ANDER SERGEYEVICII ( I S13-0). A famous Rus sian composer, founder, with Glinka, of the Rus sian National School of Music. He was the son of a wealthy nobleman in the Government of Tu la. Speechless to his sixth year, he early exhibit ed fondness for music, and was taught the piano at six and violin at eight ;his teachers, later, were Schoberle•hner, a pupil of Hummel, in piano, and Zeibieh in musical theory and singing. At Saint. Petersburg in 1833 he met Glinka, who lent Dargomyzhsky his copy of Dehn's lectures on musical theory, which "he studied through in five months." Orchestration and composition he learned practically by assisting Glinka in the production of his Life of the ('car and by organ izing various aquatic serenades on the Neva River, with private orchestras. He had by this time acquired a reputation as a song-writer, pianist, and quartet-violinist, and lie decided to embrace music as a career. Later, in 1843, he gave up his governmental clerkship. He selected Hugo's Luere:'ia Borgia for an opera, hut, on the advice of Zhukovsky (q.v.), aban doned it in favor of Esmeralda, based on the Hunchback of Not re Dame. in 1839 the finished opera was translated into Russian, but. was pro duced only in 1847, at Moscow, with a poor cast. In 1840 he began a cantata, The Triumph of Bac chus, but owing to the delay of Esmeru/da he stopped work on it, mid only finished it in 1848, as an opera-ballet, first produced in 1868. In 1844-15 he traveled, meeting llahlvy and also E6lis, who made him known to western Europe. The delays of his opera 'deadened his inspiration,' but his personal success in 1833, at a charitable concert, encouraged him, aml in .1833 the opera Rusalka (The Mermaid) was ready. Its pro duction at Saint Petersburg (1856) left much to be desired, and the public received it coldly: the Hali-vy-Meyerbeer style of Esmeralda gave way to powerful dramatic recitatives, pronounced characterization, especially in comic scenes, and a strong national element. Only ten years later,
the opera, when revived, achieved an nnheard of success. During this decade Da•gomyzlisky be came more and more retired. Ile spent hi. time giving vocal instrnethm to gifted amateurs, and. in a measure, trained a new generation of singers. Ile wrote three orchei.tral works: (Cossack dance) Finnish Fantaisio, and Baba-l'aga, and while in Brussels (1864-65) won high praise with the Kazarhok and the over ture to Rusaiku. Ilis songs (he wrote about 100 in all) of this period are among the greatest of the world's Lieder. Among all composers he was perhaps the greatest master of recitative, and now he "wanted the sound to exactly express the word." Among the members of the Young Rus sian School he found the moral support he so sadly needed, and in 1868 he undertook to em body his new theories by setting to music Push kin's dramatic sketch The Stone Guest, a vari ant of the Don Juan story. Even during his final illness he worked unceasingly and so successfully that after his death only ten and one-half lines had to be completed by Cui. The orchestration was finished by Rimisky-1Co•sakotr. The work was produced in 1872, lint had little success. It contains no ballet, choruses. set numbers, or ensembles. The text, without a change in one syllable, was set to 'melodic recitative,' ever varying, fluent. expressive, like that of the fourth act of the Huguenots, or of Otctio. The opera is unique in the history of dramatic music. Both his special vocal training and his theoreti c-al views militated against Wagner's theories; his personages are always, the protagonists inn sically, while the orchestra furnished the back ground, atmosphere, or dynamic part. Consult: Cui, La nlusique en Hussie (Paris, 1880) : Pougin, Essai historigwe sur lu musigue en Mas sie (Turin, 1897) Biographic unirerselle des musiciens (Pari.s, 1862).