Konstantin Petrovich Villebois (Вильбоа Константин Петрович) (1817–1882) was a Russian composer.
The name Villebois (transliterated sometimes as Vilboa) is of
French origin (Villebois). Vilboa was an autodidact who never received any musical education. He became a friend of
Glinka around 1850.
Vilboa wrote nearly 200 popular songs such as the duet "The seafarers" ("unfriendly is our sea.." - "Нелюдимо наше море..") recorded by
Maxim Mikhailov. These songs remained popular, for instance being sung at home by
Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded ...
's engineer father.
[Sofia Moshevich Dmitri Shostakovich, pianist, with similar duets by ]Alexander Egorovich Varlamov
Alexander Egorovich Varlamov (or ''Aleksandr Yegorovich Varlamov''; ; 27 November 1801 – 27 October 1848) was a 19th-century composer, singer, teacher, conductor, and one of the founding fathers of the genre of the Russian art song. He is re ...
. p6 Vilboa's song collection ''100 Russian National Songs'' (''Сто русских народных песен''
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
1860) was an anthology of melodies collected by playwright
Alexander Ostrovsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (; ) was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repe ...
on a
River Volga steamer in 1856. This collection was used by, among other composers,
Rimsky-Korsakov in his ''By the gate a pine tree was swaying'' and other songs.
Vilboa wrote three operas, but only one, ''Natasha'', was staged in St. Petersburg, and left the repertoire after a few weeks.
References
External links
Lyrics for some of Vilboa's songs at The LiederNet Archive*
1817 births
1882 deaths
19th-century composers from the Russian Empire
19th-century male musicians from the Russian Empire
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