Konstantin Vilboa

Konstantin Petrovich Villebois (Вильбоа Константин Петрович) (1817–1882) was a Russian composer.^[1]

The name Villebois (transliterated sometimes as Vilboa) is of French origin (Villebois). Vilboa was an autodidact who never received any musical education. He became a friend of Glinka around 1850.

Vilboa wrote nearly 200 popular songs such as the duet "The seafarers" ("unfriendly is our sea.." - "Нелюдимо наше море..") recorded by Maxim Mikhailov. These songs remained popular, for instance being sung at home by Shostakovich's engineer father.^[2] Vilboa's song collection 100 Russian National Songs (Сто русских народных песен Saint Petersburg 1860) was an anthology of melodies collected by playwright Alexander Ostrovsky on a River Volga steamer in 1856. This collection was used by, among other composers, Rimsky-Korsakov in his By the gate a pine tree was swaying and other songs.

Vilboa wrote three operas, but only one, Natasha, was staged in St. Petersburg, and left the repertoire after a few weeks.