Composer Vasily Andreev was born in 1861 in a merchant family. He did not become a merchant, but became interested in music. Thanks to him, a fashion for Russian folk instruments arose , which received significant public recognition and distribution on the concert stage. Andreev was not just a composer, but also an organizer, as well as a promoter of this field of art.
Virtuoso and theorist
Vasily Andreev formed his first orchestra in St. Petersburg. It included lovers of gusli, pity, tambourines and other folk instruments. Concerts of the orchestra spread throughout the country a passion for playing the balalaika. Vasily Andreev himself masterfully owned this tool.
The composer actually created a new field of musical creativity, called the Russian folk instrumental art of written tradition. It merged both professional and academic, as well as folklore elements. That is why everything that Vasily Andreev did is considered unique. The composer came up with the idea of creating a new kind of musical art far from immediately, although the balalaika had been fascinating him since childhood. Most of all he liked the distinctive timbre of this instrument and its executive techniques.
Vasily Andreev is a composer, distinguished by a fanatical determination in the implementation of his own plans. On the one hand, he was a virtuoso of live performance, and on the other, a thoughtful theorist who wrote a huge number of articles and books on his favorite topic.
The first chromatic balalaika
Although Vasily Andreev specialized in folk instruments, academic music also influenced him. For three years he studied violin, taking lessons from the outstanding conductor and violinist Nikolai Galkin, a former professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. That is why Andreev over time increasingly presented to the balalaika the requirements characteristic of a concert instrument. Movable frets only gave a diatonic scale. The composer used fixed chromatic temperament. He became a reformer of performing technique.
In 1887, together with the talented master Franz Pasersky, Andreev created the first chromatic balalaika. The tool immediately gained popularity. In the summer of that year, the book “School of playing the balalaika” was published. The Pasersky model was of fundamental and cardinal importance for the work of Andreev's whole life. For the first time, a balalaika appeared, which became an academic instrument and retained its characteristic folklore properties (the number of strings, the triangular shape of the deck, playing techniques, and tuning). There were prospects of mastering the classical musical heritage on it.
Popularization of balalaika
In fact, Andreev gave the country a balalaika in an improved and improved form. Prior to this, the nationality of this tool was in its ethnographic origin, and now it has become popular also in its mass distribution. Many experts consider this phenomenon unique in the history of music.
In just ten years, the balalaika has gone the way that other instruments have taken centuries. At the beginning of the XXI century, there were about 200 thousand of them in Russia (while in St. Petersburg there were about 65 thousand).
Advantages of the Andreev model
The instrument for which Vasily Andreev wrote many articles and created a new performing technique determined the musical fashion of his era. The new balalaika was improved in such a way that it became much more accessible for beginners to learn. Her sound was intonationally more distinct and sonorous than the sound of its predecessors.
The shape of the balalaika has become more convenient, and most importantly, more compact. The advantages did not prevent the tool from remaining cheap and easy to manufacture. He was equally suitable for both the lyrical sincere folk song and temperamental dance. The combination of all these advantages attracted more and more enthusiasts who wanted to master the musical craft unknown to them.
Orchestra Origin
After the advent of a new chromatic balalaika, Andreev acquired a large number of students. It was they, together with their teacher, who created the most popular Petersburg orchestra (the initial composition - 8 people). His first concert was held on March 20, 1888. This date is the birthday of the orchestra of Russian folk instruments.
Parts of the instruments were duplicated and had a clear functional separation (chord accompaniment, bass, melody). Balalaikas played in unison. Later, in the 1890s, the orchestra expanded to 16 people.
Propaganda of music in the army
Getting acquainted with what instrument Vasily Andreev wrote plays for, created orchestras and composed books, one should not forget that a competent campaign to popularize balalaika made a significant contribution to his success. Having become famous in the capital, the composer began to organize thematic circles in military units. He believed (and believed correctly) that the soldiers who had demobilized and returned to their homes would cultivate a love of balalaika among friends and relatives.
So in the villages, factories and factories there was a revival of folklore, and the general public received aesthetic and musical education. This is at least why Vasily Andreev occupies a worthy place in the galaxy of great musicians-educators. The composer's plays became widely known and were used by many enthusiasts as source material for their training.
In 1897, Andreev achieved the establishment of a teaching staff in the army who was engaged in propaganda for playing the balalaika. Many soldiers who learned from the composer played at the Mariinsky Theater. At the concert dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Andreev team, there was an orchestra consisting of 380 balalaika players.
