Iulii Nikolaevich Melgunov
Mel’gunov, Iulii Nikolaevich
Born Aug. 30 (Sept. 11), 1846, in Vetluga, present-day Gorky Oblast; died Mar. 19 (31), 1893, in Moscow. Russian pianist, musicologist, and folklorist.
Mel’gunov’s collection Russian Songs, Written Down Directly From the Singing of the People (issues 1-2, 1879-85) was the first attempt to reproduce the polyphonic setting of the Russian folk song. Mel’gunov advanced the idea that structurally, the Russian choral peasant song consists of independent contrapuntal parts. With the German philologist R. Westphal, he published ten of J. S. Bach’s fugues in a special rhythmic edition, for which he wrote a preface entitled “On the Rhythmic Execution of Bach’s Fugues.”