16 On August 1761, in St. Petersburg, a son was born to a gunner of the Tobolsk infantry regiment; they named him Evstignei.
Soon his father died in another battle. His mother died behind him.
But the child was not abandoned to his fate.
Who was his benefactor? To whom does the soldier's son owe his amazing fate? And how did this benefactor come up with the idea of sending a six-year-old orphan to, not just somewhere, an orphanage at the Academy of Arts? Perhaps you noticed your baby’s musical abilities? To his absolute pitch? And who could be interested in the absolute pitch of a soldier’s son?
But one way or another, fate worked out for Evstigney Fomin in the happiest way!
Brought up within the walls of the Academy of Arts, he was enrolled in music classes and studied harpsichord playing, music theory and composition.
In 1772, a graduate of the Academy, Evstigney Fomin, was sent to Italy to study with the famous musician and composer Padre Giovanni Martini. The result of this training was stunning for Europe. Three years later, a native of wild Russia was elected to the Bologna Philharmonic Academy. Among young musicians, only Mozart had previously been awarded such an honor.
In 1786, Evstignei Fomin returned to St. Petersburg in the rays of his glory, and Empress Catherine II graciously commands him to write an opera to her own libretto. The Lady of Russia also really wanted literary laurels.
The work was done by Fomin in a fantastically short period of time, within a month. And bigopera in five acts"Novgorod hero Vasily Boeslavich"was staged at the Hermitage Theater of the Winter Palace.
As a result, the brilliant composer Evstigney Fomin suddenly finds himself in Tambov, in the office of the then Tambov mayor Gabriel Derzhavin.
Why? How did this happen? Mystery!
Perhaps the audience did not show due admiration for the opera, and Catherine attributed the failure to the composer?
Be that as it may, the brilliant Russian composer Evstigney Fomin lived in Tambov for the last 12 years of his short life. His best works were written here.
The opera “Coachmen on a Stand,” for which he wrote the libretto, immediately made him a famous composer in Russia. Apparently he was a good poet too.
In 1788, the glorious young man Ivan Krylov gave him the libretto of an opera of his own composition called “The Americans.” This is how the future great fabulist entered Russian literature. And the brilliant opera that Evstigney Fomin wrote never saw the light of day during his lifetime. Its first production took place in the year of his death - 1800.
In 1791, another masterpiece of this composer was written - the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”, the libretto of which was written by the famous 18th century playwright Yakov Knyazhnin.
Only after the death of Catherine did Evstigney Fomin have the opportunity to return to St. Petersburg. Here he received a modest position as a tutor at court theaters. But three years later he was gone.
Evstigney Ipatievich (Ipatovich) Fomin(5 (16) August 1761, St. Petersburg 16 (28) April 1800, ibid.) Russian composer.
Biography
Born into the family of a gunner in the Tobolsk Infantry Regiment, he was orphaned early.
At the age of six he was sent to the Educational School at the Imperial Academy of Arts, then studied in music classes at the Academy of Arts, where he mastered playing the harpsichord, music theory and composition. Among his teachers was Hermann Raupach, the author of the then popular Singspiel "The Good Soldiers".
After graduating from the academy in 1782, Fomin was sent to Bologna to improve his musical skills under the guidance of Padre Giovanni Battista Martini. Martini's health, however, was already weak at that time; he could not devote much time to teaching, and Fomin studied mainly with his student Stanislao Mattei. In 1785, under the name Eugenio Fomini, Fomin was elected a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy.
In 1786, Fomin returned to St. Petersburg, where he wrote his first opera, “The Novgorod Bogatyr Vasily Boeslavich” to a libretto by Empress Catherine II. The opera in five acts, completed by the composer unusually quickly within one month in the same year, was already staged at the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg. The details of Fomin's subsequent biography until 1797 are little known. He failed to occupy a prominent place at the imperial court; according to some sources, in 1786-1788 he served in the office of G.R. Derzhavin, who in those years was the governor of Tambov (according to other publications, there are no documentary sources for this). In Tambov in 1788, the libretto of Fomin’s opera “Coachmen on a Stand” was published anonymously. A copy of the libretto manuscript, discovered in Derzhavin's archives in 1933, belongs to Nikolai Lvov, the poet's brother-in-law.
In 1788, Fomin wrote one of his most famous operas, “The Americans,” to a libretto by 19-year-old Ivan Krylov. The directorate of the imperial theaters did not accept it for production, and only in 1800 did this opera see the stage. Another famous work by Fomin is the melodrama “Orpheus and Eurydice” based on the text by playwright Yakov Knyazhnin, written in 1791. In 1797, Fomin was hired as a tutor at court theaters, where he helped singers learn opera parts.
Creation
Fomin is one of the first professional Russian composers, whose work had a significant influence on the further development of Russian opera. Fomin's legacy, however, remained little known until the mid-20th century, when some of his operas were staged in theaters in Moscow and Leningrad. Many of the composer’s manuscripts have been lost (in particular, the operas “Parties, or Guess, Guess, Girl, Guess, Red” and “Clorida and Milo”).
The scores of “Coachmen on a Stand”, “The Americans”, “Orpheus and Eurydice”, as well as the chorus from the music for Ozerov’s play “Yaropolk and Oleg” (1798) have survived to this day. The operas “The Novgorod Bogatyr Vasily Boeslavich” and “The Golden Apple” (the last of the composer’s famous works) have been preserved in the form of orchestral parts. Fomin’s authorship was also attributed to other operas written in the second half of the 18th century, including “The Miller the Sorcerer, the Deceiver and the Matchmaker” (in our time, Mikhail Sokolovsky is considered its author).
E. Fomin is one of the talented Russian musicians of the 18th century, through whose efforts a national school of composition was created in Russia. Together with his contemporaries - M. Berezovsky, D. Bortnyansky, V. Pashkevich - he laid the foundations of Russian musical art. His operas and the melodrama “Orpheus” showed the breadth of the author’s interests in the choice of plots and genres, as well as mastery of various styles of the opera theater of that time. History was unfair to Fomin, as, indeed, to most other Russian composers of the 18th century. The fate of the talented musician was difficult. His life ended untimely, and soon after his death his name was forgotten for a long time. Many of Fomin’s works have not survived. Only in Soviet times did interest in the work of this wonderful musician, one of the creators of Russian opera, increase. Through the efforts of Soviet scientists, his works were brought back to life, and some meager data on his biography were found.
Fomin was born into the family of a gunner (artillery soldier) of the Tobolsk infantry regiment. He lost his father early, and when he was 6 years old, his stepfather I. Fedotov, a soldier of the Life Guards Izmailovsky Regiment, brought the boy to the Academy of Arts. On April 21, 1767, Fomin became a student of the architectural class of the famous Academy, founded by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. All the famous artists of the 18th century studied at the Academy. - V. Borovikovsky, D. Levitsky, A. Losenko, F. Rokotov, F. Shchedrin, etc. Within the walls of this educational institution, attention was paid to the musical development of students: students learned to play various instruments and sing. An orchestra was organized at the Academy, operas, ballets, and dramatic performances were staged.
Fomin’s bright musical abilities manifested themselves in the elementary grades, and in 1776 the Council of the Academy sent a student of “architectural art” Ipatiev (as Fomin was often called then) to the Italian M. Buini for training in instrumental music - playing the clavichord. From 1777, Fomin’s education continued in music classes that opened at the Academy of Arts, headed by the famous composer G. Paypakh, author of the popular opera “The Good Soldiers.” Fomin studied music theory and the basics of composition with him. From 1779, harpsichordist and bandmaster A. Sartori became his musical mentor. In 1782, Fomin graduated from the Academy with flying colors. But as a student in the music class, he could not be awarded a gold or silver medal. The council awarded him only a cash bonus of 50 rubles.
After graduating from the Academy, as a pensioner, Fomin was sent for 3 years of improvement to Italy, to the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, which was then considered the largest musical center in Europe. There, under the guidance of Padre Martini (the teacher of the great Mozart), and then S. Mattei (who later studied with G. Rossini and G. Donizetti), the modest musician from distant Russia continued his musical education. In 1785, Fomin was admitted to the exam for the title of academician and passed this test perfectly. Full of creative energy, with the high title of “master of composition,” Fomin returned to Russia in the fall of 1786. Upon arrival, the composer received an order to compose the opera “The Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslaevich” to a libretto by Catherine II herself. The premiere of the opera and the debut of Fomin as a composer took place on November 27, 1786 at the Hermitage Theater. However, the empress did not like the opera, and this was enough for the young musician’s career at court to fail. During the reign of Catherine II, Fomin did not receive any official position. Only in 1797, 3 years before his death, was he finally hired by the theater directorate as a tutor for opera parts.
It is unknown how Fomin’s life proceeded in the previous decade. However, the composer's creative work was active. In 1787, he composed the opera “Coachmen on a Stand” (text by N. Lvov), and the following year 2 operas appeared - “Party, or Guess, Guess Girl” (music and libr. have not survived) and “The Americans”. They were followed by the opera “The Sorcerer, the Sorcerer and the Matchmaker” (1791). By 1791-92 Fomin’s best work is the melodrama “Orpheus” (text by Ya. Knyazhnin). In the last years of his life, he wrote the chorus for V. Ozerov’s tragedy “Yaropolk and Oleg” (1798), the operas “Clorida and Milan” and “The Golden Apple” (c. 1800).
Fomin's operatic works are diverse in genre. Here are Russian comic operas, an opera in the Italian buffa style, and a one-act melodrama, where the Russian composer first addressed a high tragic theme. Fomin finds a new, individual approach to each of the selected genres. Thus, what attracts him in Russian comic operas is, first of all, the interpretation of folklore material, the method of developing folk themes. The type of Russian “choral” opera is presented especially clearly in the opera “Coachmen on a Stand.” Here the composer widely uses different genres of Russian folk song - drawn-out, round dance, dance, uses techniques of subvocal development, comparison of solo chorus and choral chorus. The overture, an interesting example of early Russian program symphonism, is also built on the development of folk song and dance themes. The principles of symphonic development, based on the free variation of motives, will be widely continued in Russian classical music, starting with M. Glinka’s Kamarinskaya.
In the opera “The Americans” based on the text of the famous fabulist I. Krylov, Fomin brilliantly demonstrated his mastery of the buffa opera style. The pinnacle of his creativity was the melodrama "Orpheus", staged in St. Petersburg with the participation of the famous tragic actor of that time - I. Dmitrevsky. This performance was based on a combination of dramatic reading with orchestral accompaniment. Fomin created excellent music, full of stormy pathos and deepening the dramatic concept of the play. It is perceived as a single symphonic action, with continuous internal development, directed towards the overall climax at the end of the melodrama - “Dance of the Furies”. Independent symphonic numbers (overture and Dance of the Furies) frame the melodrama as a prologue and epilogue. The very principle of juxtaposing the intense music of the overture, the lyrical episodes located in the center of the composition, and the dynamic finale testify to the amazing insight of Fomin, who paved the way for the development of the Russian dramatic symphony.
The melodrama “was presented at the theater several times and received great praise. Mr. Dmitrevsky, in the role of Orpheus, crowned her with his extraordinary performance,” we read in the essay about the Princess that preceded his collected works. On February 5, 1795, the premiere of “Orpheus” took place in Moscow.
