Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy (A. Sokhor)

The fate of songs that are written in the hundreds every year in our country varies. Some of them become popular for a while, but then become boring, disappear from life and are forgotten forever. Others, a few, are destined to remain in the memory of their contemporaries for many years. These are songs that touch the deep strings of the soul and speak about the most important things in the life of a person and a people. Many dear feelings and images, memories and dreams merged with them forever. Such songs often turn into nameless ones: they are sung without thinking about whether they have an author, and it seems that the people themselves created them. Such “oblivion” of the name of the creator is the highest reward for him.

Among the best Soviet songs that accompany us in work and battle, on vacation and holiday, like faithful assistants, advisers and friends, many belong to Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy. For millions of Soviet people, they became a constant source of joy, warmth, and an integral part of life itself.

Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy was born in 1907 in St. Petersburg. A few years earlier, the father of the future composer, peasant Pavel Pavlovich Solovyov, came here from near Vitebsk to earn money. He was “lucky”: he became a janitor in a large house on Nevsky Prospekt.

The Solovyov family loved music very much. My father played the harmonica, my mother, a native of the Pskov region, sang folk songs well. At the age of eight, Vasily Solovyov begged his father to “buy music” and learned to play the balalaika. He picked out popular songs by ear and, together with the neighboring boys who played the guitar and mandolin, formed a trio. The performances of this ensemble in front of the residents of the house were accompanied by resounding success. They had to rehearse right on the stairs, but this did not stop the young musicians.

In the house where the Solovyovs lived there was a small cinema. There was a piano next to the screen. Having made friends with the projectionist, Vasily Solovyov gained access to the instrument, got used to the keyboard on his own, and soon was freely performing dances and songs at school evenings.

But only after the Great October Socialist Revolution was the son of a simple peasant able to receive a musical education. For several years he worked as a pianist in workers' clubs and amateur groups, performing on the radio and accompanying morning physical exercises with his improvisations. In 1929, one of the Leningrad composers heard his improvisations, on whose advice Soloviev entered the music college, in the composition class of the famous teacher Professor P. B. Ryazanov. Two years later he was transferred to the Leningrad Conservatory.

While still a student, the young composer created his first compositions. Among them were romances, a symphonic poem, a piano suite, music for dramatic performances, and a piano concerto. Some of them were published under a pseudonym, which was then added to his surname - “Grey-haired” (Solovyov’s father called him “gray-haired” in childhood because of his light hair color). Soon after graduating from the conservatory, Solovyov-Sedoy wrote the ballet “Taras Bulba” based on Gogol. In the 1940/41 season, the ballet was staged by the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR in Moscow and the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater in Leningrad.

Solovyov-Sedoy also wrote songs during these years. “Cossack Cavalry”, “Taiga”, “Song of Leningrad” gained considerable popularity at that time. The remarkable anti-fascist singer Ernst Busch sang “The Death of Chapaev” in Republican Spain and included it in the songbook of the International Brigades. And although the early songs were not yet characteristic of the composer in all respects, the precious features of his lyrics already appeared in them: attention to the inner world of the hero, integrity and purity of feelings.

But true creative maturity and national recognition came to Solovyov-Sedoy only during the Great Patriotic War. In the very first days, he wrote several patriotic songs, among which “Song of the Brave,” “Meeting of Budyonny with the Cossacks,” and “Play, My Bayan” stood out. And then the song “Evening at the Roadstead,” which later became famous, was born. “In August 1941,” says Solovyov-Sedoy, “together with a group of composers and musicians I had to work in the Leningrad port. It was a wonderful evening, which, it seems to me, only happens here in the Baltic. Not far away there was a ship in the roadstead , from it the sounds of an accordion and a quiet song came to us. We had just finished our work and listened to the sailors singing for a long time. I had the idea to write a song about this wonderful evening, which unexpectedly befell the lot of people who, perhaps, were destined to go on a dangerous campaign, into battle. Returning from the port, I sat down to compose this song."

The composer did not have a text, so he himself came up with the words for the beginning of the chorus (“Farewell, beloved city”), and, starting from them, began to write music. Two days later she was ready. The author handed it over to the poet Alexander Churkin, and he wrote the full text of “Evenings at the Roadstead.” But the song did not receive a “start in life” then. Friends of Solovyov-Sedoy unanimously rejected it. Apparently, it seemed too calm, quiet,” not suitable for the formidable wartime. And the composer hid the song, deciding not to show it to anyone else.

Soon, together with a large group of Leningrad musicians, Solovyov-Sedoy arrived in Orenburg. Here he organized the combat variety theater "Yastrebok" and prepared a program of topical skits, stories and songs. When the rehearsals were completed, the artists asked to be sent to the front. In February 1942, the theater came to the Rzhev region and began performing for the soldiers of the Kalinin Front in dugouts, dugouts, and field hospitals. Soloviev-Sedoy sang his songs himself, accompanying himself on the accordion. He had the opportunity to visit a wide variety of combat situations (once, for example, he spent three days surrounded), and he became well acquainted with the life of front-line soldiers, the thoughts and feelings of a Soviet soldier.

“Forty-five days spent at the front left unforgettable impressions on me,” Solovyov-Sedoy later wrote. “I saw people at war. I realized that a soldier is not a varnished hero, but a war worker, that he fights in the same way as how he welds steel, plows the land, builds dams. He goes to great deeds courageously and simply, and in the hour of rest he is not a stranger to jokes, strong words, and dashing dance."

Here, on the Kalinin Front, the “rebirth” of the song “Evening on the roadstead” took place. Once, when Solovyov-Sedoy was performing in a soldier’s dugout, the soldiers asked him to sing something “for the soul,” warmer, more heartfelt—and he remembered the rejected song. “The fighters began to quietly sing along with me from the second verse,” says Vasily Pavlovich. “I felt that the song had reached my heart and had the right to life.”

From that day on, the song, beloved by front-line soldiers, was ahead of the artists everywhere. As soon as they arrived at the new place and started the concert, the listeners were already shouting: “Evening at the roadstead,” “Evening at the roadstead!”...

Returning to Orenburg, Solovyov-Sedoy began creating new songs one after another (over twenty of them were written in the summer of 1942 alone). The young poet Alexey Fatyanov became his constant co-author at that time. With these songs, the composer traveled to many plants and factories, performed in front of the workers of Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and other cities of the Urals - the “forge of victory”, and visited Moscow more than once.

At the end of 1944, Solovyov-Sedoy returned to Leningrad, and soon went to the front again at the head of a brigade of artists. This time he spoke to the soldiers who fought in the Baltic states, to the sailors of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. The brigade celebrated Victory Day in East Prussia.

The composer's patriotic activities and his work during the war years were highly appreciated. In 1943, for the songs “Evening on the roadstead”, “Play, my button accordion” and “Song of Vengeance” (“I returned to my friends after the battle”), Solovyov-Sedoy was awarded the State Prize. In 1945, for his active participation in cultural services for the active army and navy, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

The best songs of Solovyov-Sedoy earned the love of the entire people during the war. Wherever they were sung - both at the front and in the rear! Everyone liked them - both expert musicians and the most inexperienced amateurs. At that harsh time, they were the spiritual “daily bread” for millions of people who forged victory, a source of warmth, hope, and spiritual strength. Through the small, the private, the concrete - sadness for one’s native place and a beloved girl or a good-natured joke - they revealed the general, the great: love for the Motherland, loyalty, perseverance, optimism of the entire people. From these songs - always sincere, heartfelt, deeply humane - the heart became warmer, the hardships of war were forgotten, and faith in victory grew stronger in the soul with renewed vigor. They became part of the very life of the people, they helped us live and fight. Can the mission of a song, its destiny be higher and more honorable!..

The song “Evening at the Roadstead” gained particular popularity. For example, partisans behind enemy lines are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, and the detachment commander, Hero of the Soviet Union D. Medvedev This is how he describes the celebration in the book “It Was Near Rovno”: “The holiday ended with a concert of partisan amateur performances. It began with choral singing. “Farewell, beloved city”! - everyone knew this song. Several voices sang, our entire ensemble picked up.”

Partisans of the Leningrad region, underground fighters of the Crimea, and fighters of airborne units composed their own versions of the text “Evenings on the roadstead”. And the Italian anti-fascist partisans, who received Solovyov-Sedov’s song, began to sing to its tune about a girl - the heroine of the liberation struggle.

Thus, together with other Soviet composers, Soloviev-Sedoy honorably fulfilled the duty of a patriotic artist during the war years.

The military thunderstorm died down, and the country returned to peaceful work. Vasily Pavlovich again settled in Leningrad. Days, months, years filled with creativity flowed by.

The talented composer created many new works in the post-war period. And songs continue to occupy a central place among them. Solovyov-Sedoy’s music now includes new themes and images. But he did not part with those heroes whom he recognized and sang during the war.

In 1947, for the 30th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, the composer wrote the song cycle “The Tale of a Soldier.” This was one of the first works of Soviet music that showed the return of a recent warrior to peaceful life and his participation in national labor. The appearance of the Solovyov-Sedoy cycle turned out to be very timely. After all, the image of a recent soldier who again became a collective farmer or worker then had a deep symbolic meaning: the whole country was represented by a demobilized soldier who had changed his fiery position to a place behind a machine or on a tractor... Not all songs from the cycle “The Tale of a Soldier” turned out to be equally successful , but the best of them, and above all “The Accordion Sings Beyond Vologda” and “Where Are You Now, Fellow Soldiers,” received wide recognition from listeners.

In the post-war years, Solovyov-Sedoy wrote many other works in the song genre. In 1947, for the songs “It’s time to hit the road,” “The nights have become bright,” “We haven’t been home for a long time,” and “A guy is riding on a cart,” he was again awarded the State Prize. In 1959, he was awarded the Lenin Prize for the songs “Moscow Evenings,” “On the Road!”, “March of the Nakhimovites,” “Versts” and “If only the boys of the whole earth.” “Our City” (“Over the Leningrad Gates”), “Hear Me, Good One,” “Komsomol Farewell,” “A Soldier is Always a Soldier,” “Evening Song” (“City over the Free Neva”), “Ballad” also gained enormous popularity about a soldier." The composer was helped to create these and other masterpieces of Soviet song by his constant poetic collaborators, including E. Dolmatovsky, M. Isakovsky, V. Lebedev-Kumach, M. Matusovsky, A. Fatyanov, S. Fogelson, A. Churkin.

Solovyov-Sedoy’s songwriting has not diminished over the years. Excellent examples of his songs of the last decade are “Conversation with the City”, “Remember About Others”, “And the Snow Will Fall”. "About Russia".

Continuing the line of "The Tale of a Soldier", Vasily Pavlovich created two more vocal cycles in the late 60s - early 70s: "Northern Ballad" and "Blessed Memory" based on poetry G. Gorbovsky. In 1976, he completed work on the cycle “My Contemporaries” based on poems G. Gorbovsky, M. Rumyantseva, S. Fogelson And A. Shutko. Along with the songs themselves, these cycles also include vocal numbers of a chamber nature, approaching romance.

