Page 6 - Bilingual Mirvis Family Songs

About The Composer
”It Is the Melody which is the Charm of Music, and it is that which is most difficult to produce”.
Joseph Haydn.

A choice in priorities between serious studies and activities in math, music and poetry was
always a case in Eugene Mirvis life and development. Professionally, he proceeded as a computational
scientist in numerical modeling, but writing music and poetry have been and still takes very important
part in his life. The history of music knows figures like a marine captain, a chemist, etc. not to mention
other members of “The Mighty Handful” who had other occupations besides music.

The Russian bards’ movement started in the 60s-70s is another example and a way that
composing is not necessarily a profession but an ability to “create” melodies and craft poetry. The list
will be incomplete without Irvin Berlin, the father of American pop and Broadway music.

However, Eugene’s composing and poetry is different from the mentioned above. He studied
piano and music theory, literature and art history for many years from the famous music and literature
pedagogues in Moscow. He started to make poetry and composing very early, then, as a teenager, he
learned guitar and began to compose songs. Early versions of “Macavity”, “To the Cuckoo” and “The
Camel Hump” come from that period, to name a few. He continues to compose and has written more
than 70 songs, many to his own lyrics. Other compositions include pieces for two guitars, and for the
guitar and the keyboard.

When Vladimir Frumkin, noted musicologist, music critic, publicist and one of the establisher
of the Author’s Songs Movement, received several of Eugene songs, he said the following:

“… This is my impression of your song samples: You don’t sound like majority of
contemporary Russian song-writers. Your melodic style is very different: it is free from banalities of
pop-music or sentimental cliché. It is either elevated Russian romance (close to the style of Sergey
Nikitin), or, (surprisingly!) echoes of songs of F. Schubert…”

The Haydn’s concept of “fine melody” has undergone many revisions since classical times, but
the audiences, young and mature, continue to enjoy clearly contoured, memorable, tuneful music.
Eugene’s song and his instrumental melodies are trying to following these principles.

Acknowledgements From The Author
Firstly, I’d like to express my deep appreciation to Asya Mirvis, who is the greatest supporter,
allay, editor, music and general critic, arranger and the a co-author of a numerous write-ups in this
book. Without her multi-decade trust, energy, enthusiasm, hard work, musical knowledge,
accompaniment skills and teaching experience this book would not be possible. I am happy that she
values my songs so much. I’d like also hearty thank for the help to all generations of Mirvis family and
our friends who gave us invaluable advices on the publishing material and feedback on performance
and recording.

One of the most important results of our current efforts is a structuring of the family songs in
this series around the core values that can be extended to follow. I will say more - if we had such
systematization and these 16 songs in two languages side by side 25 years ago, we would probably
have even better understanding between generations. So, is it our subjective the Mirvises’ experience?
Perhaps. But I hope that this collection will be used, extended and other families can benefit from our
songs too.

Introduction 3
Not for public release