כדי לשחזר את השיר בשפה המקורית אם אינו מופיע לאחר לחיצה על שם השיר המסומן כאן בקוו תחתון או כדי למצוא גירסות נוספות העתיקו/הדביקו את שם השיר בשפת המקור מדף זה לאתר YOUTUBE
To restore the song in the original language if it does not appear after clicking on the name of the song marked here with a bottom line or to find additional versions Copy/Paste the song name in the original language from this page to the YOUTUBE website
התרגומים לאנגלית נעשו באמצעות המנוע "מתרגם גוגל" והתרגום הועתק לאתר בצורתו המקורית ללא עריכה נוספת
The English translations were done using the "Google Translate" engine and the translations were copied to the site in their original form without further editing.
ONLY ONCE...Music by Boris Fomin Words by Pavel Herman. The romance was written in 1924. Boris Ivanovich Fomin (1900, St. Petersburg-1948, Moscow) Pavel Davidovich German (1894, Kamianets-Podilskyi-1952, Moscow).
Boris Ivanovich Fomin (12 April 1900, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire-25 October 1948, Moscow, USSR) was a Soviet musician and composer who specialized in the Russian romance. Several of Fomin's songs became popular in 1920s, most notably "Dorogoj dlinnoju" (By the long road), commonly known for its English version "Those Were the Days", made world-famous in 1968 by Mary Hopkin and credited to Eugene Raskin who in 1962 wrote the English lyrics for the tune and claimed the song for his own. It was composed by Boris Fomin in 1924, first interpreted and recorded by Tamara Tsereteli (1925) and Alexander Vertinsky (1926); it was the latter who popularized it abroad.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS. July 24, 2006. I recently acquired Richard Stites’ Russian popular culture: Entertainment and society since 1900 and am working my way happily through the first chapter, “In old Russia 1900-1917.” I was reading about the superstar Alexander Vertinsky, the “Russian Pierrot” (bio in Russian), when I was thunderstruck by the offhand parenthesis in this sentence: “His rendition of ‘Endless Road’ (‘Dorogoi dlinnoyu,’ known in English as ‘Those Were the Days’) is one of the classics of his repertoire.” “Those Were the Days” is a Russian song?! Turns out that indeed it is. (This page has the text in Russian and English.) It was written by the composer Boris Fomin (stress on the final syllable of each name) in collaboration with the forgotten poet Konstantin Podrevsky circa 1917, and according to this Russian page on the history of the song: [Vertinsky’s] first benefit performance (of whose program “Endless Road” could have been a part) took place October 25, 1917. In the newspapers of those days announcements and notices of the Vertinsky benefit are cheek by jowl with reports about revolutionary bandits seizing the telephone, telegraph, and Winter Palace. But it’s not surprising that on the day of the coup it was not that song that called forth an ovation but “To, chto ya dolzhen skazat" [What I must say] (“I don’t know why, or who needed it, who sent them to death with an untrembling hand…”). But it was around then that “Endless road” became one of the biggest “hits” in Russia (unfortunately, then as now there were no Russian hit parades, and it’s impossible to verify the fact). So the song, which for members of my generation calls up that magical year 1968, for an earlier Russian generation brought World War One and the Revolution to mind. Nostalgia is what it used to be, but its objects keep changing. Jonathan’s Boring But Useful Site (not boring at all!) makes this point: “Consider how much cash has been made from the 1960s hit Those were the days my friend (Mary Hopkin, 1968), and then ask yourself how much of it found its way to the family of Boris Fomin 1900-1948 who wrote the song on which it was based (called Дорогой длинною, with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevskii).” Jonathan also mentions a recording by Vertinsky, but the link is to a defunct webpage; anybody have a working one? I’d love to hear the voice that first made the song a hit.
