Yunkin Ivan

Main article: Music in Russia in the XVIII century

Ivan Yunkin (Merzlyukin, Yukin, Gunkin) - Russian composer, librettist, who worked at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries.

At the end of the 18th century, three people with the same name and very similar surnames are mentioned:

• Ivan Merzlyukin - worked at the College of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Probably, on the instructions of his boss A.F. Malinovsky, he participated in the translation from French theater plays. Around 1789 he moved to St. Petersburg.

• Ivan Yukin is the author of the libretto for three operas written on common subjects.

• Iean Iunkin is the author of a series of variations on Russian songs for two violins. His name continued to be distorted further and the same essay was later mentioned in a newspaper advertisement authored by ^[1]

Could the same person be mentioned under three surnames?

It can be assumed that the clerk Ivan Merzlyukin, after moving from Moscow to St. Petersburg around 1789, signed the libretto for operas with his abbreviated surname - Yukin. Later, the publishers of his compositions for two violins used the spelling of Yukin's first and last name in French as Iean Iunkin. In 1812, the notes of this cycle were sold with a distorted name of the composer - Gunkin. In 1813, Ivan Merzlyukin still remained at the state service and, with the rank of major, managed schools in Tver.

This hypothesis needs to be confirmed.

Actuarius Ivan Alekseevich Merzlyukin

The AVPRI archive of materials mentions a former serf who received free for the service of his father - Ivan Alekseevich Merzlyukin^[2]1783^[3] was an employee of MAKID (Moscow Archive of^[4] College of Foreign Affairs) as an actuary of^[5]. Merzlyukin worked under the command of A.F. Malinovsky. As a theater-goer, the latter instructed young archivists to make translations into Russian of plays that were fashionable on the stage and written, as usual at that time, in French.

At the end of the 18th century, A.F. Malinovsky himself was known in Moscow society as a prominent playwright and translator of French and German plays. For the Moscow Public Theater (Petrovsky), he translated and then published in separate publications and included in the "Collections of some theatrical works..." (M., 1790) plays by authors L.S. Mercier, Boutier de Monvel and A. Kotzebue, popular in Russia. Since the 1780s, plays in his translation with the assistance of N.P. Sheremetev were staged on the stage of the Moscow theater.

Malinovsky himself wrote in 1799 a libretto for F. K. Blim's opera Ancient Shrines (1800), which was very successful.

Ivan Merzlyukin is mentioned, including as responsible for the sale of part of "unnecessary printed books" from the library of the Moscow Main Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1777 in the amount of 344 rubles^[6]

R. Yu. Danilevsky mentions^[7] Ivan Merzlyukin, who served in Moscow, and since 1789 in St. Petersburg, in the Senate; January 29. "Sent to the pre-funeral commission" (RGADA, f. 286, Prince 237, l. 31). Translated from German compiled by V.-L. Verklin's biography of the English writer, polyglot and traveler E. Wortley-Montague "Edward Wortley, the writing of the lightest writer of the Notes of a Secular Man" (ed. Tipogr. comp. 1787). The translation is made from Verklin's journal "Chronologies" and is dedicated to the Moscow post director B.V. Pestel. Perhaps the same Merzlyukin in 1813, with the rank of major, managed schools in Tver (see: Rus. Arch. 1881. № 1).

Libretto for Ivan Yukin's operas

In 2024, researcher and musician Pavel Serbin, when discussing the composition for the violin of Ivan Yunkin, drew attention to the fact that at the same time Ivan Yukin worked, who was the author of the text for the opera "The Sorcerer, the Warrior and the Matchmaker" in 3 acts (1789), in which the wedding of the heroes is arranged by a clever servant who deceived the superstitious parents of the bride (St. Petersburg, 1789; M., 1791, text libretto). The opera was dedicated to the industrialist and philanthropist Sergei Savvich Yakovlev. Without specifying the name of the author, the text is included in the Russian Feater (1791. PART 37). The opera was staged in St. Petersburg presumably in 1791, with music by Fomin.

In addition, Ivan Yukin is mentioned as the librettist of two other operas "Gadai, guess, girl, guess, red" (1788) and "The Bride under the Death, or the Meshchanskaya Wedding" (1791).