As before, in the post-war years, Soloviev-Sedoy actively worked in the field of not only song, but also other, larger musical forms. In October 1945, the operetta “True Friend” was completed and staged, the action of which takes place during the Great Patriotic War. Soon the idea of ​​a second operetta appeared - “The Most Treasured” - about a collective farm village, about rural youth; in 1952 its premieres took place in theaters in Moscow and Leningrad. Eleven years later, Leningraders became acquainted with Vasily Pavlovich’s new operetta - “Olympic Stars”, the heroes of which were Soviet athletes. The premiere of the lyrical-dramatic operetta “Eighteen Years,” dedicated to the connection and continuity of different generations of Soviet people, was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Soviet power. In the 70s, three more works of this genre appeared on theater stages - “At the Native Pier” (about Odessa sailors), “Marriage for Love” (about modern youth and the problems of their upbringing) and “The Queen’s Pendants” (based on the novel A. Dumas"Three Musketeers"). The musical comedy "Shelmenko the Batman" (based on the classic play) is being prepared for production G. Kvitki-Osnovyanenko).

For several years the composer persistently worked on a new edition of the ballet "Taras Bulba". In a radically revised form, this work was staged in 1955 by the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater named after S. M. Kirova. The same theater showed in 1964 another ballet by Solovyov-Sedoy - “Russia Entered the Port”, dedicated to the love of a Soviet sailor and the Italian girl he saved from the Nazis.

Soloviev-Sedaya devotes a lot of energy to film work. He wrote music for more than thirty films, including “Heavenly Slug”, “The First Glove”, “Happy Voyage”, “Maxim Perepelitsa”, “In Difficult Hours”, “Virineya”, “Open Book”. In 1966, the Odessa Film Studio released the film “Comrade Song,” consisting of four film novellas, the “heroes” of which are songs specially written for this film by Vasily Pavlovich with lyrics E. Dolmatovsky.

More than once during these years Soloviev-Sedoy tore himself away from his desk to go on creative trips, following the example of the war years. But the routes have now changed. The composer visited many cities, almost all the republics of our country, giving creative reports to the working people, participating in decades of Russian culture, Russian art, and Leningrad music. He is still a welcome guest of workers, collective farmers, soldiers, sailors, and pilots.

Visas of many foreign countries appeared in Vasily Pavlovich’s passport: from our neighbors - Poland, Romania, Finland to distant Brazil, where in the fall of 1966 he attended an international song competition as a jury member.

Trips to other cities and countries provided rich food for his imagination and served as an impetus for the emergence of several new works. For example, during the decade of Russian art in Azerbaijan, he wrote “Song about Baku” together with the Azerbaijani composer Tofik Guliyev. For the 1100th anniversary of Novgorod, to which Vasily Pavlovich was invited, he composed the song “Novgorod the Great”. The stay in Kazakhstan helped to complete the song cycle “Four Portraits of Children from the Virgin Lands”. And the trip to Italy provided material for two major works at once, the action of which unfolds in this country: the ballet “Russia Entered the Port” and the operetta “Olympic Stars”.

Solovyov-Sedoy brings out many exciting impressions and creative ideas from his meetings with Soviet soldiers. So, in 1961, when the composer performed in the Group of Soviet Forces in the GDR, the following incident occurred. For the first time, a young soldier, Petrov, was assigned to guard the mass grave of Soviet soldiers and officers located in West Berlin. Standing at his post, he read on the monument a list of the heroes of the capture of the Reichstag buried here in the last days of the war and unexpectedly discovered the last name, first name and patronymic of his father, whose fate was unknown to him. The poet E. Dolmatovsky, who was then in the German Democratic Republic, learned about this episode. Together with him, Solovyov-Sedoy immediately wrote “The Ballad of Father and Son.” Two days later, the song was performed for the first time in front of Soviet soldiers.

Solovyov-Sedoy's songs have become widespread in our country. The work of the Soviet composer is well known abroad.

When the Red Banner named after the Red Banner performed in Brussels during the 1958 World Exhibition A. V. Alexandrova Song and Dance Ensemble of the Soviet Army, then of its entire program, according to Belgian newspapers, the public most warmly accepted Solovyov-Sedoy’s song “On the Road!” A year later, a large group of our artists came to New York, where a Soviet exhibition was opened. The concert program included the song “If only the boys of the whole earth.” She received the most lively response from the audience.

The song “Moscow Nights” was especially successful abroad. She was the musical emblem of a large concert of Soviet art at the Brussels Exhibition during the “national days” of the Soviet Union: with her sounds this concert opened and closed. It sounded at our exhibition in New York, and the Americans received it with enthusiasm, like a good friend: after all, “Moscow Evenings” became one of the most popular songs in the USA since I “took” this melody with me to my homeland from Soviet Union American pianist Van Cliburn.

“Moscow Nights” are known and loved not only in North America, but also in South America. This song was “returned” to us by Brazilian artists who came to Moscow and performed it here in their concerts in their native language. It is also sung with new words in France, Finland, Japan, Guinea...

Solovyov-Sedoy’s social activities expanded widely in the post-war years. From 1948, for sixteen years, he permanently headed the Leningrad Union of Composers. The working people of Leningrad elected him three times as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The composer's creative and social services have been highly recognized.

Each period in the history of Soviet song has its own appearance and its leading representative - the composer who most fully expressed the spirit of the times. In the 20s, the song addressed the people from the podium, on behalf of the singer-speakers. This is how I interpreted it A. Davidenko. In the 30s, she became the voice of huge masses of people, of the entire people. The founder of this tradition was I. Dunaevsky. During the war, songs appeared intended not only for mass celebrations and military campaigns, rallies and demonstrations, but also for performance “in a low voice”, in a close circle of friends. The first and most brilliant creator of such songs - everyday in their purpose, lyrical in their emotional structure - was V. Solovyov-Sedoy. He also introduced new heroes into our song art. This is a small team of soldiers from one dugout or sailors from one ship, united by common thoughts and feelings, welded together by military friendship. This is a modest guy from a workers' village or collective farm village, an accordion player and a lover of songs, with an open soul and a kind heart, reminiscent of Vasily Terkin, a real Russian folk character! The composer especially values ​​the purity and tenderness of this hero and at the same time his restraint in expressing lyrical feelings, shyness, which is sometimes covered with a good-natured grin. And most importantly, the national manifests itself in the personal. Love for your native corner of the earth, for your home, for close people merges with great love for the entire Soviet Motherland.

The song “Play, my button accordion” (lyrics by L. Davidovich) is indicative. It was intended for a radio review, the hero of which was a simple boy from a work outpost. Therefore, you can hear in it a lot in common with unassuming waltz songs, which have long been heard on the city outskirts to the accompaniment of a guitar or harmonica. But in the song “Play, my button accordion” - as modest, ingenuously simple-minded as its hero - there is also something deep that touches the heart. A young worker sings here: “Like a friend, we love our Motherland.” And in the music of the song, for all its simplicity, there is so much sincere cordiality and warmth that you believe: for this boy, love for the Motherland is truly a personal feeling - tender, strong and pure, worthy of a beloved girlfriend.

A deep patriotic feeling is also heard in the song “Evening on the roadstead” (lyrics by A. Churkin). But it is more complex and richer in figurative content. There is not only light sadness here, but also great inner strength. The music flows calmly, mernb, there is a sense of calm and perseverance in it.

“Evening at the roadstead” is a song by a group united by one thought, captured by a single feeling, a common mood. Her free-spirited, sing-song melody flows naturally and freely. But at the same time, it is full of declamatory exclamations (“Let us sing, friends...”, “Farewell, beloved city,” etc.) - as if the singers are turning to each other, seeking sympathy, support, response. Beautiful and pure, sincere and free, this song seems to embrace hundreds of people with its broad, flexible phrases soaring above the expanse and unites them into a friendly, persistent fighting family.

The theme of friendship between Soviet soldiers, which plays such a significant role in the song “Evening at the Roadstead,” was embodied during the war years in such lyrical songs by Solovyov-Sedoy as “The Ballad of a Soldier’s Dream,” “We Haven’t Been Home for a Long Time,” and “Nightingales.” In them, soldiers sing about separation from home, remember loved ones, share stories about life at the front, and turn to their comrades with sympathy and support. And everywhere in them there is a “feeling of comradeship”; everywhere there lives the consciousness of the unity of thoughts and mood of friends at the front.

Here - “We haven’t been home for a long time” (lyrics A. Fatyanova), the song of soldiers gathered in a dugout, near the end of a candle. Musical phrases, clinging to one another, unfold in a non-stop string. There is a feeling of a free flow of thoughts - the kind that happens when you are thinking, daydreaming, or talking in a calmly flowing conversation.

A wider range of moods is embodied in the song "Nightingales". The poet A. Fatyanov and the composer here start from one of the favorite images of folk lyrics, associated with the idea of ​​youth, the poetry of pure feelings, and love. Longing for love is also heard in this song, especially in the chorus (“Nightingales, nightingales...”). But this is only one side of the song. It also reflects something else: the spring blossoming of life, the outpouring of feelings that capture the soldier’s soul despite the fact that today “the guns are firing” and “tomorrow there will be battle again.”

Having expressed during the war years, like no one else, the sadness of parting with his native land and the dream of peace, Solovyov-Sedoy in the first post-war years dedicated no less vivid songs to the joy of returns and meetings after the victory. The happiness of newfound love, the tenderness accumulated over the years of separation are expressed, for example, in his songs “The nights have become bright”, “Hear me, good one”, “On the boat” (from the film “The First Glove”).

But the composer often returns to thoughts about the past war, to the images of its heroes. They appear vividly in a number of post-war songs, including “Where are you now, fellow soldiers” (words by A. Fatyanov). This is a “musical monument” to the nobility of the spiritual thoughts of a simple soldier. Along with the seriousness of feeling and the outward restraint of its expression, there is another remarkable quality in this song - a touching feeling of stern tenderness. It is contained primarily in that musical phrase, which is the main one in the song and is repeated many times (for the first time - with the words “Where are you now, fellow soldiers”). But at the same time, the feeling of the hero is expressed in a soldier’s strict, sparing manner. Here it is, the poetry of front-line friendship, alien to any tearfulness!

The song “Where are you now, fellow soldiers” appeared shortly after the end of the war. But it is not outdated even today. And when the whole country celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Victory over fascism, there was probably no meeting of Great Patriotic War veterans where this wonderful song would not have been heard.

In subsequent years, new features appeared in the appearance of the hero of Solovyov-Sedoy’s songs. “A simple boy”, having matured, matured, his inner world became more versatile, and in some ways deeper. Notable in this sense is "The Ballad of a Soldier" (lyrics M. Matusovsky) from the film "In Difficult Hours", dedicated to the Battle of Moscow in 1941. This song is harsh, there is a lot of internal tension in it. The melody moves forward as if with effort, overcoming enormous obstacles. The soldier’s path was difficult, and the song says this truthfully, without concealment or embellishment. And at the same time, the music is imbued not only with pain for everything that the soldier had to endure, but also with pride that he went through the most difficult trials without losing courage, faith in people and in life.

The songs of recent years - “No One is Forgotten” (lyrics M. Matusovsky), "Remember others" (words G. Gorbovsky), "Conversation with the city" (lyrics Yu. Kapustina).

