Entertainment. Alexander Alyabyev Musical success and Siberian exile

brief information

The museum - the house of A. A. Alyabyev is located in the reserved Lermontov quarter of the city of Pyatigorsk, where the Russian composer, pianist and conductor Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabyev lived in 1832.

In the 19th century, Alyabyev enjoyed great success, writing about 200 romances, 7 operas, and many other works. But the most famous and beloved are still the romance “The Nightingale” and “Evening Bells”. Remember Shakhnazarov's film Courier? Alyabyev's fate was bright and tragic. He was a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812 and the foreign campaigns of the Russian army. Participated in the capture of Dresden organized by the partisan and famous poet Denis Davydov.

He took part in the battle of Leipzig, the battles on the Rhine and the capture of Paris. Returning from defeated France to St. Petersburg, he began to study music seriously and already in the early 1820s he successfully made his debut in the capitals as the author of romances and music for theatrical performances. But in 1825, a tragic turning point occurred in Alyabyev’s fate.

During a card game, an argument broke out, during which one of the players was slapped several times. Having left the house where the game was taking place, and then the city, this gentleman unexpectedly died on the third day. Alyabyev was arrested on suspicion of murder and, despite the lack of proof of the accusation, was sentenced to exile to Siberia with deprivation of all rights and the title of nobility.

In 1826, while imprisoned in the fortress, Alyabyev wrote his most famous work, the romance Nightingale.

A few years later, a sharp deterioration in health forced the composer to turn to the authorities, asking for permission to go to the Caucasian waters.

And in 1832 he arrives in Pyatigorsk, where he lives in the House of the deceased Major Karabutova. Subsequently, Alyabyev lived in 1833-34 in Orenburg, then in the Moscow province. Only in 1843 Alyabyev received permission to live in Moscow under police supervision. Here he again enters the theatrical environment, writing music for dramatic performances.

In 1997, the house in which the musician lived in Pyatigorsk was restored and a museum was opened in it. This is the only memorial museum of the composer in Russia. Its exhibition is dedicated to the theme of the Caucasus in the life and work of Alyabyev, as well as to the theme “Lermontov in music”. On display are authentic music editions of Lermontov's time, rare lithographs with views of Moscow, and Lermontov's painting "Attack of the Life Hussars near Warsaw."

In the music salon and exhibition hall, musical evenings of ancient Russian romance are held, and instrumental works by A. Alyabyev are played. The programs “Summer Evenings with the Gran Quartet” (a group of honored artists of Russia known in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody) have become traditional; works of Russian and world musical classics and poetry are performed in concerts.

Opening hours: from 10:00 to 17:00 days off - Monday, Tuesday

The museum's music collection consists of over 1,500 items from the main fund.

Novinsky Boulevard. The outer side of the Garden Ring. Part 2.

Let's continue our journey along Novinsky Boulevard. In the courtyard of a modern house number 7 there was a manor house.

House No. 7с4(not preserved). An example of wooden classicism, the main manor house with a mezzanine stood in the depths of the plot.
The open courtyard in front of it was framed by two identical residential outbuildings, also wooden, placed along the driveway.

The estate on Novinsky Boulevard belonged to the Ofrosimov family. This house was famous throughout Moscow. First like home Ofrosimova Nastasya Dmitrievna
(1723-1826), who was “in the old years a governor in Moscow, something like Marfa Posadnitsa, but without the slightest shade of republicanism. She had strength and power in Moscow society. She seized power, she acquired power with the help of what was common to her respect" - as P.A. Vyazemsky wrote about her. Her husband, Ofrosimov (1752-1817), “whom she, as she herself admitted, secretly abducted from her father’s house to the crown,” a military general from the time of Potemkin, was completely subordinate to her.

