History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800, Volume 2: The Eighteenth Century

By Nikolai Findeizen, Miloš Velimirovic, Claudia R. Jensen and Malcolm Hamrick Brown

In its scope and command of primary sources and its generosity of scholarly inquiry, Nikolai Findeizen's monumental work, published in 1928 and 1929 in Soviet Russia, places the origins and development of music in Russia within the context of Russia's cultural and social history.

Volume 2 of Findeizen's landmark study surveys music in court life during the reigns of Elizabeth I and Catherine II, music in Russian domestic and public life in the second half of the 18th century, and the variety and vitality of Russian music at the end of the 18th century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 7, 2008
• ISBN: 9780253023520

Book preview

History of Music

in Russia from

Antiquity to 1800

NIKOLAI FINDEIZEN (1868–1928).

History of Music

in Russia from

Antiquity to 1800

VOLUME 1

From Antiquity to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century

VOLUME 2

The Eighteenth Century

This work was brought to publication with the generous support of Joseph Bloch.

RUSSIAN MUSIC STUDIES

Malcolm Hamrick Brown, founding editor

History of Music

in Russia from

Antiquity to 1800

VOLUME 2

The Eighteenth Century

Nikolai Findeizen

TRANSLATION BY

Samuel William Pring

EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY

Miloš Velimirović and Claudia R. Jensen

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF

MALCOLM HAMRICK BROWN AND

DANIEL C. WAUGH

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press

601 North Morton Street

Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA

http://iupress.indiana.edu

© 2008 by Indiana University Press

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Findeizen, N. F. (Nikolai Fedorovich), 1868–1928.

[Ocherki po istorii muzyki v Rossii. English]

History of music in Russia from antiquity to 1800 / Nikolai Findeizen ; translation by Samuel William Pring ; edited and annotated by Miloš Velimirović and Claudia R. Jensen with the assistance of Malcolm Hamrick Brown and Daniel C. Waugh.

v. cm. — (Russian music studies)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: Vol. 1. From antiquity to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Introduction. The predecessors of the Slavs ; Pagan Rus’ ; Kievan Rus’ ; Novgorod the Great ; The activities of the Skomorokhi in Russia ; Music and musical instruments in Russian miniatures, woodcuts, and glossaries ; A survey of old Russian folk instruments ; Music in ancient Moscow (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) ; Music in the monastery. Chashi (toasts). Bell ringing. Sacred performances (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) ; Music in court life in the seventeenth century ; A brief survey of singers, composers, and music theorists of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries ; Music and theater in the age of Peter the Great — Vol. 2. The eighteenth century. Music and theater, 1730–1740 ; Music in court life during the reigns of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II ; Music in Russia’s domestic life during the second half of the eighteenth century ; The Russian horn band ; Music in Russian public life during the second half of the eighteenth century ; Musical creativity in Russia during the eighteenth century ; Literature about music, publishers and sellers of sheet music, instrument makers and merchants.

ISBN-13: 978-0-253-34825-8 (v. 1 : cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-253-34826-5 (v. 2 : cloth : alk. paper) 1. Music—Russia—History and criticism. I. Pring, Samuel William. II. Velimirović, Miloš. III. Jensen, Claudia Rae. IV. Title.

ML300.F413 2008

780.947—dc22

2006037057

1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09 08

Book layout and composition: Alcorn Publication Design

These volumes are dedicated, with our thanks, to Joseph Bloch and to Elizabeth (from M.V.) and to Brad, Anna, and Becky (from C.R.J.) for their support and patience throughout.

Contents

Editors’ Introduction to Volume 2

List of Abbreviations

13. Music and Theater, 1730–1740

14. Music in Court Life during the Reigns of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II

15. Music in Russia’s Domestic Life during the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century

16. The Russian Horn Band

17. Music in Russian Public Life during the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century

18. Musical Creativity in Russia during the Eighteenth Century

19. Literature about Music, Publishers and Sellers of Sheet Music, Instrument Makers and Merchants

Music Appendix

Table of Works

Glossary

Notes

Volume 2 Bibliography

Index

Editors’ Introduction to Volume 2

One of the great pleasures of this project, as we noted in the first volume of this edition, has been the depth of advice and expertise, generously and willingly shared, from which we have been able to draw. Some of the many people to whom we owe our thanks are included in volume 1 of this project, but there are a few whose names must appear in this second volume as well. The patience and much-tried good humor of the others involved in this edition, particularly Joseph Bloch, Malcolm Brown, Daniel Waugh, and Janet Rabinowitch, can only be imagined, and we are most grateful for their support, encouragement, and, most of all, their patience. The quality of this work was immeasurably enriched by several people who worked many long hours answering questions about Russian grammar and vocabulary. Elena Dubinets’s heroic work on the translation, for this volume as well as for the first volume, merits our unending thanks; we exploited beyond reason her knowledgeable advice and aid. Dan Newton and Laura Friend both gave many hours to this project, and their exacting sense of language is evident on nearly every page of this text; it was a great pleasure to work with both of them. Galina Averina generously volunteered to help with the long series of eighteenth-century kant texts in this volume, and her thoughtful solutions to these difficult passages made them come alive. Her advice and patience has been invaluable, and we thank her most sincerely. Thanks are also due to Jacqueline Smith, Carolyn Willis, and Nina Perlina, all of whom contributed to our understanding of Findeizen’s terminology and prose. We also wish to thank Deborah L. Pierce, at the Music Library of the University of Washington, and to acknowledge again the continuing support given by the Department of Slavic Languages and the School of Music. Elizabeth Sander, James West, John Gibbs, and Mikhail Shmidt also gave their expertise to this project. Finally, to George-Julius Papadopoulos, who ignored the clock and finished the Table of Works not only with great style and accuracy but with immense good humor as well, our profound thanks and appreciation; his laborious care gave this volume a reliable, accurate base from which to proceed.