Among the song lyrics of Solovyov-Sedoy of the post-war years, not related to military subjects, “Versts” (lyrics L. Oshanina) and “Moscow Evenings” (words by M. Matusovsky). In many ways they are different, although they also have common features. "Versts", with their thoughtful and concentrated mood, are distinguished by the subtlety of expression of feelings, unusual for a song, more inherent in a romance. This is a heartfelt, in-depth lyrical statement-monologue.

A different, more open warehouse - "Moscow Evenings". Here the melody is much simpler and more complete. It expresses a feeling that many can share: it is not for nothing that this lyrical song is so often sung in choirs. But here, too, there is real insight into the statement, moments of reflection, inner experience. One gets the impression that the hero of the song, a young man for whom it is “difficult to express and not express” his feeling, pronounces every word carefully, cautiously, as if he is afraid of waking up the surrounding silence, frightening off the charm of the Moscow region. summer evening. One feels that this evening is really very dear to him, that pure and deep love lives in his soul both for his native land and for his sweet girl.

Lyrical sincerity and flight are also woven into the figurative fabric of many march songs, filling their music with inner warmth. For example, the soldier's song "On the Road!" (words M. Dudina). The signs of an army march are fully observed here: evenness and precision of gait, a mood of determination and daring. And at the same time, the music has original rhythmic “liberties” and a purely Russian soft melodiousness, which gives it a special charm. It’s not for nothing that the army loved her so much: she not only helps to “print a step,” but also speaks volumes to a soldier’s heart.

"March of the Nakhimovites" from the film "Happy Voyage" (lyrics M. Gleizarova) is dedicated to young sailors, and his music is full of sunny cheerfulness, youthful enthusiasm (remember the very first melodic phrase, reminiscent of a splash of a wave, and other short, catchy phrases of the chorus). But the elation and dreaminess of this song are no less attractive. In the chorus of "March", where a picture of the sea appears, a wide chant appears, and the music beckons into the distance, into the "blue expanse" ...

A notable section of Solovyov-Sedoy’s work consists of humorous songs. In his music (as in life), Vasily Pavlovich knows how to joke - witty and, as a rule, good-natured, with sincere sympathy for his characters.

Even during the war years, humor entered many of his lyrical songs - about the life of soldiers, about their daily life at the front - and helped express the spiritual strength of the soldiers, their ability to steadfastly endure the hardships of war. Even when separated from their beloved girls, they often sing with a good-natured grin, which actually hides shyness. After all, it often happens that courageous people do not want to seem sentimental when they talk about their innermost feelings, and therefore laugh a little at themselves. In this sense, the song “Like Beyond the Kama River” is noteworthy (lyrics V. Guseva).

The same humor, expressing the warm, encouraging attitude of the author towards his heroes, fills the soldiers’ songs “She said nothing”, “Vasya Kryuchkin” (“The Girl and the Platoon”), the pilots’ songs “It’s time to hit the road” and “Because we are pilots” "(from the movie "Heavenly Slug").

Adjacent to them is the most original of Solovyov-Sedoy’s comic songs - “In a sunny clearing” (words by A. Fatyanov). If you read the poems separately from the music, you may not notice the joke - it is hidden at the very end. And before that there is a story about a guy who plays accordion, about his love for a “proud maiden” who “drove him crazy.” And the main idea of ​​the poems is the affirmation of the girl’s loyalty to the front-line soldier. The music also conveys the lyrical mood of the hero; there is a hint of dreamy sadness. But at the same time, it is close to folk dance and ditty tunes, and is full of humorous touches. As a result, the portrait of the “boy with a little tattoo” is illuminated with a good-natured smile. We see not only a dreamy, loving person, yearning for his “lady,” but also a cheerful person who appreciates a joke.

The post-war years gave us new wonderful comic songs by Solovyov-Sedoy: “A guy is coming,” “One, two!” (“Combat lyrical”), “What does a soldier need?” Excellent examples of musical humor are also contained in his operettas (just remember Vasya’s song “I’d like to light a cigarette” from “The Most Treasured” or the couplets of the boatswain Obertutsky from the operetta “At the Native Pier”).

The best songs of Solovyov-Sedoy provide examples of truly folk art both in content and form. No matter who their heroes are - the populous masses or individuals, the composer expresses the thoughts and feelings of the entire people, shows the typical features of the people's character.

The work of Solovyov-Sedoy is closely connected with Russian folk song. The composer skillfully uses and boldly enriches its various types (peasant song, city song, soldier song), its means of expression. He especially often turns to those song genres that are common in modern life.

All authors of Soviet songs rely on the “sociable” intonations of folklore and everyday genres. But Soloviev-Sedoy stands out among them in the breadth of his coverage of sources. If M. Blanter, I. Dunaevsky, B. Mokrousov, Dm. Pokrass come mainly from urban lyrical songs, V. Zakharov - from peasant songs, A. Alexandrov and A. Novikov - from revolutionary and soldier songs, then V. Solovyov-Sedoy managed to organically unite and fuse in his language the characteristic features of all these varieties of Russian folk music .

Solovyov-Sedoy’s music is similar to folk songs by the very nature of its flow: it unfolds so naturally, as if it were composed right there. The improviser long ago became a master composer, but retained his attitude to creativity as a direct, free expression of thoughts and feelings. In this regard, he has much in common with village “craftsmen” musicians, masters of songs and ditties, virtuoso accordionists and balalaika players. Listening to them sing and play, you feel involved in the living process of the birth of music. Every phrase, every intonation is perceived as a direct outpouring of feeling, sounds with unexpected freshness and if repeated, it is always with at least slight changes. But at the same time, the music is based on a well-established, well-defined image. This kind of improvisation - typically Russian, folk in spirit - permeates many of Solovyov-Sedoy’s songs. It is combined with thoughtfulness of the final form and careful finishing of details.

The spontaneity of feeling, the richness of invention and the vividness of the image, characteristic of Solovyov-Sedoy, are manifested to the greatest extent in the main - melodic side of his songs. His melodies, very melodious and flexible, are distinguished by great brightness and originality. Deeply folk in spirit, they abound in fresh finds, successfully found in new, but always natural-sounding phrases. In these melodies one can often hear characteristic speech intonations: a perky shout, an affectionate request, a teasing talk, comic bewilderment. All this, together with the improvisational freedom of development, gives the music the character of a live statement, a relaxed “conversation with the listener.”

The rhythm of Solovyov-Sedoy’s songs also gives them great originality. Starting from the rhythmic turns of a march, waltz, dance song, etc., the composer strives to avoid their monotonous repetition. Its rhythm often deviates from strict periodicity. The rhythmic pattern is decorated with various intricate patterns, interruptions, and “constrictions.” As a result, the current of the melody becomes, as it were, pulsating unevenly: in one place it speeds up its movement, in another it spreads wider. The song takes on an individual appearance, lives and breathes.

There is a lot of freshness in the harmonies of Solovyov-Sedoy, based on the natural modal diatonicism of Russian song. They either highlight and deepen the general mood of the melody, or emphasize a separate important intonation, or create a humorous effect with an unexpected turn or juxtaposition. The composer skillfully uses sounds typical of the button accordion or balalaika, and sometimes uses jazz harmonies.

The composer's search for song form is also interesting. Sometimes they lead to such a development and such a detailed development of the image that a mixed genre of song-romance arises, capable of enriching not only song, but also chamber music.

This is Soloviev-Sedoy. This is an artist with his own face, his own inclinations and tastes in art. There is nothing artificial or contrived in his originality. And therefore his work has millions of admirers and friends all over the world.

Soviet music, Soviet song does not stand still. In particular, recent years have brought a lot of new things. The lyrical element in the songs became even more intense; in their tone, they came even closer to a confidential conversation with the listener “face to face.” The musical language has also been updated (in particular, thanks to the use of expressive means of modern foreign pop music).

But against the backdrop of popular (or even simply fashionable) new products, the best of Solovyov-Sedoy’s previous and new songs do not get lost or fade. After all, it is precisely his traditions that today’s young composers follow when they strive to speak about the highest concepts simply and sincerely, addressing each listener individually.

The songs of Solovyov-Sedoy are a musical monument of an entire historical period, an “emotional chronicle” of the life of that generation of Soviet people who passed through the fire of war. This is a classic of our songwriting. And it remains unfadingly young, just like the talent of its creator - a truly people's artist of the Soviet era.

Solovyov-Sedoy Vasily Pavlovich, born April 25, 1907 in St. Petersburg. Hero of Socialist Labor (1975).

As a child, he taught himself to play various musical instruments. In the 1920s worked as an accompanist in clubs, rhythmic gymnastics studios, and on the radio. In 1929-1931 he studied at the Central Music College, in 1936 he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in composition class P. B. Ryazanova. In 1948-1964, chairman of the board of the Leningrad branch of the Union of Composers of the RSFSR. Since 1957, Secretary of the Board of the Union of Composers of the USSR. Winner of the Lenin Prize (1959). Laureate of USSR State Prizes (1943, 1947). Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1956). People's Artist of the RSFSR (1957). People's Artist of the USSR (1967).

