Alexander Alyabyev

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Alexander Aleksandrovich Alyabyev (Александр Александрович Алябьев) (August 15, 1787, Tobolsk – March 6, 1851, Moscow) was a Russian composer. He was a very successful composer in 19th century Russia, writing some 200 romances, 7 operas, 20 musical comedies, and many choral, symphonic, chamber and piano works. Now, if he is remembered at all, it is for his romance "The Nightingale".

A participant in Patriotic War 1812, he was an officer until 1823. He was an author of vaudevilles, including Morning and Evening, and operas, including Moonlight night, or The House-spirit, first staged in 1823) and wrote choruses to a prologue Celebration of muses to open the Bolshoi Theatre (1825). In 1827 he composed a ballet Magic drum, or the Consequence of the Magic flute. His compositions also include chamber music, including two string quartets (and one further, unfinished). The overture to Morning and Evening, and some of his chamber works, have recently been recorded.

He was born into a wealthy family and began his musical education while young. In 1812 he joined the Russian army to fight against the forces of Napoleon. A keen soldier, he was given two awards for courage. He left the army in 1824 and took residence in Moscow. By 1825 he had been imprisoned in connection with the death of a man after a night of gambling. Around this time he composed his most famous piece "The Nightingale", a setting of a poem of the same name by a friend of Pushkin's. This work was immensely popular and was used by both Liszt and Glinka as a theme for piano variations. In 1728 he was exiled to Siberia and in 1843 was allowed to return to Moscow having been acquitted of the murder. He continued to compose until his death in 1851.

In 1825 he was arrested on false charges of murder, and was banished to Siberia in 1828. He moved to the Caucasus and later to the Southern Ural Mountains. From the end of the 1830s, he lived in Moscow.