The Red Sarafan is a well known Russian song that I have found a long time ago in the mandolin method by Ernesto Köhler published in 1887 by the Zimmermann publishing company.
I have looked through this method recently and thought that I should watch some videos of this song. So I found this video with a great version played by the balalaika virtuoso Dimitry Kalinin and the Academic Orchestra of Russian Folk Instruments of the Russian State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company.
A. Varlamov. – The Red Sarafan
Dmitry Kalinin, balalaika. The Academic Orchestra of Russian Folk Instruments of the Russian State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company.
From Dimitry Kalinins homepage:
Dmitry Kalinin, was born in Moscow in 1978. He began to play the balalaika at the age of 7 and now he is one of the most recognized professional balalaika performers in Russia.
Dimitry Kalinin has played the music for many films, he composes and is a conductor for several orchestras. You can find many videos of his activities in his youtube channel. In those videos you can hear typical Russian music, but also arrangements of western music like music by George Gershwin or performaces with a Japanes player of the Shamisen.
One interesting video shows Dimitry Kalinin with his Balalaika quartet playing Smoke on the Water:
Smoke on the water – Deep Purple
Dmitry Kalinin`s Balalaika quartet.
Homepage Dimitry Kalinin: http://dmitrykalinin.com/
youtube channel Dimitry Kalinin: http://www.youtube.com/user/dmitrykalinin
Another interesting version of The Red Sarafan, played by the Meteor Quartet, with two domras, a bass balalaika and a bayan (accordeon):
Meteor – eine russische Legende 08
To end with here I have a very special version of The Red Sarafan taken from an old 78 record – this version is played by three singing saws:
Der rote Sarafan – Russisches Volkslied
Telefunken – M 6021 (19823)
Der rote Sarafan (The red Sarafan)
Played on singing saw by Dr. Otto Frederich and his ensemble.Composition by Nikolaj Grigorjewitsch Ziganof (1797-1831) and Alexander Warlamoff (1801-1848)
A Sarafan (Russian: сарафан, from Persian sеrāрā) is a traditional Russian long, shapeless jumper dress (pinafore) worn as Russian folk costume by women and girls.
It was the dress worn by peasant girls and women in the central and northern part of Russia until the 20th century. Russian women from the upper and middle classes stopped wearing traditional Russian costume, apart from the kokoshniks as part a court dress in the 18th century, during Peter the Great’s modernization of Russia (although the clothing style of Russian aristocrats differed greatly from those of commoners). It is now worn as folk costume for performing Russian folk songs and folk dancing.
I have just prepared a scan of the mandolin method by Ernesto Köhler and added it to my homepage as a free download from this page: