Two Guitars ("Две гитары") is a Russian Gypsy Folk song. Lyrics by Apollon Grigoriev, music by Ivan Vasiliev. Deanna Durbin sang it in the 1943 movie "His Butler's Sister".
The great Charles Aznavour now performs a lively and thrilling song called "Two Guitars," also known in French as "les Deux Guitares." A totally stupendous song! This is more than music; it is théâtre, dance, drama, and poetry! From Aznavour's Carnegie Hall concert.
Two Guitars (Russian song "Dve Gitari") by Ivan Vasiliev.
In Russia -- like anywhere else -- there was a mixed attitude toward Gypsies. On the one hand, they were feared and suspected: men were famous horse thieves; women were fortunetellers, which was always considered close to witchcraft. On the other hand, they were romanticized and even envied -- for their carefree lifestyle, their independence, their free love, their temperament; and, of course, for their musicality.
In the 19th century, there was a very common expression in Russia: "to carouse with the Gypsies". Every good restaurant boasted a band of Gypsy singers and dancers, and almost daily, nobleman and gentries went to carouse with the Gypsies...
The most famous Gypsy ensemble was the choir of Ivan Vasiliev. One time, his friend, the poet Apollon Grigoriev, heard the choir and was so taken by the singing and the guitar accompaniment, that he wrote a poem about it. He called the poem "Two Guitars". This is a very strange poem: it talks of carousing with the Gypsies, of week-long drinking bouts, of the inevitable hangovers... At the same time, Grigoriev discusses the music almost as a musicologist: "the melody in d-minor, the base movements, the intervals of fifths"...
When the poet finished the text, he showed it to his friend Vasiliev, the choir director. And what of Valisiev? He did what every good musician would do: he composed a lively melody to go along with the lyrics. And so the song "Two Guitars" was born!
two guitars by Helmut Lotti
Oh, when I hold my heart before you
I remember who I am
Speaking truth and nothing more
you go beyond woman beyond man
A single kiss healing a lifetime
A moment like this holding the lifeline
The love in our hearts is the power that moves the stars
two voices rising
two guitars
We are all voices in an unknown singer's song
Each one unfolding with a logic all its own
Harmonies blending that no human mind can hear
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
All of them rising to the unknown listener's ear
Oh, when the light inside me flickers
in these winds I can't control
know the strength of my intention
know the beauty of the goal
A single kiss healing a lifetime
a moment like this holding the lifeline
The love in our hearts is the power that moves the stars
Two voices rising
two guitars
Two Guitars (Две гитары) is a popular Russian Gypsy folk-song composed by Ivan Vasiliev with lyrics by Apollon Grigoriev. It appears in the 1943 comedy movie His Butler's Sister where it was sung by Deanna Durbin.
Ivan Vasiliev (1810 - 1870) was choir director of a famous nineteenth-century Gypsy ensemble in Russia. After hearing the ensemble play, the poet Apollon Grigoriev (1822 - 1864) was inspired to write a poem, which he named Two Guitars, and for which Vasiliev was inspired to compose a lively melody.
