Konstantin Petrovich Villebois (Вильбоа Константин Петрович) (1817–1882) was a Russian composer.[1]
The name Villebois (transliterated sometimes as Vilboa) is of French origin (Villebois). Vilboa was an autodidact who never received any musical education. He became a friend of Glinka around 1850.
Vilboa wrote nearly 200 popular songs such as the duet "The seafarers" ("unfriendly is our sea.." - "Нелюдимо наше море..") recorded by Maxim Mikhailov. These songs remained popular, for instance being sung at home by Shostakovich's engineer father.[2] Vilboa's song collection 100 Russian National Songs (Сто русских народных песен Saint Petersburg 1860) was an anthology of melodies collected by playwright Alexander Ostrovsky on a River Volga steamer in 1856. This collection was used by, among other composers, Rimsky-Korsakov in his By the gate a pine tree was swaying and other songs.
Vilboa wrote three operas, but only one, Natasha, was staged in St. Petersburg, and left the repertoire after a few weeks.
References
edit- ^ Brief article in Russian
- ^ Sofia Moshevich Dmitri Shostakovich, pianist, with similar duets by Alexander Egorovich Varlamov. p6
External links
edit- Lyrics for some of Vilboa's songs at The LiederNet Archive
- Free scores by Konstantin Vilboa at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
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