The second birth of the melodrama “Orpheus” took place already on the Soviet stage. In 1947, it was performed in a series of historical concerts prepared by the Museum of Musical Culture named after. M. I. Glinka. During these same years, the famous Soviet musicologist B. Dobrokhotov restored the score of “Orpheus”. The melodrama was also performed in concerts dedicated to the 250th anniversary of Leningrad (1953) and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fomin (1961). And in 1966, it was performed for the first time abroad, in Poland, at the Congress of Early Music.
The breadth and diversity of Fomin’s creative quests, the bright originality of his talent allow him to rightfully be considered the largest opera composer in Russia in the 18th century. With his new approach to Russian folklore in the opera “Coachmen on a Stand” and the first appeal to the tragic theme in “Orpheus,” Fomin paved the way for the operatic art of the 19th century.
Evstigney Ipatovich Fomin, the largest Russian opera composer of the 18th centuryE. Fomin (1761 - 1800) is one of the talented Russian musicians of the 18th century, through whose efforts a national school of composition was created in Russia. Together with his contemporaries - M. Berezovsky, D. Bortnyansky, V. Pashkevich - he laid the foundations of Russian musical art. His operas and the melodrama “Orpheus” showed the breadth of the author’s interests in the choice of plots and genres, as well as mastery of various styles of the opera theater of that time. History was unfair to Fomin, as, indeed, to most other Russian composers of the 18th century. The fate of the talented musician was difficult. His life ended untimely, and soon after his death his name was forgotten for a long time. Many of Fomin’s works have not survived. Only in Soviet times did interest in the work of this wonderful musician, one of the creators of Russian opera, increase. Through the efforts of Soviet scientists, his works were brought back to life, and some meager data on his biography were found.
Fomin was born into the family of a gunner (artillery soldier) of the Tobolsk infantry regiment. He lost his father early, and when he was 6 years old, his stepfather I. Fedotov, a soldier of the Life Guards Izmailovsky Regiment, brought the boy to the Academy of Arts. On April 21, 1767, Fomin became a student of the architectural class of the famous Academy, founded by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. All the famous artists of the 18th century studied at the Academy. — V. Borovikovsky, D. Levitsky, A. Losenko, F. Rokotov, F. Shchedrin, etc. Within the walls of this educational institution, attention was paid to the musical development of students: students learned to play various instruments and sing. An orchestra was organized at the Academy, operas, ballets, and dramatic performances were staged.
Fomin’s bright musical abilities manifested themselves in the elementary grades, and in 1776 the Council of the Academy sent a student of “architectural art” Ipatiev (as Fomin was often called then) to the Italian M. Buini for training in instrumental music - playing the clavichord. From 1777, Fomin’s education continued in music classes that opened at the Academy of Arts, headed by the famous composer G. Paypakh, author of the popular opera “The Good Soldiers.” Fomin studied music theory and the basics of composition with him. From 1779, harpsichordist and bandmaster A. Sartori became his musical mentor. In 1782, Fomin graduated from the Academy with flying colors. But as a student in the music class, he could not be awarded a gold or silver medal. The council awarded him only a cash bonus of 50 rubles.
After graduating from the Academy, as a pensioner, Fomin was sent for 3 years of improvement to Italy, to the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, which was then considered the largest musical center in Europe. There, under the guidance of Padre Martini (the teacher of the great Mozart), and then S. Mattei (who later studied with G. Rossini and G. Donizetti), the modest musician from distant Russia continued his musical education. In 1785, Fomin was admitted to the exam for the title of academician and passed this test perfectly. Full of creative energy, with the high title of “master of composition,” Fomin returned to Russia in the fall of 1786. Upon arrival, the composer received an order to compose the opera “The Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslaevich” to a libretto by Catherine II herself. The premiere of the opera and the debut of Fomin as a composer took place on November 27, 1786 at the Hermitage Theater. However, the empress did not like the opera, and this was enough for the young musician’s career at court to fail. During the reign of Catherine II, Fomin did not receive any official position. Only in 1797, 3 years before his death, was he finally hired by the theater directorate as a tutor for opera parts.
