Konstantin Petrovich Villebois |

Konstantin Villebois

Wilboa. Sailors (Ivan Ershov)

He was brought up in the cadet corps, was the director of the students’ choir. In 1853-1854 he led the chorus of singers and the ballroom orchestra of the Pavlovsky Life Guards Regiment. In 1856, together with A. N. Ostrovsky and V. P. Engelhardt, he participated in a folklore expedition along the Volga. From the 2nd half of the 60s. lived in Kharkov, where he organized a free music school “for children of all classes”, lectured on the history and theory of music at the university, was a conductor of the opera house and a private orchestra. From 1867 he served in Warsaw. He was acquainted with M. I. Glinka, A. S. Dargomyzhsky, and the critic A. A. Grigoriev. Vilboa owns the claviers of two operas by Glinka and an arrangement for piano in 4 hands of his “Kamarinskaya”.

Vilboa is the author of popular songs and everyday romances, including the heroic-romantic duet “Sailors” (“Our Sea is Unsociable”, lyrics by HM Yazykov), “Dumka” (lyrics by T. G. Shevchenko), “On the Air Ocean” (lyrics by M. Yu. Lermontov). Vilboa owns: operas – “Natasha, or the Volga Robbers” (1861, Bolshoi Theater, Moscow), “Taras Bulba”, “Gypsy” (both unpublished); music for the drama The Maid of Pskov by Mei (1864, Alexandrinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg). The processing of folk songs is of value – “Russian Folk Songs” [100], ed. A. A. Grigorieva (1860, 2nd ed. 1894), “Russian romances and folk songs” (1874, 2nd ed. 1889), arrangement of songs for decomp. instruments (“150 Russian folk songs”), etc.