The birth of "Evening on the outskirts of Moscow"

"Evening on the outskirts of Moscow" came out in 1956. Such a short and uncomplicated song has become more and more popular all over the world in the past half century, which is also rare in the history of world music culture.

I have had many extraordinary and interesting experiences with this famous song. In 1956, when the Soviet Union was holding the National Games, a large-scale documentary film "On the Days of the Games" was produced by the Moscow Film Studio. The film studio invited famous composer Solovyov Sedoy to score the film. The composer collaborated with the poet Madusovsky to write 4 interludes for the film, "Evening on the Suburbs of Moscow" is one of them.

Vasily Solovyov Sedoy (1907-1979) was one of the most famous composers of the Soviet era. He was born in St. Petersburg into a garden sweeper's family. His father could play the accordion, his mother was a good singer of folk songs, and his brothers and sisters also liked to play and sing, so when Vasily was seven or eight years old, he could play the songs he heard fluently on the guitar and mandolin. There was a small cinema in the building with a piano. Vasily often helped the projectionist organize film reels after school, so the projectionist allowed Vasily to play the piano for a while. Vasily was self-taught and relied only on his hearing. He quickly learned to play some pieces of music and became an indispensable pianist at school evenings. After the October Revolution, the Solovyov family moved from the dark cellar to a spacious house with a piano. At the age of ten, Vasily also began to formally study piano with a female teacher. After graduating from high school, Vasily worked in several clubs and cultural centers. This sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy often improvises accompaniment as the plot develops on stage, fully demonstrating his talent. In 1929, Vasily was admitted to the Central Music College in Leningrad. Two years later he transferred to the composition department of the Conservatory of Music and graduated in 1936. During the Great Patriotic War, he served as artistic director in the mobile battlefield theater "Sea Eagle" and in the actor group of the Baltic Fleet. From 1948 he served as Chairman of the Leningrad Composers' Union. He was awarded the highest honorary title of "People's Artist of the Soviet Union".

Solovyov Sedoy is good at writing lyrical songs and witty songs. His marches are not many in number, but they are not inferior in any way. He has scored more than 40 films in his life (of course, film inserts are indispensable), and composed more than 400 songs of various styles and styles. Among the most familiar ones to our people, in addition to "Evening on the Suburbs of Moscow", there are also "Night at the Harbor", "Spring Comes to Our Battlefield", "Song of the Communist Youth League Members" and "Departure", etc.

Mikhail Madusovsky is a famous Soviet lyricist and winner of the Soviet National Prize for Literature and Art. In the spring of 1942, he published a short poem "Singing Lake Ilmin" in a war newspaper, which was composed into a song by an old musician Marian Kovar. That song did not arouse any repercussions, but its tonal basis and its rhythmic structure were accumulated in the depths of the poet's creative memory. 25 years later, it finally got a new life in "Moscow Suburbs at Night". The artistic conception of the poem "Evening on the outskirts of Moscow" is similar to that of "Singing Lake Ilmin". As for the number of syllables and iambic meter, the two poems are completely consistent. Madusovsky's poems brilliantly describe the inherent simple beauty of Russian nature; in the songs, the sincere and excited voices of young people, the emerging love and the feeling of farewell before dawn are all harmonious with the beauty of nature. Blended together. And Solovyov Sedoy's charming, crystal-clear melodies support and develop the poetic image, as if born from Russian nature itself. In the words of the composer himself, the song "flows out from under the tip of the pen along with the letters."

The song combines some characteristics of Russian folk songs and Russian urban romances, but is full of changes. Although it is a short song, it shows the master's ingenuity in every aspect: he flexibly used changes in modes - the first phrase is a natural minor mode, the second phrase is a natural major mode, and the third phrase is a natural major mode. The shadow of the melodic minor mode flashes, and the fourth phrase returns to the natural minor mode. The composer also broke through the squareness of the phrases - the first phrase is four bars, the second phrase is one bar less than the first phrase, and the third phrase is divided into two clauses, using syncopation in one place. The emphasis on meaning is just right. The rhythm of the fourth phrase is similar to that of the first and second phrases, but it does not start from the strong beat, but from the weak beat. The composition of the four phrases is not exactly the same as the other one. The melody turns in an unexpected but natural way. The breath is broad, the structure is exquisite, and the vivid interest is revealed in the simplicity and elegance. It is really amazing. Incessantly. No wonder the Soviet music industry praised Solovyov-Sedoi's songs as "flexible and novel in genre, unique in technique, diverse in style, and rarely have the same feeling."

The more connotative, the more unique The artistic charm of deep works is often not recognized all at once. According to Madusovsky's recollection: When this song was originally recorded, the head of the music department of the film studio was not satisfied after hearing it and said to Solovyov Sedoy unceremoniously: " This new piece of yours is very mediocre. I really didn’t expect that a famous composer like you would write such a thing.” The cold water poured on the composer.

However, after the film was released, the song was still popular among young people. The following year, the Sixth World Youth Festival was held in Moscow. It was not until two months before the opening that the festival organizing committee decided to send this lyrical song that was not written for the festival but was already very popular in the Soviet Union at that time. I went to participate in the festival song contest, and sure enough, it won the gold medal in one fell swoop. Young people from all over the world boarded the train and said goodbye to Moscow singing "I hope from now on, you and I will never forget the nights outside Moscow". Since then, this enchanting song has flown beyond the borders of the Soviet Union and begun its global journey.

In 1959, the Soviet Union established the highest honorary award named after "Lenin", and five songs including "Evening on the Suburbs of Moscow" by Solovyov Sedoy won the first Lenin Prize for Literature and Art. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, apart from Solovyov Sedoy, no other person had received this honor for his songwriting.

In 1958, the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition was held in Moscow, and the first prize winner was the young American pianist Van Cliburn. He excitedly played this piece of music at his farewell concert, and the audience burst into applause like a storm, and the audience stood up and sang in unison. Claiborne also used this song as a regular repertoire when he held concerts after returning to the United States. In 1962, Kenny Ball's English-sung "Moscow Nights" (with lyrics written by Man Kurtis and titled "Moscow Nights") became the best-selling record in the United States that year. You must know that during the "Cold War" "During this period, the United States almost never introduced Soviet songs. French composer and singer Francis Remarque used the melody of this song to add French lyrics and named it "Lily of the Valley in Spring", which became a hit in France. The Soviet "Zhok" song and dance troupe visited Brazil to perform, singing Brazil's "Samba", and the entire audience sang "Moscow Suburbs at Night" in return. Saharan riders on fast Arabian horses came to Nigeria singing this song in the rarest Hausa language. There are countless such interesting stories - Finland, Guinea, Japan, Canada, Australia... You can hear people singing this song everywhere.

Solovyov Sedoy once said this: "I have always believed that it is not important whether a song is complex or simple. After all, it is not because of this that it is loved. Only when People look for travel companions in their lives, thoughts and emotions in songs, and only such songs will be popular."

The reason why this lyrical song has been charming for nearly half a century is not just that. Its artistic success. Soviet critics at the time believed: "The patriotic theme in Dunayevsky's "March of the Fatherland" takes another form and takes on a new form in Solovyov Sedoy's "Evenings on the Suburbs of Moscow" "The connotation of the song has been greatly extended during the singing process: it is no longer a simple love song, nor is it just a song about the night scene in the suburbs of Moscow. It has been integrated into the Russian people's feelings for their motherland, their relatives and friends, and everything. The love of beautiful things.