Mikhail Timofeyevich Vysotsky (Russian: Михаил Тимофеевич Высотский) was born in 1791 in the village of Ochakovo, near Moscow, on the estate of the writer Mikhail Kheraskov. Vysotsky was born a serf, as were his parents, though Kheraskov also served as his godfather, from whom he received his given name. Following Kheraskov’s death in 1807, Vysotsky was freed; in 1813 he settled in Moscow, where he remained for the rest of his life.
In Moscow, Vysotsky studied guitar under Semyon Nikolaevich Aksyonov and quickly developed into a virtuoso player of the seven-string Russian guitar. His concerts attracted a circle of Moscow intellectuals, including the poets Mikhail Lermontov and Alexander Polezhayev; Lermontov dedicated to Vysotsky’s playing the poem “Zvuki” (“Sounds”), describing the suggestive power of his music. Vysotsky also taught numerous pupils, apparently including students of Moscow University, and was a friend of the Irish pianist John Field, who was active in Russia during this period.
His compositional output — 83 pieces published during his lifetime — consists predominantly of variation cycles on Russian folk melodies, typically structured as four or five variations with an introductory “prelude” and closing movement, alongside arrangements of Western composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Field, as well as — indicative of his serious artistic ambitions — attempts to transcribe fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach for the guitar. Among the better-known examples of his variation output is “Ne polé li, poluchko” (“Is It Not the Field, My Little Field”), transmitted among other places via IMSLP, as well as the “Variations on a Tyrolean Theme” — evidence that Vysotsky also incorporated non-Russian, Alpine melodic material into his variation technique. In 1836 he additionally published a “Practical and Theoretical School for the Guitar.”
Stylistically, Vysotsky is regarded as the foremost representative of the so-called “Moscow school” of the Russian seven-string guitar, standing in contrast to the “St. Petersburg school” associated with Andrei Sychra. Characteristic of his style is a “singing,” highly ornamented manner of playing modeled on contemporary Romani (“Gypsy”) musical practice — an idiom rooted in the sociable music-making of Romani ensembles in early nineteenth-century Moscow, which Vysotsky transformed into a more artful, concert-oriented variation format. Testament to his significance beyond Russia is the fact that Fernando Sor, in his “Souvenir de Russie” for two guitars, varied the same Russian folk-song theme as Vysotsky had — a rare direct point of contact between the Russian seven-string tradition and the Western European guitar repertoire of the period.
According to contemporary accounts, Vysotsky himself was barely literate, a circumstance reflected in the numerous errors and inconsistencies found in his surviving musical texts — a fact that continues to complicate the editorial treatment of his work today. He died on 16/28 December 1837 (Julian/Gregorian calendar) at the age of 47; the precise birth year of 1791 is established only through a handwritten note by his son, Nikolai Mikhailovich, on one of the surviving manuscripts.