There are many difficult editorial issues to contend with in this second volume of Findeizen’s work, in addition to the procedures outlined for volume 1. In this volume, names of composers and performers have, whenever possible, been rendered in their original language; thus, in as many instances as possible, we have consulted additional sources in order to find reliable spellings and have used those spellings throughout. We have frequently added first names to some of the musicians Findeizen lists, and these additions do not appear in square brackets, nor do complete titles or page numbers which have been supplied, when possible, in the notes. In certain cases we have suggested possible candidates or spellings for some of Findeizen’s musicians, and these suggestions, unverified but plausible, do appear in square brackets. Our primary sources include NG2, IRM 2 and 3, and the three volumes of Mooser’s Annales [MA]; the article on Robert-Aloys Mooser (1876–1969) in NG2 gives some sense of the scope of his accomplishments. We have consulted the online version of NG2 as of the spring of 2006. Another excellent source is the recent MP, a three-volume encyclopedia with a fourth volume that includes comparative tables listing musical events in major Western European cities along with contemporaneous performances, publications, and appearances in St. Petersburg (and Moscow). This excellent work, which is still in progress, includes many important references to archival material, and has incorporated discussions from Western musicological studies, primarily Mooser and NG (not NG2, which was published just as some of these volumes appeared).

Findeizen often gives titles of operas in Russian even if the operas were actually performed in another language. We have attempted here to render titles in the language in which they were performed, and have entered corrections to Findeizen’s titles as necessary. Translations of Russian-language operas are based whenever possible on the translations given in the excellent series of articles in NG2, written largely by Richard Taruskin; the transliteration system used in these volumes, however, is slightly different from that in NG2. (We use a strict Library of Congress transliteration in the notes and in the Table of Works, and a slightly modified transliteration in the body of the text, as explained in the preface to volume 1.) The appended Table of Works provides the most complete listing possible of compositions Findeizen mentions in this volume (although we do not include individual songs). We have generally given translations at the first appearance of a composition and thereafter simply rendered the work by its Russian title. All these editorial decisions represent an attempt to regularize Findeizen’s important data, making it accessible to Western scholars who might want to delve into this enormously fruitful and fascinating period in the history of Russian music.

The terminology Findeizen uses to describe keyboard instruments required additional important editorial decisions. This terminology was quite varied in eighteenth-century Russia, reflecting the many keyboard instruments available there and the many nationalities of the musicians who played and built them. We have been fortunate to have been able to consult Robert Karpiak, of the University of Waterloo, who has most generously contributed to this project. The Russian term klavir in the eighteenth century designated a variety of keyboard instruments; thus we have either left this term unchanged or translated it simply as keyboard. The Russian term chembalo (cembalo) seems to have designated the harpsichord fairly consistently in the eighteenth century, and we translate it either as cembalo or harpsichord. Klavesin also indicated a harpsichord or clavesin, as did klavetsimbal. Klavikord indicated a clavichord specifically, although in nonprofessional circles it may have been used to indicate a keyboard instrument in general. We translate it here as clavichord. The Russian terms fortepiano or fortep’iano are obvious cognates and are translated as such. In this way the terminology used throughout this volume replicates as closely as possible the terms Findeizen used, as well as the terms found in the many contemporary sources cited throughout. For the many eighteenth-century publications mentioned throughout the text, particularly those with non-Russian titles, we simply duplicate Findeizen’s orthography and transcriptions although they may not be entirely accurate, as the originals were unavailable.

Miloš Velimirović

Claudia R. Jensen

Abbreviations

History of Music

in Russia from

Antiquity to 1800

VOLUME 2

The Eighteenth Century

13. Music and Theater, 1730–1740

Music at court and in society under Anna Ioannovna. Italian intermedi and opera. The court orchestra. Francesco Araja and other musicians in St. Petersburg. The court singers. The first instrument makers. The musical activities of the Academy of Sciences.

Anna Ioannovna’s decade-long reign occupies a special place in the history of Russian music: musical life as we know it had not yet engaged the broader circles of society, yet it did occupy a prominent place at court. Court concerts were instituted as a regular form of musical entertainment, and European-style operatic performances were organized; during the reign of Anna’s successor, Elizabeth, these operatic performances were to lead to the establishment of a permanent opera house. Music, along with the other arts, played its role in Peter the Great’s Westernizing reforms. Peter did not care for music, but he accepted it as a means of elevating manners and customs, although he often assigned it an unenviable role in his frivolous public, masked processions. There was some artistic value in the vocal kanty, which were aimed at celebrating the achievements of Peter and his fellow warriors, whereas the realm of instrumental music was limited to fanfares and dance pieces. Under Peter’s successors, particularly at the beginning of Anna Ioannovna’s reign, music was no longer an occasional occurrence, and, along with the other arts, became an indispensable part of court life—an embellishment and a required entertainment. Henceforth one may speak of its development throughout the country, although not, of course, in the earlier spirit of the creation of folk songs. The welcoming fanfares and dance music now fade into the background, ceding their place to the theatrical and concert music which imparted a certain luster to court life and which were therefore further cultivated in that direction.

We must keep in mind that Western musical literature, which witnessed the early development of Italian and French opera and the beginning of instrumental forms, found no expression in Russian music of the late seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth centuries, despite Peter’s desire to reach European standards if only in the external forms of public life. (The concerted style transplanted onto Russian soil, which put forth abundant shoots in our vocal church music, is an exception.) With Anna Ioannovna’s accession to the throne, there began a perceptible movement favoring the introduction of more varied musical entertainments at court. Following the example set by Western capitals, real operatic performances and court concerts were instituted; this, in turn, attracted foreign musicians to Russia and soon led to an independent, although entirely imitative, musical literature. Gradually, toward the mid-eighteenth century, a court intelligentsia began to take shape. This intelligentsia raised certain artistic issues which were taken up by the emerging Russian artists, who imitated Western models. Music thus became acclimatized, adapted itself to local tastes and requirements, and gradually assimilated native Russian elements.

The earliest, rather meager information about the rise of Italian opera, by the well-known academician Jacob Stählin, has to this day been utilized almost exclusively in literature dealing with the history of music in Russia, yet it has proven to be rather incomplete and somewhat inaccurate. It has been corrected, however, and considerably supplemented by P. Pekarskii and other scholars, and also by original contemporary materials.¹

Empress Anna’s accession to the throne was greeted by Vasilii Trediakovskii (a future academician but at that time a student) with a triumphal kant he composed in Hamburg:

Da zdravstvuet dnes’ Imperatriks Anna

Na prestole sedshe uvenchanna.

Hail Empress Anna

Today crowned seated on her throne.

A special cantata in honor of the coronation was also performed in Warsaw. It was composed by Giovanni Ristori, who arrived in Moscow shortly thereafter with a company of Italian artists.²

We do not know who set Trediakovskii’s kant to music, but its formal simplicity suggests that it may have been the author himself. Contemporaries report, moreover, that on another occasion Trediakovskii performed a congratulatory song in the empress’s presence. His kant was probably sung by the court singers in 1730, the year of the coronation, since Trediakovskii returned to Russia in the fall of 1731 and published it; he undoubtedly presented it to the new ruler. The first stanza of Trediakovskii’s kant was printed with music, and the piece was subsequently included in a manuscript collection of three-part vocal kanty. This was the first musical work printed in Russia (1730).²A The music was engraved on copperplate at the Academy of Sciences Press, published as a two-part kant as shown in musical example 13.1, with the title Song composed in Hamburg for the festive celebration of the Coronation of Her Majesty Empress Anna Ioannovna, autocrator of all the Russias, made there on the 10th (according to the new calendar) of August 1730.

Beneath the score was added: By the student Vasilii Trediakovskii.³ The printed edition of Trediakovskii’s Coronation Song circulated quite rapidly, and in a three-part version it was included, for example, in the manuscript collection Psalmy dushepoleznye [Edifying psalms] (in the Buslaev collection of the Public Library’s Manuscript Division [RNB]).⁴

From the first months of Anna’s reign, court entertainments underwent many changes, as did the role of music at court and at public festivities. The sovereign singers, who as we know took an active role in Peter’s various private and official celebrations, were now relegated to the background; except for Trediakovskii’s coronation kant, many eighteenth-century collections include no other vocal works of this type. The new empress was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alekseevich (Peter’s [half]-brother) and Tsaritsa Praskov’ia Fyodorovna.⁵ She was the widowed Duchess of Courland, and prior to her accession to the Russian throne she had lived in Mitau [now Jelgava, Latvia], where the modest ducal household probably emulated German princely establishments. Now, however, Anna had the resources to create a shining, glittering copy. According to Minikh, she added unusual splendor to her court.⁵A Anna, within a year of coming to the throne, had established a corps of court singers and an orchestra, eminent virtuosi were being engaged, and brilliant operatic performances were being staged.

Despite her efforts to impart European magnificence to her establishment, however, Anna’s court entertainments and amusements were an astonishing mixture of extreme contradictions. On the one hand, we have the organization of Italian opera and court concerts and the introduction of outstanding Western artists; on the other, the pranks of debased jesters (so profitable that one of the professional court musicians preferred to join their ranks), round dances [khorovody] in court apartments by guardsmen and their wives, and, finally, the amazing rudeness with which Anna treated her German maids. When she felt bored they had to sing to her. Now, girls, sing! she would shout, and when she was tired of them, Enough! She rewarded the weary girls by boxing their ears or even sending them to the laundry to wash clothes. All these contradictions illustrate the inclination toward the old Muscovite customs of the fathers combined with an increasing desire to pass for an enlightened empress. Surrounding herself with Western luxury, Anna entertained herself with horseback riding and card playing, yet at the same time she believed in the powers of lamp oil, and in her private apartments she wore a kerchief on her head.⁵B

EXAMPLE 13.1. Da zdravstvuet dnes’ Imperatriks Anna [Hail Empress Anna]

Da zdravstvuet dnes’ Imperatriks Anna

Na prestole sedshe uvenchanna.

Krasneishe solntsa i zvezd siiaiushi nyne.

Da zdravstvuet na mnoga leta

Porfiroiu zlatoiu odeta

V Imperatorskom chine.

Hail Empress Anna

Today crowned seated on her throne.

More glorious than the sun or stars now shining.

May she live for many years

Garbed in gilded porphyry

In the Imperial rank.

Between these extremes were the ordinary court diversions and those of contemporary society: masquerades, balls, and illuminations.⁶ In addition to these, more artistic pleasures, in which music was to play a predominant role, were cultivated at Anna’s court. We know from contemporary newspaper accounts (see n. 6) that music was required for various court functions. The artists and orchestra that assisted at dinners and festivals on a grand scale, enhancing the various holidays and victory celebrations, were placed in special locations. The following is a description of a court festivity presented on 27 January 1736 in a hall, sixty paces long and newly constructed for this purpose, to celebrate the empress’s birthday:

At one end facing Her Imperial Majesty’s throne was a sideboard which displayed vessels of gold and porcelain; on both sides of that sideboard were two smaller sideboards and above that was a gallery where the virtuosi, castrati, and women singers stood; during dinner they entertained Her Imperial Majesty with a program of outstanding concerti and cantatas. When toasts to the health of Her Imperial Majesty and Her Family were offered, there was continuous music, with the beating of kettledrums and a salvo from field guns posted on the Neva. (Spb. vedomosti 1736, no. 9)

From other reports we learn that Tafelmusik or special cantatas were given in an adjoining room; in the summer sometimes separate balconies were used, which were constructed in front of the palace.

Already at the beginning of Anna Ioannovna’s reign a court orchestra was established for regular and special court concerts and theatrical performances. This orchestra developed gradually. At first it was made up of musicians who had remained in court service after the deaths of Peter I and Catherine I, as well as musicians who had belonged to the Duke of Holstein’s orchestra. (The duke had been banished to Kiel in 1727 after a quarrel with the then-omnipotent Prince Menshikov.) The talented concertmaster Johann Hübner participated, along with the ensemble’s regular members. In addition to this basic group, the court orchestra was supplemented by a few musicians who remained in Russia after a temporary visit to Moscow by two foreign troupes in 1731. In that year a troupe of Italian players who arrived from Dresden gave a few performances in Moscow, and several concerts were also given by a band of German musicians headed by the well-known opera composer Johann Kayser.⁶A

In her search for a theatrical company that would impart a touch of European luster to her establishment, Anna Ioannovna conferred with the Dresden court. One should not forget that relations with Dresden were sanctified by tradition, as the Lutheran church in Moscow’s Foreign Quarter enjoyed the protection of the Saxon king; the first of the Russian theatrical masters, pastor Johann Gregory, was also closely associated with the Dresden court. As a result of the correspondence between Lefort (our ambassador to Dresden) and Weissbach (the Saxon ambassador to Moscow), a troupe of Italian players and musicians was sent to Moscow.⁶B The leader of the troupe, Giovanni Ristori, was already familiar to the Moscow court as the composer of the coronation cantata for Anna Ioannovna that had been performed in Warsaw. The company included the singers Cosimo Ermini (bass), his wife Margarita Ermini, and Ludovica Seyfried; the actor and director Tommaso Ristori; and the musician Gasparo Janeschi, who remained in Russia, became a court musician, and died in St. Petersburg in 1758.⁶C The Italian Court Players of His Majesty the King of Poland departed from Warsaw on New Year’s Day 1731 and arrived in Moscow in the second half of February, as can be seen in a contemporary report from Moscow in the Spb. vedomosti (1731, no. 19), stating that on Friday (26 February) they performed the first comedy with singing to everyone’s great pleasure in the specially prepared theater in the great hall of the New Imperial Palace.⁶D

There is no complete list of the company’s members or of its repertory, nor is it known how long the group remained in Moscow. Nevertheless, the list of personnel and the report published in the Spb. vedomosti allow us to establish that most of their works were intermedi (short pieces with spoken dialogue and interpolated vocal numbers) requiring only two or three vocalists and a small orchestra.⁶E It was at this same time that artistic intermedi (as distinct from the former commedia dell’arte), the progenitor of Italian comic opera, began to flourish in Rome and Naples.⁷ The Kapellmeister of the company, Giovanni Alberto Ristori (1692–1753), composed not only operas but also intermedi (Eitner lists the following: Despina, Simona e Trespolo, Delbo e Dorina, Fidelba ed Artabano, Serpilla e Perpello, and others). It is quite likely that some of these were performed in Moscow in 1731. We also know that, at the empress’s request, the composer’s father, actor Tommaso Ristori, created some sort of pantomime, probably with music by his son Giovanni; it so pleased Anna Ioannovna that she rose from her seat, turned to the audience, and led the applause.⁸

Another company of musicians arrived in Moscow in the fall of 1731, judging from a Moscow report on the celebration of Aleksandr Nevskii’s feast day: The recently arrived musicians from Germany played then (on 30 August) on various musical instruments with agreeable singing (Spb. vedomosti 1731, no. 72). Apparently Kapellmeister Reinhard Keiser (1674–1739) was in that company; the distinguished composer and representative of Hamburg opera was mentioned by J. Stählin. [This musician was actually Johann Kayser; see n. 6A above.] His daughter, a singer who married the violinist Verocai in Moscow, was there, along with another singer, Christina Maria Avoglio (or D’Avolio) with her husband [Giuseppe Avoglio] and her sister, who later became the wife of the bassoonist Friedrich; the double bass player Eyselt [or Eiselt]; the oboist Döbbert; and the violinist Bindi.⁸A Neither of the two companies stayed in Moscow for long, but some of the vocalists and instrumentalists remained in service in Russia. Thus, apart from the violinist Janeschi, mentioned above, most of Kayser’s companions entered into Russian service. Giuseppe Avoglio was soon appointed director of Italian players. Kayser himself was entrusted with the selection and hiring of musicians in Italy for the Russian court, but, according to Fétis and Stählin, after receiving payment for his expenses Kayser did not return to Russia and no one knew his whereabouts for a long time.

The mission entrusted to concertmaster Hübner was more successful. According to Stählin, he was also sent to Italy to recruit singers and musicians. Among those he recruited, in addition to the female singer Avoglio, who had already been in Kayser’s company, Stählin mentions the violinist Luigi Madonis, his brother, the French horn player Antonio Madonis, and the violinist Pietro Mira, who later became a court jester.⁸B Still, this information is not entirely trustworthy. Of the musicians listed here, Mira is mentioned for the first time only in the civil list [shtat] of 1733, and both of the Madonis brothers in 1736. In any event, a new civil list was approved in December 1731, when the court troupe, together with the orchestra, consisted of forty-six persons and its budget amounted to 13,227 rubles, 50 kopecks. A similar list was sanctioned in 1733 as well.

The company included a small number of vocalists (Mme Avoglio and her sister, the castrato Giovanni Dreyer and his brother [Domenico Dreyer, an oboist], and also the double bass player Eyselt). The orchestra numbered about forty musicians, headed by concertmaster Johann Hübner. This seems to indicate that Italian intermedi were staged in addition to regular concerts at court. Contemporary newspaper reports tell us about the concerts, as we have seen above. As for the intermedi, there are a few extant libretti from the 1733–34 season. The Italian performances were usually staged weekly, on Sundays, at the court theater in a wing of the Winter Palace. In the summer they took place in a wooden theater erected in the Summer Garden.

Italian intermedi were then quite fashionable in Europe due to the ease with which they could be staged and the small cast of no more than two or three singers, exactly the number of singers serving in the court’s troupe. Pergolesi’s La serva padrona is considered a classical example of the intermedio, and it was successfully produced in Russia and spawned a series of imitations. The Italian intermedio is more or less the same type of work as the French vaudeville with singing and the small German Singspiel, although the intermedio grew out of the folkish commedia dell’arte of the marketplace and contained a large dose of caricature in its characters and actions [see fig. 102]. The subject of one of the first intermedi successfully presented in St. Petersburg in 1733 recalls Mozart’s one-act opera Der Schauspieldirektor, and this subject was frequently reworked by authors of comic operas in Italy. It is a parody of backstage manners in the theatrical world, in Russian titled Podriadchik opery v ostrovy Kanariiskie [The operatic impresario in the Canary Islands; this is Metastasio’s L’impresario delle Canarie]. The work depicts the caprices and stratagems of an Italian prima donna whom a foreign impresario wants to engage, and the dialog is interrupted by arias in which the singer displays her vocal abilities. The libretti of the Italian comedies and intermedi performed at Anna Ioannovna’s court have been preserved, but the music, unfortunately, has not survived.⁹

FIG. 102. Italian intermedio in the eighteenth century.

Academician V. N. Peretts has published the complete texts of the intermedi vocal numbers in Italian and Russian. Perhaps at some time in the future, it might be possible to use the extant vocal repertory, both printed and in manuscript, in order to reconstruct the arias and duets from these Italian intermedi. Peretts has also listed plot summaries, which are particularly interesting both in general as well as for the present survey, as they can give us an idea of the literary merits of the earliest librettists. The following may serve as examples:

Podriatchik opery v ostrovy Kanariiskie [The operatic impresario in the Canary Islands]

An intermedio with music, St. Petersburg, 1733

Synopsis of the intermedio:

It seems that Mr. Nibby has come to Italy to engage a company of male and female singers for a new theater in the Canary Islands. For this purpose he has visited Mme Dorina, a famous musician, to negotiate a contract. The rest is a criticism, that is to say, mockery of the theatrical characters, both male and female.

Posadskoi dvorianin [The artisan gentleman]

An intermedio with music, St. Petersburg, 1734

Synopsis of the intermedio:

Laurinda, a young maid from a good family, wants to marry a rich man since she is poor; she intends to attain this with a wealthy nobleman who instructs her on how to achieve this aim. Over the course of the intermedio we see what happens to her.¹⁰

Information is also included about Russian court productions in which not only the cadets of the Shliakhetnyi Corps participated but also singers, court pages, dwarfs, Kalmucks, and even members of the court aristocracy. (The Shliakhetnyi [or Shliakhetskii] Cadet Corps was established in 1731, and, in many respects, its role in the history of the Russian theater in St. Petersburg was analogous to that of the Surgical School in Moscow.) One of these performances took place early in 1733, soon after Anna Ioannovna’s move to St. Petersburg.¹¹ The play staged was the Komediia o Iosife [Play of Joseph] by an unknown author but reminiscent of a similar play performed in Moscow at the end of the seventeenth century. The participation of six singers shows that the work included vocal numbers. The production of this play suggests that there was a demand for Russian works; for some time, however, this demand could not be satisfied because of a lack of material, with the exception of the old mystery plays, which were hardly suitable for the new court life. Instead of relying on these old mystery plays, Italian opera began to be introduced at court.

Here we should stress that, contrary to most investigators’ opinions, there was no permanent operatic theater during Anna Ioannovna’s reign. The surviving lists of Italian artists show that there was a troupe of Italian dramatic actors (komedianty), including a limited number of vocalists. This troupe, along with the instrumentalists (who were included in the lists with the others), were mainly employed in presenting the regular court concerts and intermedi. Since operatic performances were extremely expensive, they were limited to the staging of no more than one opera per year, although the operas were repeated. But the temporary character of this artistic enterprise cannot be considered a permanent operatic theater. Throughout Anna Ioannovna’s reign, beginning with her coronation (viewed as the date on which Italian opera was introduced to Russia) and to the end of her rule, only three operas by Araja were staged, one opera per year in 1736, 1737, and 1738.

The members of the Italian company in 1735–40 included Mme Avoglio (1731–38), the castrato Dreyer (1731) and his brother, also a singer (1731), and the instrumentalists included the well-known double bass player Eyselt (1731).¹² Avoglio and the Dreyer brothers were members of the first company, recruited in 1731, and apparently a few of them served through 1734–35, when a new troupe of singers was brought in: Mlle Masani [probably Caterina Mazany], Caterina and Filippo Giorgi (1739–45), the castrato Pietro Morigi, and the Florentine Pietro Petricci (or Perdicci). At that time the court troupe included the singer Rosa Ruvinetti-Bon, who, together with most of the troupe members, was granted a release from service in 1738. She returned to Russia during Elizabeth Petrovna’s reign, as her name is found among the operatic performers in the 1740s. The troupe also included Constanza Piantanida, the wife of musician Giovanni Piantanida. She was known as La Pasterla and appeared in the [Araja] opera Il finto Nino, ovvero La Semiramide riconosciuta (1737). She left St. Petersburg shortly thereafter.

The most important person in that Italian company was the composer Francesco Araja, who was invited to Russia in 1735 and remained in Russian service until 1759. During that period he wrote many operatic and concert works, of which only a few date from Anna Ioannovna’s reign. For that [earlier] period, we can establish the following repertory of musical and dramatic works staged at the court theater as listed in Table 13.1.¹²A The following works should also be added to those listed in the table: (1) an unknown intermedio (probably Italian, with musical numbers) staged on 7 September 1736 in the Summer Palace, according to the printed report in the Spb. vedomosti 1736, no. 36;¹²B (2) an Italian pastorale, title also unknown, staged on 5 July 1739 (Spb. vedomosti, no. 55); and (3) the ballets that were performed between the acts of the operas, as mentioned by Stählin.

