Vasily Vasilievich Andreyev (; 26 December 1918)
article on the city site of

Bezhetsk Bezhetsk () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Bezhetsky District in Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Mologa River at its confluence with the Ostrechina. Population: 20,618 (2024). It was pr ...

was a Russian musician responsible for the modern development of the

balalaika The balalaika (, ) is a Russian string instrument, stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body, fretted neck, and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the third string is a perf ...

and several other traditional Russian folk music instruments, and is considered the

father of Often, discoveries and innovations are the work of multiple people, resulting from continual improvements over time. However, certain individuals are remembered for making significant contributions to the birth or development of a field or techn ...

the academic

folk instrument A folk instrument is a traditional musical instrument that has remained largely restricted to traditional folk music, and is not usually used in the classical music or other elite and formal musical genres of the culture concerned, though relate ...

movement in Eastern Europe. His accomplishments included: * developing in the 1880s a standardized

made with the assistance of violin maker V. Ivanov.History of balalaika
* reviving the

domra The ''domra'' (Cyrillic: до́мра, ) is a long-necked Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian folk string instrument of the lute family with a round body and three or four metal strings. History The first known mention of domra is in ''Admoni ...

, a three-stringed long-necked melody instrument with a melon-shaped body, which he developed in prima, alto, tenor, and bass sizes. * reviving the

gusli The ''gusli'' (, , , ''husla'') is the oldest East Slavic multi-string plucked instrument, belonging to the zither family, due to its strings being parallel to its resonance board. Its roots lie in Veliky Novgorod in the Novgorodian Republic. ...

, an autoharp chorded with piano-type keys. * arranging many traditional Russian folk songs and melodies for the orchestra * composing many tunes of his own.

Biography

Vasily Andreyev was born in

Tver Governorate Tver Governorate () was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Russian SFSR, which existed from 1796 until 1929. Its seat was in Tver. The governorate was lo ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

to the family of an

honorary citizen Honorary citizenship is a status bestowed by a city or other government on a foreign or native individual whom it considers to be especially admirable or otherwise worthy of the distinction. The honor usually is symbolic and does not confer an ...

of Bezhetsk and merchant of the first guild, Vasily Andeyevich Andreyev and his wife, the noblewoman Sophia Mikhaylovna Andreyeva. When the boy was one year old, his father died. The family moved to

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 ...

, where the boy was brought up by his stepfather, Nil Seslavin. At the age of ten, Vasily began playing the

and other folk instruments. Initially, Andreyev was studying to play the violin and working as a musician in the various salons catering to European tourists to the Russian capital. On numerous occasions, he was asked about performing traditional Russian music, and he started collecting examples. He once came upon a peasant playing a balalaika and had the instrument copied. His solo performances were very popular, and a group of players developed around him. He also developed an ensemble playing different sized balalaikas that proved to be very successful. Ultimately, the group grew into a full orchestra. In 1887 Andreyev was inspired by Ginislao Paris' mandolin orchestra. Paris' orchestra was the first mandolin orchestra in Russia, and, similarly, Andreyev put together the first orchestra based on Russian instruments. The popularity of Andreyev's group grew significantly after their performance in Paris, France at the world Exhibition, where they became celebrities.

The Great Russian Orchestra

In 1881 Andreyev organized his ''

Great Russia Great Russia, sometimes Great Rus' ( , ; , ; , ), is a name formerly applied to the territories of "Russia proper", the land that formed the core of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and later the Tsardom of Russia. This was the land to which the e ...

n orchestra'' that included string instruments: four types of

s, six types of balalaika,

woodwind instruments Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and Ree ...

zhaleika The ''zhaleika'' (), also known as bryolka (''брёлка''), is a Slavic wind instrument, most used in Belarusian, Russian and sometimes Ukrainian ethnic music. Also known as a "folk clarinet" or hornpipe. The zhaleika was eventually incor ...

percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

s: makras (a sort of

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

buben The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

s. Many instruments were heavily customized to work in an orchestra setting. In a few years, the orchestra became famous, generating thousands of followers as well as causing an explosion of balalaika compositions.

Criticism

Still many members of the

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

criticized the orchestra and its instruments for being not Russian (as the name implies) but Turkish. More recently, Iurii Boiko pointed out in 1984 that the orchestra's technique of playing a melody in the form of a sustained tremolo on one stringmuch copied and widely thought of as "Russian" in style (witness

Maurice Jarre Maurice-Alexis Jarre (; 13 September 1924 – 28 March 2009) allmusic Biography/ref> was a French composer and conductor. Jarre is best known for his film scores, particularly for his collaborations with film director David Lean composing all of ...

's film score for

David Lean Sir David Lean (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor, widely considered one of the most important figures of Cinema of the United Kingdom, British cinema. He directed the large-scale epi ...

's '' Doctor Zhivago'')is in fact not a Russian manner of playing at all; rather, it was a technique borrowed by Andreyev from the Neapolitan mandolin orchestra.cited by Olson (2004), p.17 This new form of folk music gained international popularity after Andreyev's many concert tours in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

between 1900 and 1910.

Notes and references

External links

Государственный академический русский оркестр им. В.В.Андреева
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Andreyev, Vassily Vassilievich 1861 births 1918 deaths People from Bezhetsk People from Bezhetsky Uyezd Musicians from the Russian Empire Balalaika players Members of the Russian Assembly Russian inventors Inventors from the Russian Empire Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 3rd class Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques Burials at Tikhvin Cemetery