Alleged portrait of Ofrosimova N.D. brushes F.S. Rokotova
Sverbeev, Pylyaev, Vigel and many others mention her in their memoirs.
This legendary Moscow lady was portrayed by Tolstoy in “War and Peace” under the name of Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova and by Griboyedov in “Woe from Wit” under the name of Anfisa Nilovna Khlestova. One of her sons, Andrei Pavlovich (1788-1839), guards colonel, married Ekaterina Alexandrovna Rimskaya-Korsakova
And in the 1840s, having become a widow, Ekaterina Alexandrovna settled here with her new husband, composer A. A. Alyabyev.
Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabyev(1787 - 1851) - Russian composer, author of the famous romances “The Nightingale”, “Winter Road”, “Evening Bells”, “Beggar Woman” -
It used to be that a beggar is not afraid
Come to her for alms,
She’s ashamed to ask you...
Give it to her, for Christ's sake...
and many others.

Alyabyev was born into a noble family in Tobolsk. In 1804 he came to Moscow. From a young age he showed creative talent (his first works were published in 1810). In 1812, he volunteered to join the hussar regiment, participated in many battles and actions of partisan detachments, was wounded and awarded orders for military merit.
Through his officer friends, Alexander Alexandrovich met many poets and playwrights; in 1815, the brave lieutenant colonel began actively composing music. Good, talented music - unthinkable for the amateur that he was.
In 1823, Alyabyev, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, retired with a uniform and a full pension and settled in Moscow, he composes music, conducts rehearsals, and otherwise leads the life of an ordinary Moscow rake, balls, cards, friendly drinking sessions.
In 1825, an absurd but tragic incident occurred in Alyabiev’s life, which completely changed the composer’s fate. One day he hosted a dinner party for friends at his home. Everyone drank a lot, then began to play cards. One of the guests, the Voronezh landowner Vremev, who first won and then lost big, refused to pay the large loss, hinting that the game was fraudulent. Alyabyev, who himself did not participate in the game, was indignant that his house was compared to a cheating den and slapped Vremev in the face. A scuffle ensued, and a coin fell out of Vremev’s boot. The participants ordered him to take off his shoes, found hidden coins in his boots, forced him to pay and escorted him out of the house. And a few times later he died suddenly. Doctors declared death from apoplexy
However, Alyabyev was arrested on suspicion of murdering the landowner T.M. Vremev and, despite the lack of proof of the accusation, was sentenced to exile to Siberia with deprivation of all rights and the title of nobility.The main reason for the harsh sentence was, apparently, Alyabyev’s closeness to Decembrist circles. I wonder what his case was led by I.I. Pushchin, the future Decembrist himself and a member of a secret society!!!
In total, from the moment of his arrest, Alyabyev spent 10 years in exile.
The love story of Ekaterina Alexandrovna and Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabyev is amazing. they knew each other even before her marriage. Ekaterina Alexandrovna came from the Rimsky-Korsakov family. Their house at the Tverskaya Gate in Moscow was one of the most hospitable and hospitable.

The main concern of her mother, Marya Ivanovna, was to better settle her five beautiful daughters, and not to deprive them of the dowry of her three hussar sons. That’s why she kept an open house and organized dance parties with a rich dinner several times a month. The house was hung by Pushkin, Mitskevich, Griboyedov, Vyazemsky, Kuchelbecker, Denis Davydov. Alexander Alyabyev also visited here as a friend of the owner’s sons.
Historian N. Moleva writes “And it all started with the third mazurka. The third in one evening. Then Katya did not believe herself. Moscow had its own rules and its own signs. Even the second dance at the ball with the same young lady aroused curious glances, and third... This was an open admission of passion, or even serious intentions...
Rehearsals - orchestral, vocal. Performances. A cheerful, sometimes stupid bustle of the premiere. Is that why the third quadrille seemed so unexpected? The bachelor hussar is at the pinnacle of creative success, and his emphasized interest in the girl whom he had known since childhood and for whom previously, it would seem, had not shown any feelings. Friends and relatives had the right to be surprised..." And a few days later this story happened by the landowner Vremev. Alyabyev was sent into exile, and Ekaterina Alexandrovna, in order to hush up the scandal, was persuaded to marry the unloved Ofrosimov.
In the early 1830s, Alyabyev managed to get out of exile to the Caucasus for treatment, where Marya Ivanovna was resting at that time with her married daughter. Here, after a long separation, the lovers meet and the first romances dedicated to Katya are born - “I see your image”, “I look sadly at the treasured ring”, “I won’t tell, I won’t confess” and others, but between the lovers there is an abyss.
The next time Alyabyev will meet with Ekaterina Alexandrovna (already a widow), only after exile did feelings flare up again,
Moleva writes, “Everything was decided unexpectedly. Katya’s husband died. She endured the prescribed period of mourning and decided to take an unthinkable step: she herself found a way to see Alyabiev, she herself started talking about their happiness. Belated, but the only one that could return life to its color and meaning.” In August 1840, a wedding took place in the village of Ryazantsy, Bogorodsky district, in the Church of the Holy Trinity.
Moleva continues, “Of course, everything turned out not at all rosy. There were no children. The ban on staying in Moscow remained in force. Alyabyev was forced to hide among the courtyard servants in his own house. Any visit plunged the spouses into fear. Alyabyev’s name was removed from the posters: he could write music, theaters - to use it, but instead of the composer’s name, he was not allowed to attend rehearsals and premieres. And yet, short-lived happiness came, illuminating his unsettled life, giving it meaning.”
After the wedding, the couple settled in this house on Novinsky Boulevard. Alyabyev died in 1851, Ekaterina Alexandrovna survived him by only three years.
This is what the house looked like in 1992. They were going to restore it.

