The Tradition of Serf Orchestras and Gypsy Bands
Kashin, Daniil Nikitich was born in
Moscow in 1769 He was a collector of Russian folksongs and a composer.
Son of one of General Bibikov's serfs, he was a pupil of Sarti in Bessarabia (1788),
and in 1790 performed two of his own pieces (including a piano concerto) at a public concert given in Moscow by Bibikov's serf orchestra, of which Kashin was director in the 1790s.
It is possible that he also visited Italy during this period.
Freed from serfdom in 1798, he established himself as an important figure in Moscow's musical life from 1799, and, in addition to his activities as a composer, pianist, singer, opera conductor, teacher and folksong collector, he organized and conducted mammoth concerts sometimes involving a choir of 300 and an orchestra of 200. In 1800 (or perhaps 1805) he appeared as an opera composer with Natal'ya, boyarskaya doch' ('Natal'ya, the Boyar's Daughter'), which enjoyed great success, holding the stage until 1817; the libretto, by S.N. Glinka, was based on a novel by Karamzin. His two other operas were Sel'skiy prazdnik ('The Village Holiday', 1807) and Ol'ga prekrasnaya ('Beautiful Olga', 1809, libretto also by S.N. Glinka).
Kashin's zeal for Russian folk music prompted him to inaugurate the Zhurnal otechestvennoy muziki ('Journal of national music'), which first appeared in 1806 and ran for 12 issues before ceasing publication in 1809.
During the campaign against the French in 1812, Kashin composed a number of patriotic choruses, one of which, Zashchitniki Petrova grada ('The Defenders of Petrov Town'), achieved great popularity. Makar'yevskaya yarmarka ('The Fair at Makar'yev'), a stage piece by M.N. Zagoskin for which Kashin provided music in 1817, reflects the increased national colouring in Russian culture after 1812. Kashin was also attached to Moscow University, and a year before his death founded a music school. In 1833 and 1834 he published his three-volume collection of Russian folksongs, Russkiye narodniye pesni, which contains arrangements of 108 tunes, some of which had appeared in his earlier Journal of National Music.
It is difficult to judge Kashin as an opera composer, since the music of all except Natal'ya, the Boyar's Daughter is lost, like much of his other music. In what has survived he shows himself to have been a typical Russian composer of the early 19th century, depending on foreign styles and writing in a characterless manner; his compositions are of purely historical interest. As an arranger of folksongs he belonged to the period before Russian musicians had become scrupulous about preserving the integrity of the tunes or had developed the ability to furnish them with distinctive accompaniments. Nevertheless, within their limitations, Kashin's straightforward arrangements are workmanlike and among the best of the period.
In addition, he wrote original pieces in imitation of a folk idiom and frequently used folksongs as the basis of instrumental variations.
FOLKSONG EDITIONS
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