Basic Op.: ballets- Taras Bulba (Leningrad, 1940, 2nd edition 1955), "Russia" enters the port (Leningrad, 1964); operettas- Faithful Friend (Kuibyshev, 1945), The Most Treasured (1948, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1952), Olympic Stars (Leningrad, 1962j. Eighteen Years (Leningrad, 1968), At the Native Pier (Odessa, 1968), Marriage by Love (Kemerovo, 1971), Diamond Pendants (Leningrad, 1973; Queen's Pendants, Moscow, 1973); for symphony orc.- poem Partisanism (1934, suite from the ballet “Russia” enters the port (1964); for voice and orc.- Songs of the rebel Hungary (1932); for f.-p.- Suite (1934); for voice, reader and f.-p.- Northern ballad (1967); wok cycles- Bright Memory (Poem of Love, 1972), My Contemporary (1975-1976); romances on el. A. Pushkin, S. Yesenin, A. Zharova and others; songs (St. 300), including Death of Chapaev, Parade, Cossack Cavalry, Songs about Leningrad (1936), Song of Friendship, Taiga, Let's go, brothers, to be conscripted (1938), Play, my button accordion, Budyonny's meeting with the Cossacks , Evening on the roadstead (1941), With dear Kuban, Harmonica, I returned to my friends (1942), What are you yearning for, comrade sailor, Night is over the dugout, When you sing a song, A stern soldier walked, Like across the Kama, across the river, The Ballad of Matrosov, In a sunny clearing, A girl and a platoon, What nice guys, A Cossack went to fight, Don’t be sad, my queen, The girls were offended (1943), Our Motherland - Russia, Ballad about a soldier’s dream, Don’t worry yourself, Nothing spoke, Nightingales, Conversation, How a Cossack was captured (1944), We haven’t been home for a long time, Far or not far, Asterisk, Today our regiment sets out at dawn, Hear me, dear one, Faraway native aspens, Our city, Sailor’s nights, It’s time on the road, Because we are pilots (1945), A guy is riding on a cart, The nights have become bright, Song about the Krasnodon residents, Cornflower, On a boat, If you want to be healthy (1946), cycle The Tale of a Soldier (A soldier was walking from a distant land, Tell me, guys, Lullaby, The accordion sings outside Vologda, Where are you now, fellow soldiers, Great), Komsomol farewell, My native side, A cheerful song about the station master (1947), Golden lights, Where are you, my garden (1948), The sun rises, At the native Irtysh, March of the Nakhimovites, Let's sing, friends, Student's Passage (1949), The Good Wife, Natasha, Reeds (1950), Miles (1951), March of Young Workers, Sad Song, Azov Partisan (1952 ), Samovar (1953), Song of the Fighters, Good Morning, What are the winds to us, He said in vain! (1954), On the road!, Song about Ukraine, Care has started in my soul, I look into spacious fields (1955), Moscow evenings, Song of distant roads, Police march. One spring morning, Serenade (1956), Evening song, If only the boys of the whole earth, Road, road (1957), To an old friend, Good morning, Komsomol members, Song of parting (1958), Love your plant, Mister Veliky Novgorod , A soldier is always a soldier, Moskovskaya Street, You fly, my bird song (1959), We are Leningraders, Song about an Overcoat (1960), cycle Four portraits of guys from the virgin lands (They say there are snowstorms there, Letter from the virgin lands, Song of peers, Portrait of a Quirk), Ballad of a Soldier, I Confess to You, Girlfriends (1961), Ballad of Father and Son (1962), Kurgans, Sisters, Sisters (1963), North Sea Waltz, Taiga, Taiga, Spring Song, One, Two!, Fiery years, Pososhok (1964), Song about an unknown sailor, Neva, In the evening hour, What a soldier needs (1965), Comrade song, Letter to mother, In the post office, I love you, you understand, Petrograd boys (1966). Marusya the plasterer, Hymn to the Motherland and the Soldier, Nobody is Forgotten, Song about the Unknown Soldier, Native Nevskaya Zastava (1967), Porkhov, Guitar, Suzdal (1968), Conversation with the City, And the Snow Will Fall, Chimes (1969), A Soldier Can’t Fall in Love managed (1972), Little Sister (1972), About Postmen (1972), Twentieth Century (1973), Pioneer Song (1973), Skates, Skates (1974); music for dramatic performances; music for films, incl."Heavenly Slug" (1945), "The First Glove" (1946), "World Champion" (1954), "Dzhigit Girl" (1955), "Maxim Perepelitsa" (1955), "The Herder's Song" (1956), " She loves you" (1956), "Blizzard" (1957), "Faithful Hearts" (1959), "Beware, Grandma" (1960), "Ivan Rybakov" (1961), "The Don Tale" (1964), "Comrade song" (1966), "First Visitor" (1966), "The Soldier Didn't Have Time to Fall in Love" (1972), "Sister" (1972), "About Postmen" (1972), "Twentieth Century" (1973), "Pioneer Song " (1973), "Skates, skates" (1974).

Lit.: Sokhor A.V. P. Soloviev-Sedoy. Song creativity. M.-L., 1952; Sokhor A.V. P. Soloviev-Sedoy. M., 1959; Kremlev Yu. V. P. Soloviev-Sedoy. L., 1960; Sokhor A. Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy. L., 1967.

Soloviev-Sedoy, V.P. Selected songs [Notes]. Vol. 1 / V. P. Solovyov-Sedoy; auto sl. : L. I. Oshanin and [others]. - Leningrad; Moscow: State Musical Publishing House, 1950. - 120 p. : portrait

April 10, 2017 marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet composer Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy (1907-1979).

Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy entered the history of musical art as a song chronicler of his time. He created over 400 songs, 6 operettas and musical comedies, 2 ballets, and music for 50 films.

The songs of V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy occupy a prominent place in Soviet music. “Warmed with great feeling, permeated with Russian folk song intonations, deeply vital in their content, these songs correspond to the best patriotic feelings of the Soviet people.” In 1936, the year he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory, Solovyov-Sedoy, participating in a song competition organized by the Leningrad Union of Soviet Composers, received first prize for the songs “Parade” and “Song of Leningrad”.

In the pre-war years, his songs became widespread: “Cossack Cavalry”, “Death of Chapaev”, “Taiga”, “Song of Two Comrades”. They were “notable for their bright, memorable melody, fresh harmony, and rich and varied rhythms.”

During the Great Patriotic War, the composer found his place among those who helped defeat the enemy with ideological weapons. Performing his songs in front of soldiers at the front, he “imbued them with their thoughts and aspirations, and understood the importance of a good song for a soldier.” Warriors became the favorite heroes of his songs.

The first songs written by Vasily Pavlovich during the war - “Play, my button accordion”, “Evening on the roadstead” - quickly became favorites at the front and in the rear. These songs were followed by: “When you sing a song”, “Like across the Kama River”, “What are you yearning for, comrade sailor”, “The Ballad of Sailors”, “Nightingales”, “She said nothing” and many others, which were also picked up by people in all corners of the country. The area of ​​lyric poetry was also close to Solovyov-Sedoy. He also created many humorous and funny songs.

Solovyov-Sedoy was twice awarded the Stalin Prize. In 1943 - for the songs “Play, my button accordion”, “Evening at the roadstead” and “Song of revenge”. In 1947 - for the songs “We haven’t been home for a long time”, “The nights have become bright”, “It’s time to hit the road”, “A guy is riding on a cart”.

With the end of the war, the composer began to create “peaceful” songs, returning to love lyrics. Writes music for films. Songs about Leningrad occupy a significant place in his work.

The song for V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy is the main genre. He wrote: “A song is a musical story, a short story, and its concept, which largely depends on the text, must be extremely short, laconic, expressive, and capacious. It should be aphoristic. It is this aphorism that gives scope to the composer, does not limit the flight of his imagination, does not reduce the music to illustration, makes the song easy to remember and evokes appropriate emotions in the listener... The song is a barometer of its time, its tracker and scout.”

The people heard the voice of Solovyov-Sedoy in full force during the hard times of war. In 1942 alone, he wrote sixteen songs. During this period, composer B. Astafiev classifies Vasily Pavlovich’s works as song-romantic democratic lyrics, closely related to mass song: “... romance songs... are a kind of simple speech from soul to soul, sometimes with half-hints, sometimes with bright exciting flashes of passion, hidden sorrow and bitter irony."

Fate sent V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy a meeting with the poet, who for many years became a creative companion and life friend - Alexei Fatyanov. In Fatyanov’s poems, the composer felt a rare, as he defined it, “free songfulness, the possibilities of rhythmic options” - what he called “the song style of poetry.”

Vsevolod Azarov, a front-line poet, recalls the events of 1945 in East Prussia. He, at the time, was a war correspondent assigned to the Marines involved in the fighting in the Pillau area. One day he had a meeting with a concert crew, which also included V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy, his wife, pianist Tatyana Ryabova, and poet Alexey Fatyanov. Azarov persuaded them to perform in front of the marines. On the way, Solovyov-Sedoy and Fatyanov talked animatedly. As it turned out later, “they were perfecting their new song... And the song was destined for fame in the near future, and it began with the words:

We haven't been home for a long time

The spruce rustles over the river,

As if in a fairy tale

Far away."

But the group had to perform in an underground bunker, “and in it were the “Slavs,” the command of part of the tankers,” preparing for a forced march to the Frische-Nerung spit. It was there that the “premiere” of the song “We haven’t been home for a long time” took place, which Vsevolod Azarov witnessed, a song that has been heard for more than seventy years in memory of the difficult years of the war.

In the collection of rare books in the collection of Nikolai Leonidovich Lugansky (1937-2005), Honored Artist of Russia, composer, musicologist, folklorist, critic, member of the Union of Composers of the USSR, Russia, there is a lifetime edition of the songs of Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy.

The collection includes 26 songs. Among them are favorites to this day: “Evening on the roads” (lyrics by A. Churkin), “Spring has come to our front” (lyrics by A. Fatyanov), “We haven’t been home for a long time” (lyrics by A. Fatyanov ), “It’s time to hit the road” (lyrics by S. Fogelson), “Where are you now, fellow soldiers?” (lyrics by A. Fatyanov), “In a sunny clearing” (lyrics by A. Fatyanov), “Hear me, good one” (lyrics by M. Isakovsky), etc.

Composer A. Petrov wrote: “... about Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedom we rightfully say: “great master”, “great composer”... He is great not only because he was able, like no one else, to embody folk national traditions in modern Soviet song, managed to create unsurpassed lyrics of the formidable war years, which became a powerful “song weapon” of the people in the struggle for the freedom and independence of our Motherland. He made the song an important part of the spiritual life of millions of people, and several generations: his songs are in the hearts and memories of his peers, and their children and grandchildren... Solovyov-Sedoy’s songs will live as long as Russian speech lives, as long as folk songs live.”

The best songs of V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy continue to live in our homes. The call letters of the Mayak radio station, which came from the world famous song “Moscow Nights”, are still on the air.

List of used literature:

1. Soloviev-Sedoy, V.P. Selected songs [Notes]. Vol. 1 / V. P. Solovyov-Sedoy; auto words: L.I. Oshanin and [others]. - Leningrad; Moscow: State Musical Publishing House, 1950. - 120 p. :portrait
2. Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoy: memories... / comp. S. M. Khentova; ed. M. A. Dunaevsky; artist I. N. Kosharovsky. - Leningrad: Soviet composer, 1987. - 296 p. : photo
3. Solovyov-Sedoy, V.P. Paths and roads: memories, stories about songs, thoughts about art / V.P.
4. Soloviev-Sedoy. - Leningrad: Soviet composer, 1982. - 184 p.: ill.

Soloviev

Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1956).
People's Artist of the RSFSR (1957).
People's Artist of the USSR (1967).

He began his professional career in 1925 as an improvising pianist at the Leningrad Radio, in a rhythmic gymnastics studio and in amateur groups. He studied at the Leningrad Central Music College (1929-1931).
In 1936 he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory (teacher P. Ryazanov).

During the Great Patriotic War - artistic director of the front-line theater of small forms "Yastrebok" (1941-1942).

In 1948-1964. - Chairman of the Board of the Leningrad Branch of the Union of Composers, in 1957-1974. - Secretary of the Union of Composers of the USSR. Since 1960 - Secretary of the Union of Composers of the RSFSR.
Author of the ballets "Taras Bulba" (1940, 2nd edition - 1955), "Russia Entered the Port" (1964); operettas "True Friend" (1945), "The Most Treasured" (1952), "Olympic Stars" (1962), "Eighteen Years" (1967), "At the Native Pier" (1970), "Once Upon a Time Shelmenko" (1978 ); vocal cycles, music for dramatic performances.

Songs (over 400):
song cycle "The Tale of a Soldier" (1947, among the songs in the cycle "Lullaby", "The Accordion Sings Beyond Vologda", "Where Are You Now, Fellow Soldiers")
"The Death of Chapaev" (1936)
"Taiga" (1938)
"Play, my button accordion"
"Evening at the roadstead" (1941)
"In a sunny meadow"
"Like beyond the Kama, beyond the river" (1943)
"Nightingales"
"Said Nothing" (1944)
"We haven't been home for a long time" (1945)
"A Guy Rides on a Cart" (1946)
"My native side"
"Komsomol Farewell" (1947)
"Where are you, my garden" (1948)
"Student Pass" (1959)
"Reeds" (1949)
"Azov Partisan" (1952)
"Golden Lights" (1947)
"Our City" ("The sky is blue above Russia", 1945)
"Moscow Evenings" (1956)
"If only the boys of the whole earth" (1957)

Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 3rd-5th convocations (1950-1962).