It stood until 1997, when it was set on fire (this is the majority version) and, as a result, burned down to the ground floor. After the fire, there were again different plans for reconstruction and restoration of the house. And this is what the area where the house stood now looks like.

As a result, restoration was abandoned; in 2013, a creative workshop of artist Vasily Nesterenko will be built on the site of Alyabyev’s house.
Then Novinsky Boulevard is interrupted by New Arbat. At this crossroads before
located site No. 9. The history of the site is as follows. Not far from Novinsky Boulevard in house No. 27 (more on that later) lived a friend of Pushkin Zhikharev Stepan Petrovich, official of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, in 1823 - 1827 - Moscow provincial prosecutor.
Perhaps Pushkin, who often visited Zhikharev, also visited his wife’s house Feodosia Dmitrievna (nee Nechaeva). She owned a small 2-story stone house with a huge garden (Novinsky Boulevard, 9).
Then the Kumanin merchants owned the site, with whose funds the Sorrow Church was erected on Bolshaya Ordynka, which has survived to this day.
The last owners of the site were the Lyamina merchants. The Lyamin merchant family has been known in Moscow since the 17th century. It was precisely such people as the founder of the merchant dynasty Ivan Petrovich Lyamin, traditions and a professional code of honor of the Russian merchants were laid. The grandson of Ivan Petrovich Lyamin, Ivan Artemyevich, treated family commandments sacredly. His versatility of knowledge and high integrity quickly made Ivan Petrovich one of the notable figures in the world of Moscow merchants. In 1871, Ivan Petrovich was elected Moscow mayor. On Lyamin’s initiative, a horse-drawn railway is being created in Moscow - the prototype of the entire current public transport system from the tram to the monorail metro. It was he who laid the foundations of the city’s current municipal services, installed the first arc electric lights in the city, and founded the Polytechnic Museum. Ivan Artemyevich was also a famous philanthropist. It is Lyamin who owes Moscow the opening of the city children's hospital of St. Vladimir. After him, his son, Semyon Ivanovich, p.p.gr., managing director of the Pokrovskaya Paper-Spinning and Weaving Manufactory Partnership, member of the Moscow City Duma, becomes the owner. In 1918, the Lyamins left Russia. Their descendants now live in Paris.
Many people remember Lyamin’s surname from his surviving dacha in Sokolniki. Remember the children's book "The Christmas Tree in Sokolniki", in which Lenin was, and so this happened at Lyamin's former dacha.
In the photo on the left you can see Lyamin’s house, the part of the house overlooking Novinsky Boulevard is possibly the house of Zhikharev’s wife, Feodosia Dmitrievna, where Pushkin visited (considering that previously houses were not demolished, but built into existing ones).
Earlier I wrote that Zhikhareva had a huge garden, due to which the Lyamins expanded the house, but not along the boulevard, but along Novinsky Lane.

Part of the garden was preserved under the Lyamins. I found a photo from the Iskra magazine for 1913, where a market-fair is being held in the Lyamina garden at the hospital for infants, institute. T.N. Speranskaya. Here is a link where you can see a larger photo.

