Aleksandr Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky was a Russian composer, a follower of Mikhail Glinka. From 1817 he lived in St. Petersburg. His most important composition, the opera “The Mermaid” (1855), based on the pay by Pushkin, presents the first folk realistic psychological drama written in Russia. Dargomyzhsky’s songs have a construction of short characteristic scenes; there is often a strong a tendency for social criticism in many of them (as in “Stary Kapral” – “The Old Corporal”), frequently possessing a sense of pungent satire (as in “Titulyarny sovetnik” – “The Titular Counselor” and “Chervyak” “The Worm”). He exerted a considerable influence on the composers of the “Mighty Handful;” the method of the so-called intonational realism developed by them, found its expression in the melodicized recitatives in the opera “The Stone Guest” set to the unaltered text of one of Pushkin’s “Little Tragedies” (completed in 1870 by César Cui and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, 2nd version – 1902). His other compositions include the opera “Esmeralda” (1847), based on Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, the opera-ballet “The Triumph of Bacchus” (1848), works for orchestra (“Baba-Yaga,” 1862; “Finnish Fantasy,” 1867) and for piano.