It is unknown how Fomin’s life proceeded in the previous decade. However, the composer's creative work was active. In 1787, he composed the opera “Coachmen on a Stand” (text by N. Lvov), and the next year two operas appeared - “Party, or Guess, Guess Girl” (music and libr. have not survived) and “The Americans”.
Overture to the opera "The Americans"
They were followed by the opera “The Sorcerer, the Sorcerer and the Matchmaker” (1791). By 1791-92 Fomin’s best work is the melodrama “Orpheus” (text by Ya. Knyazhnin). In the last years of his life, he wrote the chorus for V. Ozerov’s tragedy “Yaropolk and Oleg” (1798), the operas “Clorida and Milan” and “The Golden Apple” (c. 1800).
Fomin's operatic works are diverse in genre. Here are Russian comic operas, an opera in the Italian buffa style, and a one-act melodrama, where the Russian composer first addressed a high tragic theme. Fomin finds a new, individual approach to each of the selected genres. Thus, what attracts him in Russian comic operas is, first of all, the interpretation of folklore material, the method of developing folk themes. The type of Russian “choral” opera is presented especially clearly in the opera “Coachmen on a Stand.” Here the composer widely uses different genres of Russian folk song - drawn-out, round dance, dance, uses techniques of subvocal development, comparison of solo chorus and choral chorus. The overture, an interesting example of early Russian program symphonism, is also built on the development of folk song and dance themes. The principles of symphonic development, based on the free variation of motives, will be widely continued in Russian classical music, starting with M. Glinka’s Kamarinskaya.
In the opera “The Americans” based on the text of the famous fabulist I. Krylov, Fomin brilliantly demonstrated his mastery of the buffa opera style. The pinnacle of his creativity was the melodrama “Orpheus,” staged in St. Petersburg with the participation of the famous tragic actor of that time, I. Dmitrevsky.
Fomin - Orpheus and Eurydice - I - Overture
Fomin - Orpheus and Eurydice - IV - Grazioso
Fomin - Orpheus and Eurydice - V - Adagio
Fomin - Orpheus and Eurydice - VIII - Andantino
Fomin - Orpheus and Eurydice - IX - Chorus: Adagio Sostenuto
This performance was based on a combination of dramatic reading with orchestral accompaniment. Fomin created excellent music, full of stormy pathos and deepening the dramatic concept of the play. It is perceived as a single symphonic action, with continuous internal development, directed towards the overall climax at the end of the melodrama - “Dance of the Furies”.
Fomin - Orpheus and Eurydice - XI - Finale: "The Dance of the Furies"
Independent symphonic numbers (overture and Dance of the Furies) frame the melodrama, like a prologue and epilogue. The very principle of juxtaposing the intense music of the overture, the lyrical episodes located in the center of the composition, and the dynamic finale testify to the amazing insight of Fomin, who paved the way for the development of the Russian dramatic symphony.
The melodrama “was presented at the theater several times and received great praise. Mr. Dmitrevsky, in the role of Orpheus, crowned her with his extraordinary performance,” we read in the essay about the Princess that preceded his collected works. On February 5, 1795, the premiere of “Orpheus” took place in Moscow.
The second birth of the melodrama “Orpheus” took place already on the Soviet stage. In 1947, it was performed in a series of historical concerts prepared by the Museum of Musical Culture named after. M. I. Glinka. During these same years, the famous Soviet musicologist B. Dobrokhotov restored the score of “Orpheus”. The melodrama was also performed in concerts dedicated to the 250th anniversary of Leningrad (1953) and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fomin (1961). And in 1966, it was performed for the first time abroad, in Poland, at the Congress of Early Music.
The breadth and diversity of Fomin’s creative quests, the bright originality of his talent allow him to rightfully be considered the largest opera composer in Russia in the 18th century. With his new approach to Russian folklore in the opera “Coachmen on a Stand” and the first appeal to the tragic theme in “Orpheus,” Fomin paved the way for the operatic art of the 19th century.