He died on the night of December 2, 1979 in Leningrad. He was buried on the Literatorskie Mostki of the Volkovskoe cemetery in the northern capital.

In St. Petersburg, not in the house where the composer lived, a memorial plaque was installed. In 2007, for the 100th anniversary of the composer, the Bank of Russia issued a silver coin.

prizes and awards

Stalin Prize of the second degree (1943) - for the songs “Evening on the roads”, “Song of Vengeance”, “Play, my button accordion...”
Stalin Prize of the second degree (1947) - for the songs “It’s time to hit the road...”, “We haven’t been home for a long time...”, “A guy is riding on a cart...”, “The nights have become bright...”
Lenin Prize (1959) - for the songs “On the Way”, “Milestones”, “If only the boys of the whole earth”, “March of the Nakhimovites”, “Moscow Evenings”.
Hero of Socialist Labor (1975).
Three Orders of Lenin (1957, 1971, 1975).
Order of the Red Star (1945).
Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
Medal “For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Medal "In memory of the 250th anniversary of Leningrad"
Medal "Veteran of Labor"

Soviet composer V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy (real name Solovyov) was born on April 12 (25), 1907 in St. Petersburg. He was born into a simple peasant family. His grandfather, Pavel Solovyov, remembered serfdom and the reform of 1861. My father, also Pavel and also a peasant, after serving in the tsarist army, went “to the people” - to St. Petersburg. He lived in poverty for a long time and took on any job. Happiness smiled on him when he got a job as a janitor in a house on the Obvodny Canal. The composer's mother Anna Fedorovna is a Pskov peasant. In St. Petersburg, where she came to work, she married Pavel Solovyov. He was already working as a senior janitor on Nevsky Prospekt, at house 139, when the second son in their family, Vasily, was born. Anna Fedorovna knew many Russian folk songs and loved to sing them. For a long time, before moving to Staro-Nevsky, she worked as a maid for the famous singer. A peasant daughter, who in her youth herself served as a maid, Vyaltseva noticed Anna Solovyova’s musicality and, sincerely becoming attached to her, was ready to hire her as a chorus girl. But fate decreed otherwise: Anna had to raise children and be the mistress of the family. And Pavel resolutely opposed his wife’s musical career. In the end, Anna left Vyaltseva’s place, receiving from her a gramophone as a gift and the records she had sung: “If I want, I’ll love,” “Veterochek,” “Gay-yes Troika.” Often Anna Fedorovna, while doing housework, played records given to her by Anastasia Vyaltseva:

Gay - yes three, fluffy snow,
The night is frosty all around.

The love for singing and the ability to sing beautifully, with soul, remained with her throughout her life. From his mother and Aunt Anastasia, his father’s younger sister, Vasily Pavlovich inherited a love for Russian song. In his declining years, he often admitted: “I am closer to the peasant singing song.” His childhood friend, the friend of his whole life, Alexander Fedorovich Borisov - People's Artist of the USSR, the great Russian Soviet actor - called the janitor's room, where the colleagues of the father of the future composer gathered, the first music university.

In his childhood, Vasily Solovyov heard a lot of sad songs from Pskov in the village, where he was sent to his mother’s parents. But more often he spent the summer in his father’s homeland - in the village of Kudryavtsevo. In the summer, Vasya’s hair completely faded from the sun and turned white, for which the boys in the yard called him “Grey.” The yard boys liked the nickname “Sedoy”, and from then on Vasily was called that only. Who thought then that the yard nickname would become a creative pseudonym and merge with the surname, making it known throughout the country and the world - Solovyov-Sedoy?! N. Sazonov, cellist of the Mariinsky Opera Theater orchestra, lived in their house. With his help, Vasily first became familiar with great art. This is how he managed to see and hear Fyodor Chaliapin in the operas “Boris Godunov” and “The Barber of Seville”.

When Vasya was eight years old, he asked his father to buy him a balalaika from a music store - the only musical instrument known among peasants at that time. “Tears were streaming down my face,” the composer later recalled. “My father finally gave up, went into the store and bought me a simpler balalaika.” After his father’s precious gift, Vasya mastered the guitar and then the piano. Vasily was introduced to the piano by silent films. In house 139 on Staro-Nevsky, where the Solovyovs lived until 1929, the Elephant cinema opened, where they showed silent films with the participation of Buster Keaton and Vera Kholodnaya. Noticing a piano near the screen, Vasily begged the projectionist to allow him to try the keys and quickly picked out “The Moon Is Shining” by ear. The admiring mechanic allowed him to sit down at the instrument every morning, and Vasily began to carry films, helped to “play” them, and cleaned the hall. Such activities helped Vasily Pavlovich when, after the revolution and the death of his mother, he was engaged in musical improvisation in cinemas. Quite soon, Vasily Solovyov had his own piano “repertoire”, and the owner of the cinema invited him to accompany films with music for a fee. It was useful during the hungry years of the Civil War.

From twelve to sixteen years old, Vasily Solovyov played the role of a tapper, trying to play famous dances in his own way, varying the music. At first Vasily did not intend to be a musician, but dreamed of becoming a shipbuilder. But the early death of his mother and his father’s illness forced him to go to work: from the age of 16 he began working as an improvising pianist in clubs, an accompanist in cinemas, and then, from 1925, at the Leningrad Radio to accompany morning exercises. So music became his profession. According to Vasily Pavlovich himself, he began to study composing music late - in 1929, when he was already 22 years old. This year he entered the Central Music College in the composition department. The path opened before Vasily Solovyov to comprehend the secrets of musical art, to express and professionally polish his talent.

At the technical school, Vasily Solovyov studied in the class of Pyotr Borisovich Ryazanov, an outstanding teacher and mentor of many Soviet composers. Ivan Dzerzhinsky, Nikolai Gan, Nikita Bogoslovsky (studied with Solovyov-Sedy), and later Sviridov passed through his hands. The technical school was a famous musical institution. At different times, major musician-researchers taught there: B.V. Asafiev, V.V. Shcherbakov, their young colleagues, also famous and authoritative in musical circles: Yu.N. Tyulin, Kh.S. Kushnarev, M.A. Yudin. It is no coincidence that when the composition department of the technical school closed in 1931, all its students were transferred to the Leningrad Conservatory. The composition class of P.B. has also been preserved. Ryazanov. Solovyov-Sedoy learned a lot from him, as a bearer of classical musical culture, a master of improvisation - adaptations of Russian folk songs.

Already being an outstanding master of the song genre, V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy recalled Ryazanov’s lessons: “He taught us form using works of fiction. Reading to us Chekhov’s story “Vanka,” Ryazanov especially noted that the presentation, rich in humorous details, ends with an essentially tragic ending (the boy’s letter to his grandfather will not reach his grandfather), and discussed with us how such a structure of the story could be reflected in music. Another story by Chekhov - “Polinka” - served as an example of a “polyphonic” form based on the “counterpoint” of external and internal action. We analyzed the structure of the novel “Anna Karenina” by Tolstoy , also drawing conclusions for music." Solovyov-Sedoy’s sensitivity to the Russian literary word, especially poetic, was unique. He never composed the so-called musical fish, to which the words of the song were adjusted. If the text was not musical, did not have free musical breath, he resolutely rejected it.

During his conservatory years, V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy created many musical works. By 1935, there were already twenty-four of them: music for the theater, a lyric poem for a symphony orchestra, pieces for violin and piano, a piano concerto, etc. Vasily Pavlovich was first noticed as a songwriter at the Leningrad mass song competition in 1936, when he Graduated from the Conservatory. Two of his songs at once - “Parade” to the words of A. Gitovich and “Song of Leningrad” to the words of E. Ryvina - were awarded the first prize. Very soon others appeared - “Come out to the bay today”, “For a friend”, “Song about Lenin”. The songs of the young author Solovyov-Sedoy were sung by famous singers: Irma Yaunzem in 1935, at the ten-day period of Soviet music at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, accompanied by an orchestra of folk instruments, sang his heroic ballad “The Death of Chapaev”, Leonid Utesov sang for the first time his songs “Two Friends Served” and "Cossack cavalry". But none of the named songs, like his ballet “Taras Bulba” (S.M. Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre, 1940, 2nd ed. - 1955), received recognition among the people - did not become mass.

In the thirties the country was being built. Attention to the song increased, but to a marching, inviting, cheerful song. Soviet song in those years was more a means of mass propaganda than a means of spiritual revelation and relaxation. And in Soviet poetry, the lyrical direction of Solovyov-Sedoy was not visible. In the early 1930s, Marina Tsvetaeva correctly noted: “Mayakovsky is not capable of a song, because he is entirely motor, percussive and loud... Pasternak is not capable of a song, because he is overloaded, oversaturated and, most importantly, single-handed... The melodious beginning of Russia is frustrated in small and short-lived streams must find a single channel, a single throat..."

However, the author of these songs was noticed by the great I. Dunaevsky. He was able to discern in him an extraordinary musical gift. The poet Alexander Churkin, whose poems Solovyov-Sedoy wrote more than one song, witnessed such a dialogue between Utesov and Dunaevsky in the late 1930s. “Perhaps you are the only one,” said Utyosov, “who can compose such a melody that people will sing it right on the way from the concert.” “No, why?” Dunaevsky objected. “A new star is rising on the Leningrad musical horizon - young Solovyov-Sedoy. I don’t want to be a prophet, but I’m sure: he is destined for a great voyage...” So Vasily Solovyov - the son of a janitor and a maid-servant - became world famous composer.

The melodious beginning of Russia found a single direction with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. It would seem that in war there is no time for poetry. But it was the war, as the most terrible spiritual test of the people, that demanded Russian lyrical song. The song is sing-song, drawn-out, intimate. During the Great Patriotic War, it was precisely this song that turned out to be close to the soldier’s psychology. It spiritually connected the warrior with his family and friends, from whom the war separated him. It was like a prayer, without which one cannot strengthen one’s spirit before mortal combat.

On June 22, 1941, the war began, and the very next day the poetess L. Davidovich brought Solovyov-Sedoy poems entitled “Dear Outpost.” They were written before the war and corrected, so that the necessary verse was obtained:

But the evil enemy pack
It rose above us like a cloud
Dear outpost
She rose for her homeland.

On the third day of the war, June 24, Soloviev-Sedoy composed the melody of this song. He rushed to his friend - an actor at the Drama Theater. Pushkin to Alexander Borisov, they found an accordion player, and that same evening the song was already sounding from loudspeakers over their hometown. The new song “Play, my button accordion” performed by Alexander Borisov replaced the popular song “Clouds have risen over the city” performed before the war by Mark Bernes. Borisov sang the song in a not strong, but surprisingly rich intonation voice. During the war years, Vasily Pavlovich became convinced that to spread a song among the people, one needs not only and not so much voice skills as acting skills; Without them, it is impossible to create an “image” of a song, it is impossible to “play” it so that it fits the soul and is accepted by it. Solovyov-Sedoy’s first lyrical war song received a response from the people, and is still sung to this day. Then, one after another, many wonderful songs, beloved by the people, appear: “Evening on the roads” (lyrics by A.D. Churkin, 1941), “Vasya Kryuchkin” (lyrics by V. Gusev), “What are you yearning for, comrade sailor” (words by V. Lebedev-Kumach), “Like beyond the Kama, beyond the river” (words by V. Gusev), “Don’t worry yourself, don’t worry” (words by M. Isakovsky) and others. They were often performed in front of soldiers on the front line, with sailors tapping out the melody of “Evenings on the Roadstead” in Morse code. And the famous Marlene Dietrich, when much later she heard his song “Nightingales,” said: “I missed this song so much during the war!” It is no coincidence that Georgy Zhukov himself jokingly called the composer “Marshal of the Song.”

