as performers - Lyudmila Zykina, Vladimir Troshin, Maria Mordasova, Alexander Strelchenko, Oleg Anofriev, Valentina Tolkunova, Nadezhda Babkina and many others.

Unfortunately, today it is rare to hear a Russian folk song. Various imported and home-grown hits and hits that have nothing to do with our song culture are suitable for the “format” of the mass media today.

Nevertheless, Russian folk songs, Russian romances and songs of the Soviet period are quite widely in demand outside of our homeland. On the stage of many foreign countries, “Black Eyes” (E. Grebenka), “Two Guitars” (S. Makarov), “A Pair of Bays” (A. Apukhtin), songs of the Soviet era - “Katyusha” and "Moscow Nights". But, perhaps, until now, K. Podrevsky's romance “Dear Long”, to the music of B. Fomin, has enjoyed the greatest success. This romance has been translated into many languages. In French and Italian, it was repeatedly performed by the star of French cinema Dalida. This romance was performed by the famous trio of opera singers - P. Domingo, L. Pavarotti, J. Carreras, and they performed one verse in Russian. Russian songs and romances were performed for many years by Boris Rubashkin, a descendant of Russian emigrants of the first wave. The Yale University Choir (USA) has long been performing Russian folk songs - "Kalinka", "Oh, you are our Russian expanse." These songs were performed even in the years cold war on Red Square in Moscow in 1958.

Valery Ganichev, chairman of the Union of Writers of Russia, says with deep regret that today the Russian folk song has disappeared, they don’t know it, they don’t sing it. “And the Russian song is also our great Russian shrine. They fought with it in the same way as Emelyan Yaroslavsky with the church, destroyed, perverted, replaced. The country was flooded with precocious, jaunty marches, and only the Great Patriotic War brought the Russian song back to life. The ingenious amulet song "Holy War" gave birth to new spiritually sublime, dramatic heroic, lyrical and romantic songs ... Alexandrov's choir, Pyatnitsky's choir, "Birch" were known to the whole world, the Arkhangelsk, Voronezh, Ural choirs were the standard of song culture. The country sang its songs. Every evening at 7:15 pm throughout the Soviet Union, folk songs, songs of the Great Patriotic War were learned on all radio stations. And suddenly everything collapsed... On Vasilyevsky Spusk, visiting rock musicians sing, and all kinds of pop music sounds, only one broadcast of the folk song "Play, accordion!" Only Viktor Zakharchenko, wounded by many years of struggle, breaks through with his outstanding Kuban folk choir to the country's main concert venue - the Palace of Congresses. The departure of the folk song from the life of the country deprived it of the spiritual oxygen of tradition and self-awareness, the age-old sound and movement. The cells of consciousness and soul of our young man were filled with the rhythms of Florida and Texas, the melodies of the London suburbs, the discos of Amsterdam and Hamburg. He ceases to be Russian and Russian, he does not know our songs, he does not know how to sing them.

V. Ganichev tells about one trip of the youth delegation to America. There we were asked to sing our songs. The guys from Armenia tightened their motive, two Ukrainians and I sang “Povy Vitra to Ukraine”, but Muscovites and St. Petersburg did not remember anything. The American owners suggested: "Kalinka" - the guys did not know, "Black Eyes" - too. Let's at least "Moscow Nights" - I suggested with anger. Without the support of the entire delegation, they would not have sung. Good compatriots. And compatriots? So, second-class citizens of the world.

Tanya Petrova said that in Japan in music schools a mandatory rule is the knowledge of ten Russian songs, as the most perfect melodic and harmonic samples. Can we boast of such knowledge? Does our student know ten folk songs, can he perform them? Clearly not. A great black hole has formed in the musical image of Russia... Either we will sing our songs, or our people will dissolve in an alien melody, which means in other people's thoughts and spirit... .

The outstanding head of the Moscow Chamber Choir Vladimir Minin complains that in Russia now they don’t sing at all. He sees the exit musical education children who could absorb the genuine traditions of national polyphony that have been preserved in some places. The famous bass, People's Artist of the USSR Yevgeny Nesterenko said that we are Russians by nature, a singing nation.

But the ascetic performers of Russian songs have not yet died out in Russia. Alexander Vasin-Makarov, creator of the Nadezhda trio, says: “We have taken on the task of combining all types of Russian song - folk, Soviet and author's. In Russia it is impossible not to sing, they sing over a newborn, they sing at the apogee of his development, at a wedding, they sing at his burial; they sing, going from hard daily work, soldiers sing, returning from a hot exercise, and sometimes going on an assault. He notes that over the past 20 years, 150 melodies have been composed on the verses of N. Rubtsov! On the verses of M. Lermontov - 450! The Nadezhda Trio performs songs based on poems by Tyutchev, Apukhtin, Fet, Blok, Rubtsov, Peredreev, Tryapkin, as well as Vasin-Makarov's own poems set to music composed by him.

Sincerity, emotionality and expressiveness of the Russian folk song, with special force, presented by I.A. Ilyin in his book “The Singing Heart. The Book of Quiet Contemplation. According to Ilyin, the human heart sees the Divine in everything, rejoices and sings, the heart shines from that depth where the human-personal merges with the superhuman-divine to the point of indistinguishability: for God's rays penetrate man, and man becomes God's lamp. The heart sings at the sight of the trusting, affectionate and helpless smile of a child. The heart sings when it sees human kindness. The heart sings at the sight of the mysteries, wonders and beauties of God's world. The heart sings during inspired prayer, which is a concentrated turning of a person to God. The heart sings when we contemplate a true shrine in art, when we hear the voices of angels in the melody of earthly music. “We need to see and recognize and make sure that it is the divine moments of life that constitute the true substance of the world; and that a man with a singing heart is the island of God - His beacon. His intermediary.

Russian folk song has always been and will be the expression of Russian national self-consciousness and Russian character. Traditions coming from Chaliapin, Plevitskaya, Ruslanova and other outstanding performers of Russian folk songs are continued today by Tatyana Petrova, Svetlana Kopylova, Elena Sapogova, our countryman Evgeny Buntov and many performers who carefully preserve the traditions of Russian folk songs, which are truly the embodiment of the soul of the people, essential element of our spiritual substance.

Vitaly Ilyich Kopalov , Professor, Doctor of Philosophy. Sciences, UrIB im. I. A. Ilyina, Yekaterinburg

1. Ilyin I.A. The path of spiritual renewal // Ilyin I.A. Sobr. op. : in 10 volumes - M., 1993. - T. 1. - S.202.

2. Ibid. S. 203.

3. See: Ilyin I.A. Essence and originality of Russian culture// Ilyin I.A. Collected works: in 10 t. M., 1996. T.6, book. II. P.389.