HISTORY OF ROMANCE "ONLY ONE MEETING IN A LIFETIME" Feb. 9th, 2014 at 7:51 AM Author - Bakhyt_Svetlana . This is a quote from this post. The history of the romance “Only once in a life there are meetings” I am quoting two chapters from the book by E. and V. Ukolov, which tell the story of the romance “Meetings Only Once in a Lifetime. One of these houses, where Fomin disappeared for many evenings, belonged to a prominent lawyer, friend and classmate of his father at the university - Sergei Nebolsin. It was a representative of the aristocratic bar. His large family, after moving to Moscow, settled at the end of the Arbat, in the house on the site of which the Foreign Ministry building now stands, at 57/26. His wife was at one time a gypsy dancer and singer from the Masalsky family - also a kind of gypsy aristocracy. At the age of 13, she already performed in the choir of Alexei Masalsky, then with Nikolai Ivanovich Shishkin. Their concerts were held in the capital's pleasure gardens, restaurants and theaters. In 1889, she participated in the gypsy operetta The Gypsy Baron with Dmitry Shishkin. And a year later she was a witness and participant in the St. Petersburg debut of Varia Panina with the Grokhovsky Choir at the Maly Theater, on Fontanka. Of the romances, her signature numbers were "Don't go on the ice", "Sweetie", "Dandy", "Loved blue eyes." By the age of 16, thanks to her beauty, she began to be promoted to prima donnas, in posters her name was a separate line. However, the singing age of gypsy beauties, as a rule, is short-lived. At the age of 16, a young lawyer Sergei Nebolsin looked after her and bought her out of the choir. Now she could only sing for her husband and guests. She sang and played the guitar wonderfully. The real experience of working in a gypsy choir had an effect. And how many interesting things she could tell about the idols of the old Russian stage! Boris Fomin always listened to her with admiration. However, the singing age of gypsy beauties, as a rule, is short-lived. At the age of 16, a young lawyer Sergei Nebolsin looked after her and bought her out of the choir. Now she could only sing for her husband and guests. She sang and played the guitar wonderfully. The real experience of working in a gypsy choir had an effect. And how many interesting things she could tell about the idols of the old Russian stage! Boris Fomin always listened to her with admiration. However, the singing age of gypsy beauties, as a rule, is short-lived. At the age of 16, a young lawyer Sergei Nebolsin looked after her and bought her out of the choir. Now she could only sing for her husband and guests. She sang and played the guitar wonderfully. The real experience of working in a gypsy choir had an effect. And how many interesting things she could tell about the idols of the old Russian stage! Boris Fomin always listened to her with admiration. She was Boris's godmother, and Nebolsin himself baptized his younger sister Olga. The Nebolsins had five sons, with whom Boris was friends. But most of all Fomin was interested in their only daughter in this house - the beautiful Manya, or, as she was called, Moreau. She also sang beautifully, had outstanding musicality and temperament, and, of course, dreamed of becoming an artist. Fomin dedicated one of his first lyrical compositions to her. To his future wife, Maria Sergeevna Nebolsina: “I dedicate it with a feeling of deep love,” he frankly wrote on the notes. But Fomin did not indicate his poetic authorship on the notes, since composing both words and music was considered a sure sign of dilettantism. The romance was called "Three Little Roses". More precisely, it was not so much a romance as an intimate song, inspired by the delights and anxieties of first love. The song turned out to be so pretty that it quickly left the circle of family music-making on the stage, into the repertoire of the then-famous singer Veronica La Touche. ONLY TIME.
The more serious and dramatic his relationship with Manya developed, the closer the genre of Russian old romance became to him. After all, only in it he could now sincerely pour out his languishing soul. It is not surprising that at the time of grooming, Fomin composed his most famous romance, which brought him real world fame. It was called "Only Once". Once he stayed up late on the Arbat near the Nebolsins. Manya sang, Maria Fedorovna sang. I had to return home well after midnight. The path to Chistye Prudy was long and unsafe. In addition to the usual thieves and hooligans. In Moscow, the so-called "jumpers" raged. From one of their kind, one could die with fear. In masks and white sheets, on special springy attachments to shoes, with a luminous skull on a huge stick, they literally flew around Moscow at night like ghosts, caught passers-by and robbed them. It was impossible to run away from them - they rushed through the streets with such leaps and bounds. However, in love, the sea is knee-deep. Our hero was all immersed in feelings, his soul bathed in the sweetest music that he had just heard. A lot of tunes swarmed in my head, the romance “You Forgot” especially tore the soul. Overflowing with emotions and impressions, he was walking through Moscow at night and suddenly heard in his soul an unknown melody, which, as it were, absorbed all his feelings. Approaching the door of his apartment, Boris softly, with his finger, knocked. He knew that his mother was awake and patiently waiting for him, listening to the slightest rustle. Evgenia Ioannovna always protected her children from the exorbitant severity of her father. Boris went to bed. But an unfamiliar melody woke him up. Tensely turning around, she was overgrown with words and phrases and imperiously asked to come out. Boris jumped up, turned on the light, sat down at the piano. He began to play softly. And only when he finally sketched a melody on paper, she let go of him and he was able to take a nap. Early in the morning he ran to his new acquaintance, the poet Pavel Herman. Already on the way, he noticed that he was singing this melody with the words of a Germanic romance set to music by I. Kagan: Day and night, the heart drops caress, Day and night, the head is spinning. The words surprisingly coincided with his, Fomin's music, as if they were born together. But it was necessary to ask the poet for a new text. It will still turn out to be somehow ... Pavel German did not begin to compose new poems for Fomin, but gave the go-ahead for the use of words that had already been combined with music. So the Fominsky romance "Only once" forever supplanted its predecessor. By the way, the music of I. Kagan was not bad at all. And so that she would not disappear, the composer ordered new words for her from the famous songwriter B. Timofeev. With these new words, she lived on the stage for more than one year, although