Captivated by K. Simonov’s poem “Wait for Me,” Soloviev-Sedoy wrote music for it, suffering a complete failure, as did other composers: whoever tried to set this poem to music then - M. Blanter, M. Koval, V. Muradeli , A. Novikov, I. Dzerzhinsky, Y. Dobrusin, A. Zhivotov, V. Nechaev, V. Rodin. Music critics and political workers often met the lyrical masterpieces of Solovyov-Sedoy with hostility. They say that in wartime the country needs marches and loud patriotic songs glorifying “Comrade Stalin.” However, Soloviev-Sedoy did not back down, declaring that “sadness and sadness can be no less mobilizing.”

The composer's song "Evening on the roadstead" has become truly popular. She glorified his name. In August 1941, V. Solovyov-Sedogo, together with the poet A.D. The Churkins were sent to the port, where they, like thousands of Leningraders, took away logs and cleaned the area to reduce the danger of fire from incendiary bombs. At the end of the working day, we sat down to rest on board the unloaded barge. It was a late Leningrad evening. Nothing reminded me of the war. In the bay, shrouded in blue haze, a ship stood in the roadstead. Quiet music could be heard from it: someone was playing the accordion. When we were heading home, the composer said: “Wonderful evening. Worth a song.” Upon returning home, Churkin began to write poetry, Solovyov-Sedoy - music. The composer found the intonation of the song in the words that appeared to him as if by themselves: “Farewell, beloved city, we are leaving for the sea tomorrow!” In them I heard the aching sadness of parting with my native Leningrad. Three days later a new song was born - “Evening at the roadstead”. The composer and poet carried it to Zodchego Rossi Street, to the house of composers. There the song was found too calm, even mournful and, as was said, not meeting the requirements of wartime.

Solovyov-Sedoy put the song aside. The song “Evening at the Roadstead” had been lying in his suitcase for a year. When the blockade ring closed around Leningrad, Solovyov-Sedoy, who had recently been evacuated to Orenburg, again presented his song to his colleagues. They called her "gypsy". The composer put the song aside again. Only in March 1942 she received front-line baptism and became a national one. Here's how it happened. Solovyov-Sedoy, with the front-line theater brigade “Yastrebok” he created, gave a concert in a soldier’s dugout. It was one and a half kilometers to the front line. Listeners - no more than thirty soldiers. The concert was already coming to an end when the composer decided to sing “Evening on the Roadstead” himself with an accordion. He accompanied himself. He sang quietly, addressing the soldiers:

Let's sing, friends, because tomorrow we'll go hiking
Let's go into the predawn fog.
Let's sing more cheerfully, let him sing along to us
Gray-haired battle captain.

When the chorus sounded for the third time - “Farewell, beloved city!”, all the listeners took it up in quiet voices. The author was asked to dictate the words, and then sing the song along with everyone. This has never happened before in the composer’s life: people sang his song, which they had never heard before. Within a few days the song spread on all fronts. Her words were transmitted via field telephones by signalmen. At night on the phone they sang it to the accordion. The song was sung at the front and in the rear, it became beloved by the people. The song "Evening on the roadstead" has long been recognized as one of the masterpieces of Russian Soviet song art. But musicologists are still searching for the secrets of its amazing musical simplicity and power.

Solovyov-Sedoy had an extraordinary literary gift. A number of his songs were composed by him based on his own poems. In one of them, he defines the spiritual purpose of the song for a soldier who is ready to look death in the eye and defeat it:

Not a happy song, but a sad tune
Remember your dead friends,
If you remember your friends, you will win them differently,
Soldiers are a special people!
We don’t cry from pain, we cry from song,
If the song reaches the heart.

Vasily Pavlovich considered the meeting in 1942 with the poet Alexander Fatyanov to be a great event in his life, a turning point for creativity. In his poems, the composer said, he heard Russian speech, Russian nature, saw and felt the Russian Soviet way of life that was close to him. A. Fatyanov, born in the ancient city of Vyazniki, was a poet of the Russian soul, Russian lyricism. Fatyanov composed poetry in the same way as Solovyov-Sedoy composed music. If there could be co-authors created by life to work together, it would be Alexey Fatyanov and Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy. Together they created forty songs, many of them included in the golden fund of Soviet and world song culture.

In the last years of the war, Solovyov-Sedoy wrote several wonderful songs based on the words of A.I. Fatyanova - “In a Sunny Meadow” (1943), “Nightingales” (1944), “We haven’t been home for a long time” (1945) and others. The pinnacle of their creativity can be called their most famous song “Nightingales”. In 1943, Fatyanov wrote lyrical poems about nightingales, in which he expressed the unity of man, nature, and the living world in anticipation of the triumph of life over death:

Well, what is war for a nightingale -
The nightingale has its own life.
The soldier does not sleep, remembering the house
And the green garden above the pond,
Where the nightingales sing all night,
And in that house they are waiting for a soldier.

Fatyanov read the poems to Solovyov-Sedoy, and he heard music in them. The composer wrote the song in one sitting. It became a hymn to life in war. Everything in it is sadness for one’s home, the feeling of spring, the expectation of victory, and the hard work of a soldier. And a tender feeling of love for the Soviet soldier:

Nightingales, nightingales,
don't disturb the soldiers
Let the soldiers
get some sleep...

The song quickly reached the forefront. In it, a national feeling is conveyed through personal experience, the melody is melodious and broad, and the intonation is confidential. All this is typical for the song creativity of Solovyov-Sedoy. His wartime songs became folk songs. They are distinguished not only by their light sadness, but also by the spaciousness of their free sound and extraordinary emotional strength.

In collaboration with V.M. Gusev Solovyov-Sedoy creates the song “Like Beyond the Kama River” (1943), with S.B. Fogelson - “Sailor Nights” (1945), with M.V. Isakovsky - “Hear me, good one” (1945), with A.I. Fatyanov - “The accordion is singing beyond Vologda” (1947), “Where are you, my garden” (1948). He writes songs based on the words of poets A.D. Churkina, M.L. Matusovsky, V.I. Lebedev-Kumach, and others.

The first post-war years were typical for Vasily Pavlovich with the appearance of songs written for films: “Heavenly Slug” (1945), where the now immortal song “It’s time to hit the road” (words by S.B. Fogelson) sounded, as well as the film “The First Glove” (1946). In 1947, Solovyov-Sedoy was awarded a second time the State (Stalin) Prize of the USSR for the songs “We haven’t been home for a long time,” “The nights have become bright,” “It’s time to hit the road,” “A guy is riding on a cart.” The first time he received the State Prize was in 1943. In 1945, the composer was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Having composed the song “Where are you now, fellow soldiers?” (1947, words by A.I. Fatyanov), Solovyov-Sedoy developed a cycle from her, calling it at first “The Return of the Soldier,” then finding a more general, epic name - “The Tale of the Soldier.” The cycle was first performed by K. Shulzhenko in November 1947.

After the war, Soloviev-Sedoy worked a lot for cinema. He created songs for such popular films as "Happy Sailing!" (1949), “Lyubov Yarovaya” (1953), “World Champion” (1954), “Good Morning” (1955), “Maxim Perepelitsa” (1955), “She Loves You” (1956), etc. In total he became a songwriter for fifty films. The composer became widely famous for his songs written for the musical comedies “One Fine Day” (1955), “Dzhigit Girl” (1955), “The Herdman’s Song” (1956), and “Shelmenko the Batman” (1971).

Solovyov-Sedoy becomes a prominent public figure. Since 1950, he has devoted a lot of time to parliamentary work - on March 12, 1950, he was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (3rd-5th convocations). In 1948-1964 he was the chairman of the board of the Leningrad branch of the Union of Composers. In 1957-1974 - Secretary of the Union of Composers of the USSR, since 1960 - Secretary of the Union of Composers of the RSFSR. The former slender and blond Vasya from a peasant family turns into a Soviet dignitary, becomes overweight, loves to drink and eat well. However, the prizes and awards that rained down on the composer, beloved by the people, as if from a cornucopia, still did not prevent him from remaining cheerful and ironic. Solovyov-Sedoy helped young composers and colleagues a lot. They said that almost all members of the Leningrad Composers' Union received apartments thanks to him. After the appearance of the devastating resolution of the Central Committee “On the fight against formalism in music,” it was Solovyov-Sedoy who saved many composers from repression. He was harsh in his words, speaking from high stands, and never read a speech from a piece of paper, which was common in those years. I didn’t want to move to Moscow. He said: “They’ll put me in prison for my language in Moscow. I won’t last long.”

In the mid-1950s, the whole world was fascinated by Solovyov-Sedoy’s new song called “Moscow Evenings.” This song is based on the words of M.L. Matusovsky was written in 1956. It was one of the five songs that created the musical background of the chronicle-documentary film “In the Days of the Spartakiad” (about the first Spartakiad of the peoples of the USSR). Soloviev-Sedoy assessed it as just another good song - nothing more. “Evenings near Moscow”, which became a real calling card of our country throughout the world, were initially not appreciated by either the author himself or his colleagues. The musical council of the Tsentrnauchfilm film studio sent him an unpleasant letter: “You wrote a sluggish, inexpressive song...” And Mark Bernes flatly refused to perform it: “Well, what kind of song do you have that is “heard and not heard”?” When “Moscow Nights” received the Big Gold Medal at the international song competition, which was held during the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in the summer of 1957, it came as a complete surprise to the author.

They said that the song was originally called “Leningrad Evenings,” but this is not so, because its words were written by Muscovite Matusovsky. It was then that Leningraders began to take offense: how is it, our fellow countryman, that he called his most famous song “Moscow Evenings”? Little did he know that this would be the most famous song! She lay there for two years, no one needed. Then Troshin appeared, who sang so well that no one has surpassed him to this day. It is no coincidence that Solovyov-Sedoy’s “Moscow Nights” was later included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most performed song in the world.

“Moscow Evenings” became a symbol song, the musical emblem of Russia for the whole world. They were performed for piano at the concerts of the American pianist Van Clyburn. The famous figure in English jazz, Kenny Ball, made a jazz arrangement of Solovyov-Sedoy’s song and released a record with the recording entitled “Midnight in Moscow.” When in 1966 the young Soviet vocalist Eduard Khil sang “Moscow Nights” at the International Variety Competition in Rio de Janeiro, the audience picked up the song from the second verse. Today it has been known and sung in almost all countries of the world for half a century. What is the secret of the enormous popularity of “Moscow Evenings”? It lies in the truth that Solovyov-Sedoy always followed in his work: only the truly national becomes international.