Libretto by I. Yukin was repeated the plot scheme of A.O. Ablesimov's opera "Melnik is a sorcerer, deceiver and matchmaker" (1779), but inferior to her artistically.

Researcher E.D. Kukushkina in her article for the Dictionary of Russian Writers of the 18th century wrote that in 1802 Ivan Yukin was listed as a college assessor in the Public Expedition of the College of Foreign Affairs^[8]

Literature:

• Stasov B. Russian and foreign operas performed at imperial theaters in Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. St. Petersburg, 1898;

• Svetlov S.F. Russian Opera in the 18th century//Yearbook of Imperial Theaters: Season 1897-1898 App. Ch. 3.

"Six Russian songs with variations for two violins" - Iean Iunkin

Of the musical compositions of Ivan Yunkin (Iean Iunkin), only "Six Russian songs with variations for two violins" have been discovered so far. The cycle is included in the TAdviser list of the Best Music of Russia.

The notes of Ivan Yunkin's composition were discovered by the artistic director of the Early Music festival, violinist Andrei Reshetin in the Solovtsov collection of the Ulyanovsk Regional Scientific Library.

The violin parts published by Dittmar are replete not even with errors, but with harmonic absurdities, wrote musician and researcher Andrei Penyugin. Probably the composer did not take part in the publication.

For the first time, the music was recorded by "Soloists of Catherine the Great" under the direction of Andrei Penyugin in 2023. The recording was released on the disc "Who could love so passionately" as part of the initiative "Experiments of Maxim Kazak."

Below we give brief comments by A. Penyugin on each play published in the article for the disc booklet.

The cycle opens with the song "From afar, mil rides." This is the only composition whose original source has not yet been discovered.

The second composition of the cycle is "How soon I recognized you." The initial words of the song - "As soon as I recognized you, I became subject to you alone" - are emphasized in music by a constant return to tonic. But  at the end, the melody modulates in minor, as if showing the uncertainty of the lover in success. Sh. Masson in the "Secret Notes  on Russia" attributes the authorship of this song to Grigory Potemkin, who dedicated it to Catherine II. The source is not the most reliable, but the text is definitely not of folk origin.

"I  went in luzes" - one of the most piercing Russian songs. In the collection of Ivan Yunkin, it is in third place. Ivan Turgenev mentions this song in the story "Living Relics": "Lukerya gathered with spirit... The idea that this half-dead creature is preparing to sing aroused unwitting horror in me. But before I could say a word - a drawling, barely audible, but pure and faithful sound trembled in my ears... it was followed by another, a third. "In the luses' sang Lukerya. She sang without changing the expression of her petrified face, even staring her eyes. But so touchingly rang this poor, amplified, like a trickle of smoke oscillating voice, so wanted to pour out her whole soul... "

The song "I  am moving into the desert" is a rare case when the author of the text (and, possibly, music) is known to us. This is Maria Voyinovna Zubova, a representative of the famous military and musical family of the Roman-Korsakov  (the author of the famous march of the Semenovsky regiment, Alexander Mikhailovich Rimsky-Korsakov, also belongs to this family!).

The song "I blew out on the river," which Pushkin mentions in "House in Kolomna," has several versions of the text, of varying degrees of frivolity. The song was very popular, and for women's ears, the popular poet of that time Neledinsky-Meletsky wrote a more decent, sad version.

Nikolai Karamzin's poem "Who Could Love So Passionately" is one of the brightest works of sentimentalism. The "voice" on which it was laid is one of the most popular topics for variations at the beginning of the 19th century.

Notes

Six Chansons russes variées - Iean Iunkin

• Notes of "Six Russian Songs with Variations for Two Violins" by Ivan Yunkin on the website of the Ulyanovsk Library

• Editing by Andrei Penyugin (Soloists of Catherine the Great, 2023):

01 From Far Away, Mil Rides

02. How soon I got to know you

03. I went in luses

04. I am moving into the desert

05. I blew out on the river

06. Who could love so passionately

Шаблон:XVIII Century Music CD

See also

• History of music in Russia

Notes