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Galina Vishnevskaya Glinka

"Portrait of the composer Mikhail Glinka" - Ilya Repin - 1887

composer Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) is considered the precursor of Russian musical nationalism. Its importance in the evolution of Russian classical music, which gave its own personality, is undeniable and as a composer Tchaikovsky be compared to the same Mozart .

His opera "A Life by the tsar " (1836) marks a before and after in the music of his country, being the first to introduce elements of indigenous folklore, deviating from the fees set by the prevailing strong influences from Italy, Germany or France also focusing on a purely Russian theme, recounting the invasion of the country by the Poles in 1613, the town being the main character and the hero of the story an ordinary peasant. The opera won a major popular success despite the fact that sectors close to the Imperial Court described the composition of "music appropriate for a driver" with the contempt Glinka who said that "people are more important than their masters" .

Then came his most famous work "Ruslan and Ludmila" (1842), based on a poem by Pushkin , where in addition to the components also include reasons fantastic folklore and reminiscences to oriental music. The opera will have a decisive influence on the final emergence of the Russian Nationalist School, led by called "Group of Five" ( Modest Mussorgsky , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin , Kui TSEs and Mili Balakirev ).

His sentence: "The music is created by the people and the composers only managed" is clarifying the importance attached to folk and popular component in the formation of Russian musical style and his desire to bring music to its roots, eliminating the identification of this as something exclusive to the wealthy.

From 1845 he traveled to Spain several times, inquiring by the English traditions and folklore, with particular emphasis on flamenco, which later led him to compose works as their "English Overtures" the "Jota Aragonesa" or "Memories of a summer night Madrid . During one such stay in our country, it seems that his wife could have been used for marriage in Russia with another man, committing bigamy and leaving poor Glinka adorned like Bambi's dad .

Glinka was possibly the first Russian composer to obtain a significant internationally beyond its borders and is now known to us mainly through the two operas mentioned, but his musical output, though not especially wide, has numerous pieces for piano, pages orchestral, opera, ballet, chamber music and some songs.

One of these songs is what led me to speak today of this composer. This is "Elegy" , one of the first songs of a young Glinka, who was barely 21 years, and wrote taking to this a poem by Evgeny Baratynsky . Glinka himself seems to have been given to play this song at parties and meetings that he had occasion and their improvised audience were delighted, praising his creation and encouraged him to devote himself to composition, which he did.

The piece still shows some influences of music hall that was done in Europe and, while not present the strongest features of his mature works, and has an unmistakable "aroma" Russian , constituting a melodious and passionate lament, full of melancholy and torn at the same time of elegance and distinction, which shows an undeniable beauty.

is true that the interpretation that I first heard that one I brought here today, also makes it much. It is the holding, so insurmountable, another Russian legend, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya , who can hear the piano accompanied by her husband, also Russian and legendary Mstislav Rostropovich :

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I could not find the Castilian translation of the text of the song, and although my Russian language tutoring with Netrebko are progressing, I dare not even make my own, so I leave the English transliteration:

or Do not tempt me needlessly:

lost Affection Can not return. How

Foreign to the broken-hearted

Are all the charms of bygone days!

Longer I can not trust thy promise;

Longer I have no Faith in love;

And Once Again Can not Suffer

To be deceived by phantom visions.

Do not augment my anguish mute;

Say not a word of former gladness.

And, kindly friend, o do not trouble

A convalescent's dreaming rest.

I sleep: how sweet to me oblivion:

Forgotten all my youthful dreams!

Within my soul is naught but turmoil,

And love shall wake no more for thee.