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Nicolai von Wilm was a composer whose work seamlessly combined the traditions of German Romanticism and Russian musical culture of the second half of the 19th century. A native of Riga, the capital of the Livonian Governorate, Peter Niсolai von Wilm was born into a family of Baltic Germans. He received his professional musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory, after which he became the Kapellmeister of Riga’s municipal theatre.
In 1858, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he became a teacher of musical disciplines at the Imperial Nicholas Orphan Institute. In 1875, von Wilm retired and moved to Germany with his wife. By that time, he had published only about two dozen works, including a string quartet, vocal pieces, and piano compositions. According to his own admission, his retirement was primarily motivated by a desire to fully dedicate himself to creative activity.
Over more than three decades of secluded life in Wiesbaden, von Wilm created over two hundred compositions, including the “Konzertstück” for harp with orchestra, a string sextet, a nonet, several cyclical chamber-instrumental works, as well as vocal and choral compositions. However, the most significant portion of Wilm’s creative legacy consists of piano music: sonatas and suites, fantasies and variations, and approximately seventy cycles of pieces for solo piano and piano duets.
A special place within Wilm’s piano cycles is occupied by two works directly connected to literature and poetry. The cycle “German Poetry in a Musical Guise” was inspired by poems by German poets. The poem titles in this cycle serve as the titles of the pieces, but the composer includes the poems themselves as an appendix to the collection, seemingly distancing himself from direct illustration. The cycle features musical portraits, landscape sketches, musical ballads, and extended genre scenes.
The piano duet cycle ”The Tale of Fair Magelone” is based on the medieval romance of the same name. The titles of the pieces correspond to key episodes of the romance, and certain segments serve as musical illustrations of the events. The music vividly depicts scenes from the narrative and conveys the subtle emotional nuances of the main characters.
A significant part of Wilm’s piano legacy consists of free arrangements of folk songs. His repertoire includes several notebooks of transcriptions of Russian songs and popular romances for piano and piano duets, distinguished by their diversity and the elegance of their textures.
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Николай фон Вильм
Poetry
Поэзия