After the revolution, the Lyamins’ house at one time housed the House of Architects, and then the Institute of Blood Transfusion.
The house was demolished in the early 1960s during the construction of New Arbat. There are several photographs of the house before demolition. Here it is from the side of Novinsky Boulevard and is already closer.

And here it is from the side of Novinsky Lane (now it is part of New Arbat). Behind the lantern in the center you can see a piece house number 7(the one without forests), I wrote about it in the 1st part.

Behind the intersection facing the boulevard stands Stalin's house No. 9\30, built jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Ministry of Defense (the first - money, the second - labor). The right side of the house (along Novy Arbat) was where the military lived, the left side was where Vneshtorg employees lived.

The house was built in the 1950s, architects V. I. Kurochkina and P. A. Khokhryakova. It was built by captured Germans. View of the house from Novinsky Boulevard.

Details.

Continuation.

No one cared about this building until its connection with the name of the great composer was established. But the architectural monument burned down in 1997. Ironically, shortly before this, a certain commercial organization promised to restore the house and open an Alyabyev museum.

They say that......one day while playing cards, Alyabyev caught one of the players playing unfairly and hit him. A few days later he died from a ruptured spleen. Alyabyev was accused of murder. He was acquitted, but was exiled to Siberia for beatings and gambling.
In prison, while awaiting sentencing, Alyabyev composed a lot of musical works, including the famous “Nightingale”.
- Prison is good for Russian talent! - composer Verstovsky responded to this.
“Tell him that there are a lot of empty cells next to me,” Alyabyev replied.
The composer returned to Moscow semi-legally in 1840. He stayed at his wife's house. And in 1843 Alyabyev received permission to live in the city.

“Former Lieutenant Colonel Alyabyev, deprived of his ranks and nobility and exiled to live in Tobolsk, arrived to Mineralnye Vody to treat an eye disease, and on August 19 of this year he left Pyatigorsk for Sour Vody. He lived in Pyatigorsk in the house of the deceased Major Karabutova.” This is how it is recorded in the documents of the Pyatigorsk city government about the stay of the author of the famous romance “The Nightingale” here. Alyabyev was convicted on false charges of murder - this is how the authorities settled with him for his friendship with the Decembrists. The treatment did not help him, but the result of the trip was new works inspired by the Caucasus.

The second name of this building, which is part of the Lermontov memorial quarter, is more correct - “Kotyrev-Karabutova House”. In 1822-1923, it was built by the commandant of the Mozdok fortress, Lieutenant Colonel A. Kotyrev, a fellow soldier of General D.O. Bebutov and friend A.S. Griboedova. Some of the rooms were supposed to be rented out: the popularity of the healing “waters” grew by leaps and bounds, and more and more people came here. The architect is unknown for sure: perhaps it was the then Caucasian provincial architect S.D. Myasnikov; it is also possible that one of the “Exemplary Projects” of the Russian Construction Committee for residential development was taken as a basis. In any case, it was one of the largest and most solid estates of the “Hot Waters” resort, which did not yet have either the status of a city or the name Pyatigorsk. But Kotyrev almost didn’t have to live there - he died in August 1823. The house was transferred to his wife, who soon married Major A. Karabutov. After she also died, a lawsuit began between Kotyrev’s heirs and the Karabutov family - just, apparently, under Alyabyev. As a result, the latter won, but all the owners regularly rented out part of the house. The first famous resident of this house was Professor A.P. in the summer of 1823. Nelyubin, a doctor and pharmacologist who studied the medicinal properties of Caucasian mineral waters. He rented five entire rooms, which housed a chemical laboratory and rooms for physical and chemical instruments. Alyabyev was visited by extraordinary inspiration here: in a short time he managed to write several works, including the famous romance “The Secret”. The author gave the title “Caucasian Singer” to the next collection of romances (1834), the cover of which depicts a view of Pyatigorsk. Pyatigorsk inspired the composer for a special reason: here he again met E.A. Ofrosimova (née Rimskaya-Korsakova), with whom he was in love and who, after his arrest, was hastily married off. In 1840, she became a widow and finally became Alyabyev’s wife. All these works are dedicated to her.