When Solovyov-Sedoy turned 60 years old, his friend, poet Mikhail Matusovsky, surprised him. He arrived in Leningrad, where the composer’s anniversary was celebrated at the Philharmonic, and went up on stage in a carefully pressed suit, but with a soldier’s duffel bag. He took it off his shoulder and began to take out gifts for the hero of the day: “Moscow Nights” soap, powder, cologne, perfume, candy, cigarettes and everything - “Moscow Nights”! The audience greeted this joke with laughter and applause. It became clear to everyone that no composer in our country had ever had such clear evidence of nationwide popularity. Then they said that Vasily Pavlovich himself was eventually so “sick” of this song that he even ran away from home, because it was regularly performed under the windows of his dacha in Komarovo. Indeed, almost every day people came there with a button accordion and sang “Moscow Nights.” But the composer, of course, did not run away anywhere, although in the last years of his life he grumbled: “Did I really only write “Moscow Nights”?” But he really didn’t like his song “If only the boys of the whole earth” (1957) because he couldn’t stand pathos. But this was such a peculiar action of Dolmatovsky and Bernes: they pestered Solovyov-Sedoy with these poems, and he didn’t even have time to really finalize the song before they immediately recorded it and the very next morning it was played on the radio.

In 1959, Solovyov-Sedoy was awarded the Lenin Prize for the songs “On the Way” (1955), “Milestones” (1955), “If only the boys of the whole earth” (1957), “March of the Nakhimovites” (1949), “Moscow Evenings” ( 1956). In the drama and puppet theater, the composer created music for twenty-four plays. In the cinema, V. Solovyov-Sedoy during these years was the author of music for the films “The Most Expensive” (1957), “The Next Flight” (1958), “The Tale of the Newlyweds” (1959), “Beware, Grandma!” (1960), “In Difficult Hours” (1961), “Spring Troubles” (1964), “The Don Tale” (1964). The composer created several song cycles: “The Tale of a Soldier” (1947), “Northern Poem” (1967), “Bright Song” (1972), “My Contemporaries” (1973-1975). In 1967 V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR, and in 1975 - Hero of Socialist Labor. The composer was awarded 3 Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Star and medals.

In the 1950-1970s, Solovyov-Sedoy wrote songs for operettas and musical comedies, incl. “The Most Treasured” (1952), “Olympic Stars” (1962), “Eighteen Years” (1967), “At the Native Pier” (1970), wrote music for popular science films and documentaries, for dramatic performances and radio shows (about 40), created the ballet “Russia Entered the Port” (1964). He collected a wonderful library, loved cars, he always had new Volga models. He loved fishing and mushrooms.

V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy loved his native Leningrad very much. The composer believed that the very architecture of the city on the Neva consists of melodies. “I walk,” he wrote, “through Leningrad, which is familiar to tears, and I hear the soft cello part of the Lion Bridge, the drum roll of the Suvorov monument, the oboes of Palace Square, the whisper and rustle of the leaves of the Alexander Garden...” The great composer admitted: “I love my city until self-forgetfulness. My theme is Leningrad. My affection is Leningrad. My pride is Leningrad." He dreamed that his song about his hometown, written to the words of A. Fatyanov, would live for a long time:

Over Russia the sky is blue,
The sky is blue over the Neva.
In the whole world there is no, no more beautiful
My Leningrad!

In recent years, the composer has not worked as intensively as before. One of the latest works by V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy, which he did not have time to finish, became the music for a puppet show based on S. Marshak’s fairy tale “Terem-Teremok”. In the last 4 years of his life, Solovyov-Sedoy was seriously ill. The illness, fortunately, did not prevent us from celebrating the 70th anniversary of his birth in 1977. Friends and artists came to the composer’s house on the Fontanka River embankment No. 131, and all this was shown on television from apartment No. 8, in which the composer lived. He died in Leningrad on the night of December 2, 1979. The composer was buried on the Literary Bridge of the Volkovsky Cemetery, and his best childhood friend, actor Alexander Borisov, was buried near him in 1982. The monument at the composer’s grave was erected in 1985 (sculptor M.K. Anikushin, architect F.A. Gepner).

V.P. Solovyov-Sedoy is one of the outstanding masters of Soviet song, one of the most Soviet and most Russian composers. He wrote about 400 wonderful songs, permeated with a feeling of love for the Motherland. Many of them still sing. He entered the history of world musical culture as a song chronicler of the Soviet people, one of the founders of Soviet musical culture, its classic. Another great Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian wrote to him: “From our era, only a few will remain in the history of music. Among the very few, you will remain, Homer of our era.” Rarely do the greats say this about the greats. But the composer survived his songs, which in our country have become truly popular. This is a whole era in the country's musical culture.

I am for broad folk art, because I am sure: the people are an excellent mentor not only in the field of language, but also in the field of music. But I am firmly against musical fakes, against that tearful anguish that is often transmitted in whispers into microphones on some dance floors and concert stages. I am against the vulgarization of the song, against the violation of the unity of its poetic and musical image, folk roots, national identity...

V.P. Soloviev-Sedoy, 1964

One of the most significant songwriters in Russia of the 20th century.

Biography

Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov was born on April 12 (25), 1907 in St. Petersburg into a family of peasant origins. Father, Pavel Pavlovich Solovyov, served as the Chief Janitor of Nevsky Prospekt. Mother, Anna Fedorovna, worked as a maid for the famous singer A.D. Vyaltseva, who gave her a gramophone and records with her songs. The nickname “Sedoy” comes from a childhood nickname (due to his very blond hair). In early childhood, he received a balalaika from his father as a gift, which he mastered on his own and organized a trio with neighboring children (balalaika, guitar and mandolin). Solovyov-Sedoy’s first “classical” musical impressions were trips to the Mariinsky Theater, where he was taken by the cellist who lived in their house. There the boy heard “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, conducted by A. Coates, performances by F. I. Chaliapin in the operas “Boris Godunov” by M. P. Mussorgsky and “The Barber of Seville” by G. Rossini.

In 1923, Solovyov-Sedoy graduated from a unified labor school. Having seen a piano for a pianist in the St. Petersburg cinema "Elephant", he began to pick out famous melodies by ear and learned to play: from 1925 he voiced film shows in clubs, worked as an accompanist in a rhythmic gymnastics studio (together with E. A. Mravinsky), and as an improvising pianist at the Leningrad Radio .

In 1948-1974. Solovyov-Sedoy held major administrative positions in the Union of Composers: in 1948-1964. Chairman of the Board of the Leningrad Branch of the RSFSR Investigative Committee, in 1957-1974 Secretary of the USSR Investigative Committee.

The post-war period (until the early 1960s) were the years of Solovyov-Sedoy’s creative heyday. The song “On the Boat” from the music for the film “The First Glove” (1946, with lyrics by V.I. Lebedev-Kumach) is one of his most heartfelt lyrical songs. The song “On the Road” from the film “Maxim Perepelitsa” (1955, lyrics by M. A. Dudin) became the most popular drill song in the Soviet Army. In 2018, the composer wrote a song cycle based on the poems of A. I. Fatyanov, “The Tale of a Soldier,” from which the song “Where are you now, fellow soldiers?” became a favorite among Soviet veterans. The song based on the verses of M. L. Matusovsky from the documentary film “In the Days of the Spartakiad” (1956, directors I. V. Venzher and V. N. Boykov) “Moscow Evenings” became a musical symbol of the USSR throughout the world; its incipit from 1964 to this day is the call sign of the state radio station “Mayak”. For the VI International Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow (1957), Solovyov-Sedoy wrote the song “If only the boys of the whole earth” (poems by E. A. Dolmatovsky). The composer's last masterpiece is “Evening Song” (, based on the verses of A. D. Churkin; known from the initial words as “The City over the Free Neva ...”), which became the unofficial anthem of Leningrad.

Among Solovyov-Sedoy’s other works are the ballet “Russia Entered the Port” (), operettas “The Most Treasured” (Moscow Operetta Theater), “Olympic Stars” (Leningrad Musical Comedy Theater,), “Eighteen Years” (, ibid. ), “At the Native Pier” (Odessa Musical Comedy Theater), “Once Upon a Time Shelmenko” (Ternopil Musical Comedy Theater).

Creativity and recognition

The origins of Solovyov-Sedoy’s musical style, on the one hand, are in the folk songs of the Pskov region, on the other hand, in urban song and urban romance of the early 20th century. A clear and precise contour of the melody (“humming” characteristic of some of Solovyov-Sedoy’s songs is typologically related to the American “crooning”, but unlike it has a distinctly Russian intonation), artless rhythm (as in the case of “Moscow Evenings”, where Solovyov-Sedoy Sedoy ignored Matusovsky’s “folk” pentasyllabic, “evened out” it in the chant) and diatonic harmony with rare inclusions of altered chords (“On the Boat,” volumes 14 and 30; “Hear me, good one,” volume 7) and modalisms (“On the Boat,” volumes 14 and 30; “Hear me, good one,” volume 7) and modalisms (“ Paths-paths” based on Fatyanov’s poems, volumes 11-12) provided a public reception of his music. The lifetime circulation of Solovyov-Sedoy's records amounted to 2.5 million copies. Solovyov-Sedoy’s songs were performed by leading Soviet pop artists: M. N. Bernes, V. A. Bunchikov (the first performer of the song “Evening at the Roadstead”), G. P. Vinogradov, V. S. Volodin (the first performer of the songs “Take Up” and “Everything requires skill” from the film “The First Glove”), V. A. Nechaev, G. K. Ots (including translated into Estonian), E. S. Piekha, V. K. Troshin (first performer of the song “Moscow Evenings”), L. O. Utesov, E. A. Khil, K. I. Shulzhenko and others.

Awards and prizes

Memory

• In 1982, a postage stamp “USSR Post” was issued in honor of Solovyov-Sedoy.
• In 2007, the Bank of Russia issued a silver coin dedicated to the composer
• In St. Petersburg, on the house where the composer lived in 1950-1979, a memorial plaque was installed.
• From 1981 to 2001, the Variety Symphony Orchestra of Leningrad Television and Radio was named after Solovyov-Sedoy

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

• 04/25/1907 - 1929 - apartment building - Nevsky Prospekt, 139;
• 1929 - autumn 1935 - apartment building of Countess Saltykova - Zhukovsky Street, 20, apt. 7;
• autumn 1935-1941 - apartment building - 25th October Avenue, 139, apt. 49;
• 1944-1950 - apartment building - 25th October Avenue, 160, apt. 2;
• 1950 - 12/02/1979 - apartment building - Fontanka River embankment, 131, apt. 8.
• dacha in the village of Komarovo (St. Petersburg) on ​​Bolshoy Prospekt.

Filmography

• - Weekdays
• - Heavenly Slug
• - First glove
• - Happy sailing!
• - Towards life
• - World champion
• - Once, on a wonderful day
• - Dzhigit girl
• - Good morning
• - Maxim Perepelitsa
• - She loves you!
• - Herdsman's Song
• - Totally more expensive
• - Next flight
• - The Tale of the Newlyweds
• - Be careful, grandma!
• - Foal
• - In difficult times
• - Ivan Rybakov
• - Spring chores
• - The Don Tale
• - When the song doesn't end
• - Aurora salvo
• - First visitor
• - Virinea
• - Lyubov Yarovaya
• - Shelmenko the orderly
• - Open book
• - Unfamiliar heir
• - Sweet woman
• - Taiga story

Write a review of the article "Solovyov-Sedoy, Vasily Pavlovich"

Notes

Links

• Nikita Bogoslovsky

Website "Heroes of the Country".