However, do not think that the organization of training has become a simple undertaking for the composer. At first, he had to wrestle with the bureaucratic and bureaucratic apparatus in the military offices, which belonged to folk instruments with many prejudices and contempt.
Students of the composer
Following Andreev’s Petersburg Orchestra, similar orchestras specializing in Russian folk music began to appear throughout the country. Moscow became the second city with a new circle of balalaika fans.
The Andreev Orchestra expanded, which included the most devoted pupils of the composer. The most famous among them was Nikolai Fomin. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and brought additional academicism and professionalism to the circle. It was Fomin who became the author of most of the arrangements and arrangements of Russian folk songs for the orchestra. His works quickly passed into the category of classical ones. Of course, Vasily Andreev himself influenced the formation of Fomin. “Meteor”, “Faun” and his other works became a practical guide for several generations of musicians.
Andreev and domra
Over time, Andreeva ceased to satisfy the timbre homogeneous balalaika orchestra. He considered such a sound not diverse enough. Therefore, the composer began to introduce all new instruments into his orchestra. They helped update the concert program with more serious classical academic works. Interestingly, the expansion of the repertoire of the Andreev Orchestra was encouraged by many famous figures of Russian art of that period. The music of balalaikas carried away far not only musicians. So, Andreyev’s correspondence with the great artist Ilya Repin was preserved.
Searching for Russian folk instruments suitable for reconstruction, Andreev decided to turn to string and plucked domra. The question of its affiliation was then debatable. Andreev found the “heiress” of the domra long ago disappeared from widespread use in the Vyatka balalaika. Their characteristic feature was a round body (different from the "classic" triangular).
What instrument did Vasily Andreev write plays for? Most of his works are created for balalaika. Nevertheless, the composer did a lot to popularize other instruments. The example of domra in this sense is the most revealing. Having reconstructed it, Andreev found a new source of timbre variety for his orchestra of Russian folk instruments.
Orchestra Update
The first Vyatka domra were made in the summer of 1896. After they were added to the concert program, the Andreev Orchestra was renamed Great-Russian. The composer explained the reason for the appearance of the new sign by the fact that he and his students used tools that were unique to the northern and middle stripes of the country. At that time, the reconstructed helmet-shaped harp appeared for the first time in the orchestra.
In addition to the balalaika, Vasily Andreev from childhood loved the harmonica. He played this instrument from a very young age. At home in Maryino, along with the harmonica, the composer often rested after lengthy concerts. At first, the orchestra regularly alternated numbers on this instrument with balalaika. With the help of harmonics, Vasily Andreev performed serious and detailed works. At the same time, this instrument never became a classic for the Great Russian Orchestra. The fact is that harmonica is more connected with urban song, while Andreev (with all his love for her) tried to revive an earlier layer of folklore.
Musician's works
“Memories of Vienna”, “Faun”, “Butterfly”, polonaise No. 1 - this is far from the whole list of works authored by Vasily Andreev. Orchid was also a well-known repertoire number of the Great Russian Orchestra. Even modern folk groups continue to perform the processing of the song “Shines of the Months”, created by the composer more than a hundred years ago.
Vasily Andreev wrote instrumental plays colorful, vivid in melody and popular among a wide audience. They attracted new ardent followers to get acquainted with the new orchestra folk culture.
Tour
The instrumental composition assembled by Andreev impressed even the most recognized academic composers. Among them was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. St. Andrew's influence is felt in his opera about the city of Kitezh. The propagandist of the balalaika and other folk instruments himself welcomed the idea of composing new large-scale works for his own orchestra.
Having become popular, Andreev's team began to give concerts not only in Russia but also abroad. Performances of the Great Russian Orchestra with a full house were held in Germany, France, America and England. There is a known case when the Italian composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo refused to go to Berlin for the premiere of his own opera “Pagliacci” in order to attend Vasily Vasilievich’s concert at the same time.
Andreev until the last years remained an energetic and dedicated performer. After the revolution, the Civil War began, and the composer went to the front with concerts. His performances were popular among the Red Army. During one of the concerts, Vasily Andreev conducted in the cold in a light suit and became seriously ill. He was transported to Petrograd. He died on December 26, 1918. Andreev’s grave is located on the Composer Path of the Tikhvin Cemetery, where famous figures of musical art rest.