15 August 1787 year
Alexander Alyabyev was born in Tobolsk. He was a composer, pianist, and conductor. He also wrote the music for the well-known romance "The Nightingale," with lyrics by Anton Delvig. And much more.
My nightingale, my nightingale,
Vocal nightingale!
Where are you, where are you flying to?
Where will you sing all night?
He was the son of the Tobolsk governor. When he was nine, the family moved to St. Petersburg. There, he took music lessons. At fourteen, he began serving as a conductor at the Mining Collegium. At twenty-three, he published his first waltzes and a romance.
In 1812, Alyabyev was enlisted in a Cossack regiment and went to war. He met Denis Davydov, joined his partisan detachment. Then he served in the hussar regiment - together with Alexander Griboyedov and father Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Tolstoy. He was awarded and ended the war with the rank of captain.
In 1823, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel, he retired. He lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He tried his hand as a theater composer. More on his operas later. Vladimir Odoevsky wrote that they were “no worse than French comic operas.”
In 1825, Alyabyev was arrested on suspicion of murdering a landowner. Timofey VremevThe latter was his card-playing partner, lost his money, and refused to pay. Alyabyev slapped him. He left. And a few days later, he died of a stroke.
The investigation failed to prove the murder theory. But Alyabyev was still found guilty—for "allowing" gambling, drunkenness, and beatings. In 1828, he was stripped of his noble title, all rights, and exiled to SiberiaThe severity of the sentence could have been explained by Alyabyev's close ties to the Decembrist movement. He wrote the famous "Nightingale" while in prison.
In exile in Tobolsk, Alyabyev organized a symphony orchestra. Later, he lived under surveillance in the Caucasus, Orenburg, and the Moscow region. He only received permission to reside in Moscow in 1843. He died in 1851, leaving behind six operas, 20 musical comedies, and nearly 200 romances. The verses to the most famous ones are impossible to read with any other intonation:
Evening ringing, evening ringing!
How many thoughts it brings