TABLE 13.1. Operatic Performances during Anna Ioannovna’s Reign (1730–40)

The Araja operas included in Table 13.1 were the first to be staged in Russia and were composed by the Italian master for that purpose [see n. 12A]. That each of them was presented on 29 January, the day after Anna’s birthday, confirms the character of the Italian operatic theater, which served as an especially festive ornament at court celebrations, and not as a permanent theatrical enterprise. We have some information concerning the production of the first of these operas. The libretto of La forza dell’amore e dell’odio, the first printed libretto in Russia, was available in the Academy of Sciences bookstore several days before the performance.¹³ It was printed in Italian and in Russian. In the Spb. vedomosti of 2 February 1736, no. 10, we read:

Last Monday, on the 29th [of January], the court opera company performed the beautiful and lavish opera titled Sila liubvi i nenavisti in the Winter Palace, to the great pleasure of Her Imperial Majesty and to the universal praise of viewers. The poem was written by Cavaliere F. P. . . . in Rome; the music was composed by the court Kapellmeister Signor Araja; the decorations were designed by Ieronim [Girolamo] Bon, theatrical painter at court; and the ballet was by Director Signor Antonio Rinaldi.

Stählin confirms the success of La forza dell’amore, writing that: The court accepted this opera with much applause and with great pleasure. The enthusiasm on the occasion of this new spectacle was expressed by the fact that all the boxes and the parterre were filled to overflowing; it had to be repeated about 100 times and several times with equal success.¹⁴ Stählin’s testimony, as that of a contemporary witness, is important and is further valuable because of its information concerning the cast of this first Italian opera in Russia. It suffers nevertheless from exaggeration, which may be ascribed to Stählin’s zeal in executing his duty. We have no documentary proof that the opera was repeated 100 times, and, in the performance itself, it would scarcely be possible to repeat anything so many times. C. H. Manstein, another contemporary and author of the well-known Notes on Russia, states that "the first opera, although it went very well, did not give as much pleasure as the Italian comedies and intermedi."¹⁴A The liveliness of action and performance must have attracted the ladies and gentlemen at court, who had by now become accustomed to these comedies and intermedi. According to Stählin, in place of the intermedi, which usually served to shorten the intermissions, after each act of the opera there were marvelous ballets composed by Antonio Rinaldi, Girolamo Bon, and Giovanni Tarsia.¹⁴B Stählin also preserved the names of the cast members of this historic performance:

Sofit, Indian Emperor

Abiazar, husband of Nirena (Sofit’s daughter)

Nirena, Sofit’s daughter

Barzant, Sofit’s ally

Taksil, Barzant’s nephew

Filippo Giorgi

Caterina Giorgi

Mlle Massani [Masani or Mazany]

Perdicci [Petricci]

the castrato Morigi

We do not know who performed the roles of Talestria (Abiazar’s sister) and Merind (one of Sofit’s friends). At that time there were two more female singers in the Italian company, Avoglio and Ruvinetti, and one of them may have sung the role of Talestria. The producer was Giuseppe Avoglio.

Stählin gives a detailed description of the ballets between the acts of La forza dell’amore. Following act 1, satyrs and gardeners, both male and female, danced in a handsome ballet; act 2 was followed by a marvelous ballet in the Japanese style; and after act 3, more than 100 people came down from the upper galleries of this wonderful structure and danced to the accompaniment of agreeable singing by the performers and instrumental music by the entire orchestra, performing the pleasing ballet that ended the main opera. The music for this final ballet was probably written by Araja; the composers for the other two ballets are unknown.

A year later Araja’s second opera, Il finto Nino, ovvero La Semiramide riconosciuta, was staged. The libretto was by abbé Pietro Metastasio, the well-known librettist of operas by Gluck, Pergolesi, and many other famous composers. It was published in Italian, Russian, and German, and the translation into the Russian dialect was by Pyotr Mikhailov. According to Stählin, the female lead, Semiramide, was sung by Mlle Piantanida, nicknamed La Pasterla, who was as fine an actress as she was a singer.¹⁵

Only two printed notices are preserved about the performance of Araja’s third opera, Artaserse. The Spb. vedomosti records that on 29 January 1738, "at the theater in the Imperial Winter Palace, a marvelous opera was produced especially for this important celebration (the empress’s birthday), titled Artakserks ili za vernost’ syna pozhalovannyi otets (Spb. vedomosti 1738, no. 9). The newspaper notes that the opera was repeated on 30 April to celebrate Anna Ioannovna’s coronation day, and that on that occasion, "in place of the usual intermezzi, there were marvelous ballets" (Spb. vedomosti, no. 53). The printed libretto, in the Russian translation by P. Medvedev, was also published before the performance.

The first article on music in the Russian press appeared in 1738, namely, Jacob von Stählin’s Istoricheskoe opisanie onago teatral’nago deistviia, kotoroe nazyvaetsia opera [Historical description of the theatrical performance known as opera].¹⁵A Here is how the author defines the conception of musical-dramatic works:

