Alexander Dargomyzhsky - creator of opera Stone Guest

Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky (born Feb. 2 [Feb. 14, New Style], 1813, near Tula, Russia—died Jan. 5 [Jan. 17], 1869, St. Petersburg) was a Russian composer of songs and operas.

Dargomyzhsky grew up in St. Petersburg as a talented amateur musician, playing the violin and piano and dabbling in composition. His acquaintance with the composer Mikhail Glinka (1833) turned his thoughts more seriously toward composition, and in 1839 he completed his first opera, Esmeralda (after Victor Hugo; performed 1847). Two other operas followed: The Triumph of Bacchus (1845; performed 1867) and Rusalka (after Alexandr Pushkin; produced 1856). In his songs Dargomyzhsky developed an individual vein of humor and satire. His orchestral pieces (e.g., Finnish Fantasia, Cossack Dance, and Baba-Yaga) were notable for their harmonic experiments.

After 1866 he became interested in developing a Russian national music of great dramatic realism and began to set Pushkin’s play Kamenny gost (The Stone Guest) to a species of melodically heightened recitative, with entire passages composed in the whole-tone mode. This work aroused the interest of Mily Balakirev and his circle, particularly Modest Mussorgsky; when Dargomyzhsky died, the score was completed by Cesar Qui and orchestrated by Nikolai Rymskiy-Korsakov.