Moscow Nights

In 1955, at the Moscow documentary film studio, they began to mount the picture "During the days of the sports day" - about the sports day of the peoples of the RSFSR . In order to diversify the film, it was decided to insert a lyrical song into it ^[1] .

The order was given to a creative duet - the poet Mikhail Matusovsky and composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedom. The call caught the authors at the cottage in Komarov . It was hot, the authors did not want to write, moreover, they understood that the film was a passage. But I didn’t want to get past the money ^[1] .

Then Solovyov-Sedoy rummaged through the drawers of the table and took out a sheet with a melody written two years earlier, inspired by a quiet summer Leningrad evening, peace, proximity of a loved one. However, the composer then considered it unsuccessful, and therefore postponed it. Mikhail Matusovsky sketched the words. So the song “Leningrad evenings” appeared. According to the authors of the film, the song was supposed to sound against the background of shots near Moscow , where athletes rest at the sports base, gaining strength before crucial starts, and Matusovsky made “Leningrad” evenings “Moscow Region”. The melody was also slightly changed, after which the authors went with a song to Moscow ^[1] .

The artistic advice of the film studio accepted the song with hostility: the words seemed boring, and the music was not very expressive. As the widow of the poet Yevgeny Matusovskaya later recalled, upset authors came out after the discussion, and Solovyov-Sedoy said: “Mikhey, they are probably right. We will consider that this is our failure. ” Nevertheless, the song was accepted - solely for the reason that no one had time to write another ^[1] .

To perform "Moscow Nights" was offered to the then most popular singer Mark Bernes . The music seemed “nothing” to him, and about the words he said this: “Well, and what is this song that is heard and not heard? And what kind of river is it moving or not moving? ” And after reading the words “well, dear, you are squinting, bowing your head low”, he burst out laughing and said: “Guys, I would be numb from this look of a girl, just like your hero” ^[1] .

Found another singer. The authors did not like his performance. As a result, the song was performed not by a professional singer, but by the actor of the Moscow Art Theater Vladimir Troshin .

The film, where the song sounded only as a background, as expected, had no popularity, but the phonogram with the song was once played on the radio. After that, the postmen began to bring bundles of letters to the Radio Committee: please repeat again the song about the river, which moves and does not move, and all of moonlight silver. The song was repeated. The number of bales with letters doubled, then tripled ^[1] .

In 1957, the song "Moscow Nights" performed by Vladimir Troshin became the solemn song of the Moscow Festival of Youth and Students . A complete surprise for Solovyov-Sedoy was the awarding of the First Prize and the Big Gold Medal of the festival for "Moscow Nights".

In 1963, the World Congress of Women was held in Moscow; records for the song were released for this event in English (“Evenings In The Moscow Woodlands”, English text: T. Botting) ^[2] and French (“Soirees De Moscou”, translation M. Rygalov) ^[3] languages. Performed both versions by George Ots . (The records also contained French and English versions of the song “ I Love You, Life! ” Performed by I. Kobzon .)

In 1964, Anatoly Solovyanenko performed “Moscow Nights” (translated by “Le serate a Mosca”) in the Italian song contest “Napoli contro tutti”.

In 1965, the cartoon “ The Song Flies the World ” (director Anatoly Karanovich ) was shot based on the song.

Also, the first bars of the melody are used as the callsigns of Radio “Lighthouse” . Also, over the course of a century, every hour of the air of the Voice of Russia radio station ended with a melody in English ^[4] .

The beginning of the melody of the song “Moscow Nights” sounds during the chase of archers for Georges Miloslavsky and I. V. Bunsha (The film “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes the Profession” ).

Many arrangements of the song were made in various genres. One of the most famous is the jazz version of Kenny Ball 's Midnight in Moscow (1961) ^[5] .

In 1997, the musical film "10 Songs about Moscow", invented by Leonid Parfyonov and consisting of ten clips, dedicated to the 850th anniversary of the capital, in which the premiere of Valery Meladze 's clip for the song "Moscow Evenings" was premiered, was released.

In a telecast of the 2000s, ^{[ which one? ]} dedicated to the anniversary of the long-term head of Soviet composers Tikhon Khrennikov, the latter said: “He (Solovyov-Sedoy) overtook me. We both went to this melody, to this song, in six months or a year I would write this song. ” According to the culturologist S. Borisov, this phrase indicates the presence in the melody of the song “Moscow Evenings” not of subjective-personal features of the artistic world of Solovyov-Sedy, but of some difficult-to-find sound combination that has an objective pan-European musical meaning and which can, in principle, be calculated, revealed (as philosopher's stone) by any Russian composer.

In the edition dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Fireball album of the rock band Deep Purple , the tune of Moscow Evenings sounds (authors: Sedoi / VPSoloviev ) ^[6] .

In the album of the German band UDO Holy in the song “Shout it Out”, the melody of this song sounds as a solo .

In the computer game Metro 2033 at the stations controlled by the communists, the motives of this melody are performed by the musical collective Anthesteria .

On the album " Optimism " in 1985, the Civil Defense group, in the song "Maple Leaf" sound solo melodies from this song .

The song was covered in many languages ​​- Italian ("Le serate a Mosca", "Mezzanotte a Mosca", "Tempo di mughetti") , French (Les nuits de Moscou and Le temps du muguet) , English (Midnight in Moscow or Moscow Nights) , Spanish ("Noches de Moscú") , Swedish ("En natt i Moskva") , Hungarian ("Moszkvai esték") , Chinese (莫斯科 郊外 的 晚上 ), Japanese (モ ス ク ワ 郊外 の 夕 べ) and Finnish (Juha Suominen "Moskovan illat") , as well as in Hebrew ("לילות מוסקבה" ^{[7] [8]} ) and Vietnamese (Chiều Mátxcơva) .

The “folk character" of poetry is given by the stylization in the spirit of the Koltsov five-syllable , however, completely ignored by Solovyov-Sedym, who voiced the verse in the usual (for the song) two- meter meter .

• Elena Mikhailina . Well, dear, you look askance ... // Moskovsky Komsomolets , July 12, 2006
• Moscow Nights on YouTube
• Moscow Nights performed by the President of China (inaccessible link)
• The story of one song