An excerpt characterizing Solovyov-Sedoy, Vasily Pavlovich

One of the most tangible and beneficial deviations from the so-called rules of war is the action of scattered people against people huddled together. This kind of action always manifests itself in a war that takes on a popular character. These actions consist in the fact that, instead of becoming a crowd against a crowd, people disperse separately, attack one by one and immediately flee when they are attacked in large forces, and then attack again when the opportunity presents itself. This was done by the Guerillas in Spain; this was done by the mountaineers in the Caucasus; the Russians did this in 1812.
A war of this kind was called partisan and they believed that by calling it that, they explained its meaning. Meanwhile, this kind of war not only does not fit any rules, but is directly opposite to the well-known and recognized infallible tactical rule. This rule says that the attacker must concentrate his troops in order to be stronger than the enemy at the moment of battle.
Guerrilla warfare (always successful, as history shows) is the exact opposite of this rule.
This contradiction occurs because military science accepts the strength of troops as identical with their number. Military science says that the more troops, the more power. Les gros bataillons ont toujours raison. [Right is always on the side of large armies.]
In saying this, military science is similar to mechanics, which, based on considering forces only in relation to their masses, would say that forces are equal or unequal to each other because their masses are equal or unequal.
Force (amount of motion) is the product of mass and speed.
In military affairs, the strength of an army is also the product of the mass by something, some unknown x.
Military science, seeing in history countless examples of the fact that the mass of troops does not coincide with the strength, that small detachments defeat large ones, vaguely recognizes the existence of this unknown factor and tries to find it either in geometric construction, then in weapons, or - the most common - in the genius of the commanders. But substituting all these multiplier values ​​does not produce results consistent with historical facts.
Meanwhile, one only has to abandon the false view that has been established, for the sake of the heroes, about the reality of the orders of the highest authorities during the war in order to find this unknown x.
X this is the spirit of the army, that is, a greater or lesser desire to fight and expose oneself to the dangers of all the people who make up the army, completely regardless of whether people fight under the command of geniuses or non-geniuses, in three or two lines, with clubs or guns firing thirty once a minute. People who have the greatest desire to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous conditions for a fight.
The spirit of the army is a multiplier for mass, giving the product of force. To determine and express the value of the spirit of the army, this unknown factor, is the task of science.
This task is possible only when we stop arbitrarily substituting instead of the value of the entire unknown X those conditions under which force is manifested, such as: orders of the commander, weapons, etc., taking them as the value of the multiplier, and recognize this unknown in all its integrity, that is, as a greater or lesser desire to fight and expose oneself to danger. Then only by expressing known historical facts in equations and by comparing the relative value of this unknown can we hope to determine the unknown itself.
Ten people, battalions or divisions, fighting with fifteen people, battalions or divisions, defeated fifteen, that is, they killed and captured everyone without a trace and themselves lost four; therefore, four were destroyed on one side and fifteen on the other. Therefore four was equal to fifteen, and therefore 4a:=15y. Therefore, w: g/==15:4. This equation does not give the value of the unknown, but it does give the relationship between two unknowns. And by subsuming various historical units (battles, campaigns, periods of war) under such equations, we obtain series of numbers in which laws must exist and can be discovered.
The tactical rule that one must act in masses when advancing and separately when retreating unconsciously confirms only the truth that the strength of an army depends on its spirit. In order to lead people under the cannonballs, more discipline is needed, which can only be achieved by moving in masses, than in order to fight off attackers. But this rule, which loses sight of the spirit of the army, constantly turns out to be incorrect and is especially strikingly contrary to reality where there is a strong rise or decline in the spirit of the army - in all people's wars.
The French, retreating in 1812, although they should have defended themselves separately, according to tactics, huddled together, because the spirit of the army had fallen so low that only the mass held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, according to tactics, should attack en masse, but in reality they are fragmented, because the spirit is so high that individuals strike without the orders of the French and do not need coercion in order to expose themselves to labor and danger.

The so-called partisan war began with the enemy’s entry into Smolensk.
Before guerrilla warfare was officially accepted by our government, thousands of people of the enemy army - backward marauders, foragers - were exterminated by the Cossacks and peasants, who beat these people as unconsciously as dogs unconsciously kill a runaway rabid dog. Denis Davydov, with his Russian instinct, was the first to understand the meaning of that terrible club, which, without asking the rules of military art, destroyed the French, and he is credited with taking the first step to legitimize this method of war.
On August 24, Davydov’s first partisan detachment was established, and after his detachment others began to be established. The further the campaign progressed, the more the number of these detachments increased.
The partisans destroyed the Great Army piece by piece. They picked up those fallen leaves that fell of their own accord from the withered tree - the French army, and sometimes shook this tree. In October, while the French were fleeing to Smolensk, there were hundreds of these parties of various sizes and characters. There were parties that adopted all the techniques of the army, with infantry, artillery, headquarters, and the comforts of life; there were only Cossacks and cavalry; there were small ones, prefabricated ones, on foot and on horseback, there were peasant and landowner ones, unknown to anyone. There was a sexton as the head of the party, who took several hundred prisoners a month. There was the elder Vasilisa, who killed hundreds of French.
The last days of October were the height of the partisan war. That first period of this war, during which the partisans, themselves surprised at their audacity, were afraid at every moment of being caught and surrounded by the French and, without unsaddled or almost getting off their horses, hid in the forests, expecting a pursuit at every moment, has already passed. Now this war had already been defined, it became clear to everyone what could be done with the French and what could not be done. Now only those detachment commanders who, with their headquarters, according to the rules, walked away from the French, considered many things impossible. The small partisans, who had long since begun their work and were closely looking out for the French, considered it possible what the leaders of large detachments did not dare to think about. The Cossacks and men who climbed among the French believed that now everything was possible.
On October 22, Denisov, who was one of the partisans, was with his party in the midst of partisan passion. In the morning he and his party were on the move. All day long, through the forests adjacent to the high road, he followed a large French transport of cavalry equipment and Russian prisoners, separated from other troops and under strong cover, as was known from spies and prisoners, heading towards Smolensk. This transport was known not only to Denisov and Dolokhov (also a partisan with a small party), who walked close to Denisov, but also to the commanders of large detachments with headquarters: everyone knew about this transport and, as Denisov said, sharpened their teeth on it. Two of these large detachment leaders - one Pole, the other German - almost at the same time sent Denisov an invitation to each join his own detachment in order to attack the transport.
“No, bg”at, I’m with a mustache myself,” said Denisov, having read these papers, and wrote to the German that, despite the spiritual desire that he had to serve under the command of such a valiant and famous general, he must deprive himself of this happiness, because he had already entered under the command of a Pole general. He wrote the same thing to the Pole general, notifying him that he had already entered under the command of a German.
Having ordered this, Denisov intended, without reporting this to the highest commanders, together with Dolokhov, to attack and take this transport with his own small forces. The transport went on October 22 from the village of Mikulina to the village of Shamsheva. On the left side of the road from Mikulin to Shamshev there were large forests, in some places approaching the road itself, in others a mile or more away from the road. Through these forests all day long, now going deeper into the middle of them, now going to the edge, he rode with Denisov’s party, not letting the moving French out of sight. In the morning, not far from Mikulin, where the forest came close to the road, Cossacks from Denisov’s party captured two French wagons with cavalry saddles that had become dirty in the mud and took them into the forest. From then until the evening, the party, without attacking, followed the movement of the French. It was necessary, without frightening them, to let them calmly reach Shamshev and then, uniting with Dolokhov, who was supposed to arrive in the evening for a meeting at the guardhouse in the forest (a mile from Shamshev), at dawn, fall from both sides out of the blue and beat and take everyone at once.
Behind, two miles from Mikulin, where the forest approached the road itself, six Cossacks were left, who were supposed to report as soon as new French columns appeared.
Ahead of Shamsheva, in the same way, Dolokhov had to explore the road in order to know at what distance there were still other French troops. One thousand five hundred people were expected to be transported. Denisov had two hundred people, Dolokhov could have had the same number. But superior numbers did not stop Denisov. The only thing he still needed to know was what exactly these troops were; and for this purpose Denisov needed to take a tongue (that is, a man from the enemy column). In the morning attack on the wagons, the matter was done with such haste that the French who were with the wagons were killed and captured alive only by the drummer boy, who was retarded and could not say anything positive about the kind of troops in the column.
Denisov considered it dangerous to attack another time, so as not to alarm the entire column, and therefore he sent forward to Shamshevo the peasant Tikhon Shcherbaty, who was with his party, to capture, if possible, at least one of the French advanced quarterers who were there.

It was an autumn, warm, rainy day. The sky and horizon were the same color of muddy water. It seemed like fog fell, then suddenly it began to rain heavily.
Denisov rode on a thoroughbred, thin horse with toned sides, wearing a cloak and a hat with water flowing from it. He, like his horse, who was squinting his head and pinching his ears, was wincing from the slanting rain and looking ahead anxiously. His face, emaciated and overgrown with a thick, short, black beard, seemed angry.
Next to Denisov, also in a burka and papakha, on a well-fed, large bottom, rode a Cossack esaul - an employee of Denisov.
Esaul Lovaisky - the third, also in a burka and papakha, was a long, flat, board-like, white-faced, blond man, with narrow light eyes and a calmly smug expression both in his face and in his stance. Although it was impossible to say what was special about the horse and the rider, at the first glance at the esaul and Denisov it was clear that Denisov was both wet and awkward - that Denisov was the man who sat on the horse; whereas, looking at the esaul, it was clear that he was as comfortable and calm as always, and that he was not a man who sat on a horse, but man and horse together were one creature, increased by double strength.
A little ahead of them walked a thoroughly wet little peasant conductor, in a gray caftan and a white cap.
A little behind, on a thin, thin Kyrgyz horse with a huge tail and mane and with bloody lips, rode a young officer in a blue French overcoat.
A hussar rode next to him, carrying behind him on the back of his horse a boy in a tattered French uniform and a blue cap. The boy held the hussar with his hands, red from the cold, moved his bare feet, trying to warm them, and, raising his eyebrows, looked around him in surprise. It was the French drummer taken in the morning.
Behind, in threes and fours, along a narrow, muddy and worn-out forest road, came the hussars, then the Cossacks, some in a burka, some in a French overcoat, some with a blanket thrown over their heads. The horses, both red and bay, all seemed black from the rain flowing from them. The horses' necks seemed strangely thin from their wet manes. Steam rose from the horses. And the clothes, and the saddles, and the reins - everything was wet, slimy and soggy, just like the earth and the fallen leaves with which the road was laid. People sat hunched over, trying not to move in order to warm up the water that had spilled onto their bodies, and not to let in the new cold water that was leaking under the seats, knees and behind the necks. In the middle of the stretched out Cossacks, two wagons on French horses and harnessed to Cossack saddles rumbled over stumps and branches and rumbled along the water-filled ruts of the road.