her success was incommensurable with the success of Fominsky's masterpiece. Interestingly, Herman also composed these poems at night, while in Kyiv, on October 19, 1923. The first, raw version of the poem looked like this: Only once does the heart drop caress, Only once does the head turn gray, Only once did the words seem like a bizarre fairy tale to us. Only once in life there are meetings, Only once on a cold clear evening We so want to love. The ray of a forgotten sunset goes out, Flowers are fanned blue. Where are you, once desired, Where are you, who gave dreams? Only once in life there are meetings, Only once the thread is torn by fate, Only once in life we are destined to suffer, Believe, wish and wait. But already in I. Kagan's romance, the verses were improved and acquired the form that is familiar to us from Fomin's romance. Soon Fomin carried his fresh work to Stoleshnikov Lane to Isabella Yuryeva. Here is how she recalled it: “In the first years of my artistic activity, the composer Boris Fomin somehow came to my house. He introduced himself and brought me romance. He sat down at the piano and played. Very lyrical, beautiful romance "Only once in a life there are meetings." I really liked it, because I myself love the lyrics. And when I sang it, it was a huge success. The romance became so popular that Fomin began to bring me his other things: “Sing, gypsies”, “Everything is ahead”, “Sasha” ... On the author’s copy, Boris Ivanovich usually signed me: “I allow the legendary Isabella Yuryeva to perform the first performance.” It is a pity that these notes were not preserved. How talented he was! Whatever the song is a pearl. Hounded, ruined such a talent. How many more songs and romances he could create. He wrote from the heart! For the first time, the romance sounded in the Hermitage Garden. Isabella Yuryeva was accompanied by Dmitry Pokrass. And the modest author with his beloved was hiding in the public, waiting in trepidation for the verdict. But the success exceeded all expectations. A thunder of applause forced Fomin to step onto the stage. Thus began, according to Isabella Danilovna, real glory, which quickly went beyond the borders of Russia and which everyone could envy. Handing over the manuscript for printing, Fomin gratefully dedicated the romance ... no, not to Isabella Yuryeva, but to his future mother-in-law and direct inspiration, Maria Fedorovna Nebolsina-Masalskaya. In the same 1924, the romance went out of print, but thousands of copies, which had to be repeated later, could not satisfy the demand. That's how popular he was. It was sung not only by almost all performers of old romances, it was sung by all of Russia. Entered into urban folklore, having lost the names of the authors, the romance of Herman and Fomin began to be attributed to Yesenin. And the music? - Folk music. Nevertheless, the fate of the romance was extremely dramatic. While he conquered countries and continents, brought nostalgic warmth to the life of the Russian emigration, adorned the repertoire of Y. Morfessi, A. Vertinsky and other numerous emigrant singers, the guardians of Soviet morality sought out the features of the ideological inconsistency of the romance. How will this product fit into the life of the Soviets, how will it serve the harsh cause of the revolution? And in the end they came to the conclusion that nothing could be more harmful than this romance. Firstly, these hot lines about love are very untimely. Secondly, the feeling expressed in them is very individual. Soviet people must be all as one and one as everyone else. Is this atmosphere of sadness compatible with revolution? Thirdly, Why do we only meet once in a lifetime? Isn't that too pessimistic and categorical? And now, under fire from criticism, the singers compromise: “And more than once there are meetings in life”, “Many times”, “No, more than once”. The main idea of the romance, the idea of the uniqueness, the originality of love experiences, was so grossly distorted. But the singers went for it, because it was difficult to refuse such a repertoire "nail". However, these amendments did not help. Five years after its creation, the romance was strictly forbidden to be performed. It is curious that just in those years there were popular discussions about what love is and whether it is appropriate in the era of socialist construction. The authority of centuries did not at all protect it from analysis from the positions of the latest physiology, Freudianism, Bechterev's reflexology. The whole ritual of courtship and its design by means of music and poetry was proposed to be discarded in the name of common sense and advanced science. Long live a healthy physiological feeling! One of the art magazines demanded: “How long will the working audience listen to sweet melodies about love? Understand, finally, that this is hopelessly old, unnecessary, harmful, finally. Give me something new, modern!” At the same time, the confidence grew stronger and stronger that love for the party and its leaders, for the authorities and law enforcement agencies, love for work and the team - all these feelings are much higher. It was they who gradually began to seize the sphere of mass song. The romance “And the heart is drawn to the party” was only the first sign. And it cannot be said that thousands of such swallows do not leave their mark in the hearts. While Fomin's romance humanized the hearts of prudent Americans and sober Europeans with its emotional flood, while the Japanese and Chinese listened to his music, Africans and Latin Americans blissed in its sounds, the romance was silent on the Russian stage for 30 years. Thank God, he sounded among the not very arranged new life, in compacted apartments and communal apartments, corresponded in albums and notebooks. Fomin, who generously shared in him an excess of his own spiritual strength, could hardly have foreseen such a vitality of his work. The solemn, courageous melody of the romance transformed and uplifted the soul. Romance not only aroused love feelings, it lifted a person from his knees, he helped to throw off the shackles from the soul. Neither time nor bureaucratic decrees turned out to be in control of this romance. Lucky loser / Avt.-stat. E.L. Ukolova, BC Injections. - M.: MAI Publishing House, 2000. - 208 p. Day and night, the heart drops caress, Day and night, the head is spinning, Day and night, like an excited fairy tale Your words sound to me. Chorus: Only once there are meetings in life, Only once the thread is torn by fate, Only once on a cold winter evening I so want to love! The ray of the forgotten sunset is melting, Flowers are shrouded in blue. Where are you, once desired, Where are you, awakening dreams in me? ttp://my.mail.ru/community/leakey/5726396E0294B007.html
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