Alexander Nikolayevich Serov

The composer Alexander Serow by Valentin Alexandrowitsch Serow , 1887 - 1888

Grave in Saint Petersburg

Alexander Nikolayevich Serov ( Russian Александр Николаевич Серов .:, Scientific transliteration Aleksandr Nikolaevich Serov :; emphasis Serov * 11; ^jul. / 23. January  1820 ^greg. In Saint Petersburg , † January 20 ^jul. / 1. February  1871 ^greg. ibid) was a Russian composer and music critic and father of the painter Valentin Serov .

Life and work

Serow was not only one of the most important Russian music critics between 1850 and 1870, but also a notable opera composer in the years between Dargomyschski's Russalka and the early operas of Cui , Rimsky-Korsakov , Mussorgsky , and Tchaikovsky .

Serow was initially friends with the cultural critic and historian Vladimir Stasov , but later they fell out over the valuation of Glinka's two operas . Serov's admiration for Richard Wagner made him suspicious of the Mighty Bunch , especially the younger music critic César Cui .

Although Serov's operas Judif and Rogneda were initially very successful, they were later forgotten. A CD recording of Judif (with some cuts) was made in 1991 by the ensemble of the Bolshoi Theater under Andrey Chistiakov.

His grave is in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg.

Operas

• Judif ( Юдифь, German: Judith , 1861–1863)
• Rogneda ( Рогнеда, 1863–1865)
• Wrashja sila ( Вражья сила, German: The Enemy's Power , 1867–1871)

literature

• Wilhelm von Lenz , the Russian music writer and composer Alex. Sérow. Sketch of scientific-artistic life from Petersburg , in: Neue Berliner Musikzeitung , vol. 25, no. 21 of May 24, 1871, pp. 161–163, no. 22 of May 31, 1871, pp. 169f., No. 23 of June 7, 1871, pp. 177-179 and No. 24 of June 14, 1871, pp. 185f. ( Digitized version )
• Richard Taruskin , Opera and Drama in Russia As Preached and Practiced in the 1860s , New ed., Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1993

Web links

• Literature by and about Alexander Nikolajewitsch Serow in the catalog of the German National Library