Russian romance

History#

By the early 20th century, several types of the Russian romance had emerged. An elite type of the Italianate opera-influenced song known as the “salon romance” is contrasted to the lower-class genre of “cruel romance” which features “sentimental courtship, illicit love, pained rejection, and often suicide”. The latter is supposed to have given birth to the Russian chanson. The Russian romance had its heyday in the 1910s and 1920s when the top performers included Anastasia Vyaltseva, Varvara Panina, Nadezhda Plevitskaya, Tamara Tsereteli, Pyotr Leshchenko, and Alexander Vertinsky. A new generation of singers, such as Valentina Ponomaryova and Nani Bregvadze, emerged in the 1970s. Several vocalists from the pre-WWII era, including Izabella Yurieva (1899–2000), Vadim Kozin (1903–1994) and Alla Bayanova (1914–2011), also returned to prominence in the late Soviet years. Alexander Malinin, Sergey Zakharov and Oleg Pogudin are among the Russian romance singers active in the 21st century. In 1994, . Alexander Malinin received the World Music Award as best selling Russian artist. César Cui’s 1895 book Russian Art Song: A Study of Its Development was translated in J.R. Walker’s Classical Essays on the Development of Russian Art Songs (Northfield, MN, 1993).

Notable songs#

• Black Eyes
• Shine, Shine, My Star
• Дорогой длинною/Those Were the Days/Along the Long Road
• Evening Bell
• Les Chrysanthemes

See also#

• Starogradska muzika

External links#

• Russian composers and singer-songwriters of 19th century (English), an educational site
• Synthesis of poetry and music (Russian), a site dedicated to Russian romance