Opera is a show performed by means of singing. Except for gods and courageous heroes, it does not allow anyone else on stage. Everything in it is noble, magnificent, and amazing. In its contents, nothing can be found save sublime and incomparable deeds, divine qualities in man, a blissful state of the world, in fact it depicts a golden age. To represent primeval days and the uncorrupted happiness of the human race, happy shepherds and contented shepherdesses are sometimes introduced into opera. Their agreeable songs and wonderful dances represent the merry, friendly gatherings of kindly people. By means of clever machinery, opera presents to us the splendor of the heavens and the beauty of the universe; on the earth, [it presents] the strength and valor man displays when besieging cities; on the tossing sea, the terrors and calamities of rashly daring men; and through Phaethon’s fall, the downfall of reckless pride. By means of music, the language in which the human passions are expressed is brought to perfection, and the sounds of the accompanying instruments excite in listeners those very feelings which are then revealed before their eyes. We must mention a special kind of action presented by means of singing, called intermedio, which was introduced some forty years ago in Italy. To the inhabitants of that country, who were always looking for new amusements, opera was much too serious. They therefore devised a new kind of performance which has nothing to do with the seriousness of opera, but has particularly cheerful content and can sometimes be divided into two, or sometimes three, parts. In such intermedi there are usually only two persons, namely Buffo and Buffa, who depict various amusing situations by means of arias and recitatives, and, by doing so, they provide the viewers, as well as the opera singers, a respite from grand productions. Not everyone is suited to appear in the intermedi; very special performers are required for the production of these lively musical shows, able by bodily movements and by their singing to simulate comical figures of all sorts. The cantata arose from a combination of recitatives and arias on a small scale, and, on a large scale, Drama in all its various forms [arose]. When such a work was presented by only two performers, it was called a Dialog, that is, a conversation set to music, but if three or four persons were used, it was known as an Operetta, that is, a small drama; such were the pastorales, eclogues, or pastoral shows set to music. When the complete performance consisting of many persons was staged, then it was called a large drama set to music, that is, the whole show or Opera.

Stählin’s printed explanation of the essence of opera as an artistic work coincided with the discontinuation of Italian operatic performances in St. Petersburg. Clearly the article was intended to convey to operatic audiences an informed relationship to the delights of music and theater, although this was a rather primitive and superficial attempt. The very appearance of Stählin’s article has historical significance, despite that it appeared too late for any practical results.

In the spring of 1738, after the performance of Artaserse, the operatic troupe and many members of the court orchestra left Russia. No operas were staged during the last two years of Anna’s reign, although Araja’s services were retained. Caroline Neuber’s German dramatic company, imported during the spring of 1740, was unsuccessful, despite the support of the local pro-German party headed by the all-powerful Biron.¹⁵B This company did not stage operas, although its repertory may have included some small Singspiele. Musical entertainments were limited to court concerts, intermedi, and pastoral plays, which did not require elaborate staging or large casts.

The Italian troupe’s vocalists are listed above.¹⁶ We should present the full list of musicians in the service of the Imperial court during Anna’s reign before moving on to the activities of the court orchestra. The list is quite impressive, but one should exclude the orchestra leaders as well as some other artists from the substantial circle of regular musicians in the ensemble.¹⁷ The first civil list of the court troupe as authorized in December 1731 already shows the court orchestra as follows:¹⁸

Other musicians were added to these, including the Madonis and Dall’Oglio brothers, outstanding virtuosi who apparently entered Russian service at the same time as did composer and conductor Francesco Araja.

The first truly eminent musician in Russian service was Johann Hübner, whom we have already mentioned several times. He was court Kapellmeister during Anna’s reign, Francesco Araja’s predecessor in that position. Hübner was born in Warsaw in 1696. His talent must have revealed itself rather early, for he received his first musical training while still in Warsaw, which had a highly developed musical culture at that time. In 1714 Hübner went to Vienna, where he studied with the well-known violinist and teacher Rosetter; six years later, according to some sources, he went with Rosetter to Russia as conductor of Count Kinsky’s band.¹⁸A Kinsky was the Austrian ambassador to the Russian court, and apparently had become acquainted with Hübner in Vienna. As we know, Hübner’s band attracted considerable attention in Moscow, and on Kinsky’s return to Vienna in July 1721, Hübner and the band (or at least a part of it) transferred their services to the Duke of Holstein, who was betrothed to Anna, one of Peter I’s daughters. According to Bergholz, the Holstein band which, as we know, originally consisted of a few horn players, began to grow.¹⁸B Bergholz’s diary entry for 4 September 1722 states that during and after dinner there was fine music, and our Hübner and his companions made every effort to excel. Hübner distinguished himself especially during the coronation [of Catherine I], for which he conducted an exceptionally large orchestra of sixty musicians.¹⁸C After the Duke of Holstein departed for Kiel, Hübner entered into Russian service, and his name appears in the first civil list of musicians issued during Anna Ioannovna’s reign, when he was listed as concertmaster with a salary of 450 rubles. An unknown pupil, who received 50 rubles and who also played in the court orchestra, was listed with him, indicating that Hübner had started his teaching activities by that time.

With Araja’s invitation to St. Petersburg as conductor and composer of court operas, Hübner involuntarily receded into the background and had to be content with conducting a ballroom orchestra. On 10 January 1740, however, an edict was issued concerning the establishment of a class of instrumentalists attached to the court orchestra, under Hübner’s direction. Thus Hübner, in addition to being known as the first civilian, rather than military, conductor in Russia, is also connected with the founding of Russia’s first musical-pedagogical institute. Here is the text of the imperial decree addressed to Grand Marshal R. Loewenwolde:

Whereas it is not unknown that among the twelve older foreign musicians employed by our court, some have been employed for quite some time and are of a very advanced age, and, as a consequence, on special and ceremonial and other days when a ball is held at our court, [they] are not present, nor can [they] be, therefore in the music there are inadequacies and in order to remedy them it becomes necessary to summon and use musicians from other ensembles, we hereby order that henceforth for our court orchestra there be available up to twelve Little Russian youths skilled in reading music who, for the needs of the court orchestra, will be taught by concertmaster Johann Hübner on various instruments as necessary. And for such music and instruments and the rest that is required, and for these pupils’ apartments, candles, paper for music as well as ink, they will receive [funds] from our court Fiscal Office. Also for the salary and food for these pupils until the completion of their training, they will be paid forty rubles per year; besides that they will receive annually a full dress cloth coat, caftans, short jackets, and trousers of green cloth which will cost no more than a ruble per arshin [1 arshin = 28 inches]; also once in three years to receive a cloak either in cornflower-blue or green cloth that costs no more than seventy kopecks per arshin, from the paymaster’s office; and in the education of the recruited pupils, Hübner is to take good care so that each one may attain the real and fundamental knowledge in not too long a time; and if some achieve good progress, it is up to Hübner to present them and those who prove to be zealous to be given advantages with increase of salary and, according to their skill, to designate them to fill the vacated posts and give them the pay rate of regular musicians; and if, on the contrary, there are pupils who turn out to be incapable of learning this skill, Hübner is immediately to take action.