Yestignei Fomin - “A zealous brave heart”, “The nightingale is not singing at the priest’s”, “The birch tree was raging in the field”
E. Fomin - "The falcon flies high." Chorus from the opera "Coachmen on a Stand"
Timofey's song from Evstigney Fomin's opera "Coachmen on a Stand"
At the end of the 18th century, in an era when musical life in Russia was most closely connected with Italian and French operas, and was led by invited foreigners, a new star shone brightly on the Russian horizon. The great Empress Catherine II herself wrote the libretto for this composer’s operas. He was a friend of Derzhavin and was distinguished by his complete rejection of the injustice and violence that reigned at that time. And this man’s name was Evstigney Ipatovich Fomin.
He was born on August 5, 1761 in St. Petersburg in the family of a gunner of the regimental artillery of the Tobolsk infantry regiment. Apparently, the child showed his artistic inclinations early, because at the age of six he was included in the list of pupils of the newly opened Academy of Arts. Here, for nine years, the students of the Academy had to undergo general education training. Taught: God's law, Russian language, foreign languages, arithmetic, drawing, geography, history, physics, natural science, architecture. And only after undergoing such training, the Academy student began a special study of the chosen form of art, which took another six years. Among other classes, there was a special class of musical composition. In 1782, Fomin graduated with honors from the Academy of Arts and was sent to Italy to continue his musical education. Fomin studied at the Bologna Philharmonic Academy for three years. He was one of the best students of the then famous contrapuntist Padre Martini, from whom he received a good knowledge of counterpoint and supplemented his musical and historical education. On November 29, 1785, at a meeting of the Council of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, Evstignei Fomin was elected a member of this academy.
Upon returning from Italy, Fomin settled in St. Petersburg. In 1786, at the request of Empress Catherine II, he wrote music for her work “Novgorod Bogatyr Boeslavovich”. This comic opera by Fomin was first staged at the Hermitage Theater in November 1786. The plot and images of the Russian epic are a story about a quarrel, massacre and reconciliation with the Novgorodians of the hero, reveler and brawler Vasily Buslaev. In the opera, not only dances and dances were presented using ballet means, but also fist fights and folk fights. This opera was followed by another, with a libretto now by Fomin himself, “Coachmen on a Stand.” In it, the composer made extensive use of Russian folk song melodies. From 1788 to 1800, Fomin wrote five more operas, including “Orpheus and Eurydice,” where the composer’s outstanding abilities were fully demonstrated. Here he solved one of the most important tasks facing Russian musical art of that time: for the first time he managed to master a great tragic theme and show that Russian music is no longer limited to genre and everyday themes, but boldly invades the world of big ideas and deep feelings.
Here it should be recalled again that at that time in Russia foreigners remained at the head of the musical life of the capital. Productions of Italian and French operas dominated. And despite the Highest Decree of Catherine II to Count Olsufiev dated July 12, 1783: “over time, to achieve in all the skills (arts) in theaters the necessary replacement of foreigners with their natural ones,” for a long time there was no such “replacement” and continued to lead the development of opera music in Russian invited foreigners. Against this background, Fomin’s life path was not easy. His talent was literally “not at home” in the Russian capital. His work was not accepted by the empress and her entourage. Foreign maestros, authors of solemn hymns and oratorios, were held in high esteem, and Fomin had to earn his living by working as an accompanist and teacher. Only shortly before his death, Academician of the Bologna Academy Evstigney Fomin received a modest position as a tutor of opera parts. At the end of April 1800, at the age of 39, the composer died.
Traditionally indifferent to its geniuses, Russian society remained indifferent to this loss. There wasn't even a single response in the press. And until now, only a few lines in the music encyclopedia remind us that the Russian composer Evstignei Fomin lived and wrote wonderful music in Russia.