According to many sources, the Italian melody of the Renaissance era served as the musical basis for the legendary song of the Aquarium group. We checked whether this is really so.

There are few people in the post -Soviet space unfamiliar this motive. On the song, which was widely known after the release of the film "Assa" (1987), several generations have grown. Thousands of teenagers learned the uncomplicated melody of the “Golden Cities”, and in 1999 the composition took third place in the list "The hundred best songs of Russian rock in the XX century" According to our radio. The Italian composer Francesco Kanova da Milano (1497–1543) is mentioned as the author of her melody not only on numerous Musical sitesbut also on the envelope First vinyl edition Songs (under the name "City") on the album "Ten arrows". The author of the words is the Russian poet and translator Henri Volokhonsky. This concert was compiled back in 1986, but until 1992 he had the status of only a cassette samizdat.

However, do not look for the history of the birth of a song in the biography of Boris Grebenshchikov. The fact is that he was not the first performer of the "city of Golden". The musician heard the composition in the early 80s in the play “Sid” of the theater studio Eric Goroshevsky. Later, BG recalled: "For five minutes I adopted how it is played - I have never heard better songs in Russian." Grebenshchikov unsuccessfully tried to find out from the director the names of the authors of the masterpiece. Years have gone to this, the song had already managed to enter the repertoire of the Aquarium, and only in the late 80s the names of two emigrants reached Grebenshchikov: Barda Alexei Khvostenko and the poet Henri Volokhonsky.

It was Khvostenko that was the first to perform the song in the first half of the 70s. And if Grebenshchikov could not be contacted with Volokhonsky, who moved to Germany, then he met in Paris in 1991. The musicians immediately became friends, although it all started with a hot controversy. “I, without hearing, sang“ under the sky of blue, ”and“ over the blue heaven ”. The fundamental theological difference that we then, in Paris, argued at the fourth hour of the morning. We compared our versions ” - I remembered Boris Grebenshchikov. The issue of plagiarism was not even discussed.

As for Henri Volokhonsky, he was indeed the author of poems for the song, and this confirmed the vast investigationPublished by Zeve Gisele in 2005. Here's what Volokhonsky told Geisel on the phone:

“I heard ... a record where it was written that it was the music of Francesco di Milano. He walked and purred. I was then in a suppressed mood, since Khvostenko, with whom we wrote a lot of songs, went to Moscow, and I stayed in St. Petersburg. With the thoughts "How will I write songs now?" I walked around Peter and went to the workshop of my friend Aksel and wrote this text in 15 minutes. It was in November-December 1972. "

By Axel, the Leningrad artist Boris Axelrod was meant here, who then ordered the mosaic panel “sky” for the Tauride Garden. Unfortunately, the panel remained unfinished, but, according to the memoirs of eyewitnesses, on its blue background could be seen various animals (hence the fundamental “over the sky” in the original text of the song). Therefore, the poem is called "Paradise".

However, we are more interested in the same plate that Volokhonsky is talking about. It was called “Lutnet Music of the XVI - XVII centuries” and withstood, starting in 1970, several publications. Here are some of them:

The cover does not tell us little about, but the back side of the envelope and the plate itself are quite informative:

So, the work of the Italian, which was heard by Henri Volokhonsky, was called "Suite for the lute: chancers and dance", and a certain Vladimir Vavilov performed it. Here is just one snag: in the work and Milano, such a genre as the Chanconea is completely absent. There is no this word neither in lists His works, neither in the associated authoritative articles on the Internet. For some reason, it arises only in Russian-speaking sources, and most of them are associated with the song “Golden City”. And from the whole heritage and Milano only "Fantasy No. 30" It has a very distant resemblance to the start of the song.

As Zeev Geisel found out, immediately after the exit, the record caused indignation among Soviet musicologists who could not find these works in the work of these composers (and among them). However, they did not have evidence of the opposite either, and the main performer Vladimir Fedorovich Vavilov then evaded comments. Unfortunately, during the investigation it was simply impossible to get these comments - a prominent Leningrad luteist and guitarist died in 1973 at the age of 47 from cancer.

The first really useful information about Vavilov was reported by his colleague Jadwiga Kovalevskaya: “Volodya Vavilov? Of course, I remember him very well. And the melodies that he composed ... and this one, which he pretended for Francesco and Milano. " Her words were confirmed by another honored guitarist Abram Brushtein: "Yes, I knew this personally from Vavilov: he himself wrote music on this record." The latter helped Geisel contact the daughter of Vladimir Vavilov Tamara. She put an end to the investigation: “Father was sure that the works of an unknown self -taught self -taught with a banal name“ Vavilov ”would never be published. But he really wanted his music to become known. It was much more important to him than the fame of his surname ... "

As a result, it turned out that from what got on the record, only the famous melody “Green sleeves” (attributed, by the way, Henry VIII itself) and "Spanioletta" They were created not by Vladimir Vavilov. Moreover, not one "Channel" gained fame. "Rucherkar" Allegedly, the authorship of Nikolo Nigrino, Soviet central television used in many programs. A wonderful fate was waiting for “Ave Mary”, which Vavilov left on the record without the author, but then, passing the notes of the famous opera singer Irina Bogacheva, saidthat the author of the work is Julio Kachchini. And today, the best voices of the planets continue to perform this masterpiece, and in the credits often The name of Kacchini is indicated. In music schools, students study “Nisidler” and “Galilee”, not knowing that all this music was written by a wonderful and not completely conceited composer with a tragic fate Vladimir Fedorovich Vavilov.