Felicien David |

Felicien David

A rather popular French composer in the 30th century, the founder of Orientalism in music. It was he who laid the foundations for those trends that later so clearly manifested themselves in the work of Saint-Saens and Delibes. David from his youth was fond of the utopian ideas of Saint-Simonism and universal brotherhood, with missionary goals in the mid-1844s he visited the East (in Smyrna, Constantinople, Egypt), the “exoticism” of which occupies a large place in his work. Bright melody and rich orchestration are the main advantages of the composer’s style, which Berlioz greatly appreciated. The most famous works of David were the ode-symphony “Desert” (1847) and “Christopher Columbus” (1866). The latter was repeatedly performed in Russia, including in 1862 at the Bolshoi Theater under the direction of the author. Known in Russia and his best opera “Lalla Rook” (1884, Paris, “Opera-Comic”), marching at the Mariinsky Theater (XNUMX). The plot of the opera about an Indian princess (based on a poem by Thomas Moore) was very popular, including in our country. Pushkin mentioned it, there is also a fairly well-known poem of the same name by Zhukovsky on this topic.

E. Tsodokov