Yevstignei Ipatowitsch Fomin

Jewstignei Fomin

Jewstignei Ipatjewitsch (Ipatowitsch) Fomin ( Russian Евстигней Ипатьевич (Ипатович) Фомин , in scientific transliteration Evstignej Ipat'evič (Ipatovič) Fomin ; * 5 ^{. Jul} / 16th August  1761 ^Greg. In St. Petersburg ; † 16 ^jul. / 28 April  1800 ^greg. Ibid) was a Russian composer.

Life

Fomin is considered to be the most important opera composer in Russia in the 18th century, but very little is known about his life to this day. His rich oeuvre, at the center of which are more than ten operas - including The Coachman at the Post Station and The Americans - made a contribution to the transfer of Western music into Russian culture and thus to Russian music history that should not be underestimated. As one of the first Russian composers trained in Western Europe , he created music that corresponded to Western European standards at the height of its time and at the same time contained genuinely Russian peculiarities in terms of harmony , rhythm and composed folk song elements.

Fomin was born in St. Petersburg as the son of a soldier and from the age of six attended a music class at the newly founded St. Petersburg Academy of Art . In addition to general schooling, he initially received lessons from Matteo Buini ( clavichord ) and Hermann Friedrich Raupach and Anton Blasius Sartori (composition), and later various wind and string instruments were added; Participation in the choir was also part of the training. In addition, great importance was attached to the acting lessons of the students, as the academy had its own stage on which numerous ballets and operas were performed.

After his final examination in 1782, the Fomin with distinction existed, he received a scholarship that him a three-year study in Bologna allowed, where he his knowledge among others, the famous Padre Martini depth, which including Johann Christian Bach and Gluck to his Students counted. In 1785, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart shortly before him , he was appointed a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Society and returned to Russia a year later.

Here, Fomin's traces are initially lost, as he no longer appears on any payroll. Apparently he had neither a position at court nor at the academy nor at the theater, but probably earned his living as a conductor of various serf orchestras , for which he probably also composed. Corresponding works are now lost. It is assumed that Fomin wrote considerably more pieces than those whose music has been handed down, as he is said to have composed very quickly. Some contemporaries attribute not just ten, but more than 30 operas to him. Although he was a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Society and had set an opera libretto by Catherine the Great , his name remained anonymous in St. Petersburg for a period of eleven years.

During this time, 1791 or 1792, Fomin composed his melodrama Orfej i Ewridika ("Orpheus und Eurydike", based on a text by the Russian Enlightenment poet Jakow Knjaschnin ), which was premiered in 1792 and was probably a great success, as it was until 1811 was still played on Russian stages. It was not until 1797 that Fomin's name reappeared in official archives when he got a job at the theater as a solo coach and singing teacher. In relation to what foreign, especially Italian, musicians earned in Russia in Fomin's time, his wages were downright contemptuous and expressed the lack of appreciation for local artists. This attitude can be followed up to his funeral. Fomin died in April 1800, the exact circumstances and the cause of the death at the age of only 39 are no longer known.

Works (excerpts)

• The Novgorod hero Bojeslajewitsch (Novgorodskij bogatyr 'Boeslaevič), comic opera ( premiere 1786 )
• The coachmen at the post office (Jamščiki na podstave), comic opera ( premiere 1787 )
• The Americans (Amerika), comic opera based on Alzire ou Les Américains by Voltaire ( UA 1800 )
• Orpheus (Orfej) Melodram ( UA 1792 )

Melodrama Orpheus and Eurydice ( Orfei i Jewridika )

With the myth of Orpheus , who wants to bring his Eurydice back from the underworld and dares to defy the gods, Fomin chose an up-to-date and timeless subject in the context of the Russian Enlightenment. With its libretto by Jakow Knjaschnin, the piece surpasses more forgiving attempts at solutions à la Gluck in terms of radicality and enlightenment explosiveness.

Fomin begins his melodrama with an overture - which implements classical formal concepts very freely - which already sets out the content of the entire piece: right at the beginning it summarizes all the important points of the plot, contrasts pain and happiness, separation and union, Largo and Vivace - but also anticipates the end of the melodrama through its key (D minor as a characteristic of disaster and death) .

At first the plot does not seem unusual: Orpheus, desperate about his fate of having lost Eurydice to a snakebite, decides to descend into the underworld, to induce the gods to surrender his beloved and thus to overcome fate. On his way he meets the Furies on the Styx , a river that also represents the border to the underworld , embodied by a huge unison bass choir, who tell him how he can appease evil with his lyre .

Now, however, an essential characteristic of the melodrama comes into play: with the exception of the bass choir, the text is only declaimed and put into context by the orchestra. Orpheus cannot soothe the furies with his song, as in the myth, but convinces them with the power of his will: He leaves no doubt that his love will triumph. The Furies convey the message to Orpheus that Pluto shows himself to be understanding and that Eurydice will return to him on condition that he does not turn to her on the way out of the underworld. But Eurydice makes a scene for him on the way back to the upper world and claims that he apparently does not love her because he does not look at her. So it happens as it has to come: Orpheus turns to his lover and thus seals Eurydice's fate: She has to stay in the underworld because Pluto's condition was not met.

Compared to the well-known myth, the tide turns radically at this point and transforms the plot into a contemporary enlightenment piece: Orpheus also wants to die after the renewed loss of Eurydice, but the Furies prevent him from suicide, so that Orpheus apparently no longer even his own Can take fate in hand - whereupon he almost defiantly decides that the sacrifice of his own life is too little as atonement for Eurydice's death anyway; henceforth he wants to make his own life hell and curse the gods through his torments and moans.

The framework of the piece is concluded by the Fury Dance, again composed by Fomin in ominous D minor. Chromatic passages, inconsiderate dissonances and powerful chords can no longer change anything in Orpheus' decision: his pride is not broken and he continues to triumph, albeit tragically, over the power of the gods. Analogous to the Enlightenment human ideal, he manages to detach himself from the gods and, as a free person, to determine his own fate. Once again it is clear that the old myths can be updated at any time - this applies to films in 2005 (“ Vom sucht undfind der Liebe ”) as well as to this melodrama of the 18th century.

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Yevstigney Fomin in the International Music Score Library Project
• List of stage works by Yevstignei Ipatowitsch Fomin based on the MGG at Operone