Yevstigney Fomin

Jewstignei Ipatjewitsch ( Ipatowitsch ) Fomin (Russian Евстигней Ипатьевич ( Ипатович ) Фомин, in scientific transliteration Evstignej Ipat'evič ( Ipatovič ) Fomin, . * 5.jul / August 16 1761greg in Saint Petersburg, . † 16.jul / 28. April 1800greg. ) was a Russian composer.

Life

Although Fomin is considered the greatest opera composer of the 18th century in Russia, about his life, however, is known to this day very little. His musical activities, centered on more than ten operas are - including the coachman on the post office and the Americans - made ​​a not to be underestimated contribution to the transfer of Western music in Russia's culture and thus to the Russian musical history. As one of the first trained in Western Europe, Russian composer, he created a music that corresponded to Western European standards on the amount of their time and also contained genuine Russian peculiarities in terms of harmony, rhythm and einkomponierte folk song elements.

Fomin was born in St. Petersburg, the son of a soldier and attended from the age of six a music class in the newly established St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Here he received in addition to the general education first lessons with Matteo Buini ( clavichord ) and Hermann Friedrich Raupach and Anton Blasius Sartori (composition), later were added a variety of wind and string instruments; the participation in the choir was part of the training. Great emphasis was also placed on the acting classes of students, because the Academy had its own stage on which numerous ballets and operas were performed.

After his final examination in 1782, which consisted Fomin with honors, he was awarded a scholarship that a three-year study in Bologna allowed him to where he deepened his knowledge, among others with the famous Padre Martini, among others, Johann Christian Bach and Christoph Willibald Gluck to its pupils was. In 1785 he was, as already Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, appointed a member of the Philharmonic Society Bologna shortly before him, and returned a year later returned to Russia.

Here Fomins trace of him at first because he shows up more in any grade list. So he apparently had not yet held a position at the court at the Academy or at the theater, but probably earned his living as a conductor of various serf orchestra, for which he also composed well. Such works are today but lost. It is believed that Fomin has not posted a lot more pieces than those whose scores are handed down, as he is said to have composed very quickly. So talk to him about some of his contemporaries not only ten, but more than 30 operas. Although he was a member of the Philharmonic Society of Bologna and also an opera libretto by Catherine the Great had set, his name was in St. Petersburg unnamed for a period of eleven years.

During this time, in 1791 or 1792, Fomin, however, composed his melodrama Orpheus i Ewridika ( " Orpheus and Eurydice " according to a text of the Russian Enlightenment poet Yakov Knjaschnin ), which was premiered in 1792 and probably was a great success, as it to 1811 was still played on Russian stages. It was not until 1797 appeared Fomin's name again in official archives on when he got a job at the theater as a coach and singing teacher. His pay was in proportion to what earned foreign, especially Italian, musicians in Russia Fomins time, almost contemptuously low and expressed the lack of appreciation of local artists. This setting can be pursued up to his funeral. Fomin died in April 1800, the circumstances and cause of death at the age of 39 years are no longer known today.

Works ( excerpts)

• The Novgorod hero Bojeslajewitsch ( Novgorodskij bogatyr ' Boeslaevič ), comic opera (UA 1786)
• The coachman at the post station ( Jamščiki na podstave ), comic opera (UA 1787)
• The Americans ( Amerikancy ), comic opera by Alzire ou Les Américaines of Voltaire (UA 1800)
• Orpheus ( Orpheus ), melodrama (UA 1792)

Melodrama Orpheus and Eurydice ( Orfei i Jewridika )

With the myth of Orpheus, who wants to bring his Eurydice from the underworld and dares to defy the gods, Fomin chose a date in the context of Russian Enlightenment, yet timeless subject. In this case, the piece surpasses with its libretto by Yakov Knjaschnin conciliatory solution attempts à la Gluck radical Enlightenment and explosiveness.

Fomin begins his melodrama with a - classic form concepts very free -converting - overture, which already prefigures the content framework of the entire piece: At the beginning it summarizes all the main points of the plot, contrasted pain and happiness, separation and union, Largo and Vivace - but also occupies their key ( D minor as a characteristic of disaster and death ), the end of melodrama anticipated.

First, the action does not seem unusual: Orpheus, in despair over his fate to have lost Eurydice by a snake bite, decides to descend into the underworld to move the gods to surrender his beloved and so to overcome fate. On his way he meets on the Styx, a river, which is also the border with the underworld, the Furies, epitomized by a massive unison bass choir, which betrayed him, as he can appease evil with his lyre.

Now, however, already is an essential characteristic of melodrama into play: With the exception of the bass Choir of the text is indeed only exclaims as set by the orchestra in context. So Orpheus can not appease the Furies as in the myth with his song, but she convinced by the force of his will: he leaves no doubt that his love will triumph. The furies Orpheus transmit the message that Pluto understood and show him give Eurydice on the condition not to turn on the way out of the underworld to her. But Eurydice makes him on the way back to the upper world a scene and claims that he obviously did not love because he does not looks at. So it comes as it must: Orpheus turns to look at his lover and thus sealed Eurydice's fate: to remain in the underworld, since Pluto's condition was not met.

Compared to the well-known myth of the tables are turned radically at this point and transforms the story into a contemporary enlightening piece: Orpheus wants to die after the renewed loss of Eurydice also, but the furies forbid him to commit suicide so that Orpheus apparently not even his own can take fate into their own hands - whereupon he decides almost defiantly, that the sacrifice of his own life is already too low to be the expiation for Eurydice's death; henceforth he wants to make his own life a living hell and curse through his torments and his groans the gods.

The framework of the piece decides the fury dance, again composed by Fomin in ominous D minor. Chromatic passages, reckless dissonances and powerful chords but can not change anything to Orpheus ' decision: His pride is not broken and he triumphs continue, albeit tragic, about the power of the gods. He manages to be analogous to the enlightened human ideal break away from the gods and to determine as a free man himself about his fate. Once again it appears: The old myths can be updated at any time - this applies to movies in 2005 ( " the Looking for and the Finding of Love " ) as well as for this melodramas of the 18th century.