Anna¹⁹

At first the orchestra school was located on the St. Petersburg side, in the parish of the Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle-worker in the house of a merchant named Nikifor Il’in, and in the following year it was moved to a house near the Kazan Church on Nevskii Prospekt. Hübner lived there himself, occupying three rooms. Four small rooms were allotted to the students, and their lessons were given in a large room.²⁰ On 15 January 1741 a new edict was issued increasing the number of students to fifteen. The later fate of Hübner and his school is unknown.²⁰A

Francesco Araja (b. 1700 in Naples, d. 1767 in Bologna) was the first opera composer and conductor in Russia, where he spent the greater, and most important, part of his musical life. The success of his first operas, Berenice (1730) and Amore regnante (1731), in Tuscany and Rome attracted some notice, or perhaps the young Araja may simply have preferred a secure position in a foreign country to the gradual conquest of the Italian stages—at any rate, in 1735 he and the recently engaged Italian singers departed for St. Petersburg. There he managed to retain his position through two imperial reigns (not counting the years of Anna Leopol’dovna’s regency). Even when the Italian troupe was dismissed in Anna Ioannovna’s reign, and when French fashions prevailed and Russian artistic works began to put forth their first shoots in Elizabeth Petrovna’s time, Araja served here for nearly twenty-five years, until 1759. He returned to Bologna, but soon after Elizabeth’s death [in 1761] he came back to Russia with the hope of regaining his former position. At that time, however, it was Hermann Raupach who, from 1756, had become the dominant figure. Raupach had begun his service under Araja, and even though Araja was personally known to Catherine II, he was forced to return to Bologna, where he died. It is quite likely that Catherine did not wish to have a musician at her court who had served under her late husband, Peter III, and Araja, as can be seen in Catherine’s Memoirs, had taken an active part in the weekly concerts given when Peter was prince and heir to the throne.

Araja’s activities as a composer were of considerable importance for Russia at the time. He wrote the following operas:

There are no accurate data about the staging of his other operas: Arsace, Antigona abandonnata (1757), Ifigenia in Tauride (1758), and others.²⁰B He also wrote the following cantatas for special festive occasions: La gara dell’amore e del zelo, a cantata for two voices and chorus composed for the celebration of Anna Ioannovna’s coronation day, 28 April 1736;²¹ the cantata Junon secourable Lucine (French text by Denzi, Russian translation by Lomonosov), composed on the occasion of Princess Anna Petrovna’s birth (1757); and Urania vaticinante, a cantata with choruses performed before the ballet of the rejoicing people; verses by Antonio Denzi.²² Araja certainly wrote other works while in Russia, but we do not know exactly what they were. Robert Eitner (Quellen-Lexikon 1:182) mentions some arias from 1735 in a manuscript collection in the Dresden Royal Library, as well as Capricci for harpsichord [clavichord] (in the Royal Library in Berlin) and a printed harpsichord sonata.

As we see, the court valued Araja’s various activities highly. We do not know what his salary was, but for some of his operas (in 1737 and 1738) he received special honoraria at the rate of five hundred rubles per opera, and the same amount for the cantata La gara dell’amore e del zelo when, on 12 February 1736, he presented his musical books to the empress.²³ For Tsefal, he received not only five hundred rubles but also a sable coat. The staging of this work, in Elizabeth Petrovna’s reign, must be regarded as a special event in the Russian theatrical world, as it was the first opera with a Russian-language libretto. This fact, as well as the composition and staging of our first Italian operas in Russia, mark Araja’s importance in the history of Russian music. [Findeizen discusses the opera in chapter 18.]

Eminent musicians were associated with the court orchestra at various times during Anna Ioannovna’s reign, among them the violinists Verocai, Janeschi, Domenico Dall’Oglio, Luigi Madonis and his brother, the horn player Antonio Madonis, the cellist Giuseppe Dall’Oglio, and others.

The first of these, Giovanni Verocai, was a native of Italy who was in Breslau in 1727 and from there was invited to Dresden. He went to Moscow in 1731 with Kayser, and, while there, married Kayser’s daughter. According to the 1731 civil list, Verocai received the highest salary paid to a musician: one thousand rubles. Stählin mentioned his participation in the orchestra at the first staging of Araja’s opera. Verocai remained in St. Petersburg until 1738, when he and most of the Italian company left Russia. In 1741 he became the Kapellmeister of the Duke of Braunschweig; he is known to have composed symphonies, two operas (Demofoonte and Catone in Utica), pieces for violin, and other works.²³A Gasparo Janeschi served in Russia from 1731 and he died there in 1758. He appears in the civil list for 1731 under the name of Vaspari; his salary was the same as Verocai’s, one thousand rubles.

The Dall’Oglio and Madonis brothers served in Russia for longer periods and left more perceptible traces. All four were apparently enlisted at the same time, in 1735. The violinist and composer Domenico Dall’Oglio and his brother, the cellist Giuseppe, were born in Padua, probably at the end of the seventeenth century. According to Stählin, both played in the orchestra for the production of Araja’s La forza dell’amore e dell’odio. Domenico was well known for his chamber works (XII Sonate à Violino e Violoncello o Cembalo, op. l), composed in St. Petersburg around 1738 and printed in Amsterdam. These are among the earliest chamber works written and performed in Russia. Eitner (Quellen-Lexikon 6:230) mistakenly ascribes to Dall’Oglio the music for Stählin’s coronation prologue text (1742); it was actually composed by Luigi Madonis. Domenico Dall’Oglio died suddenly at Narva on his return trip to Italy in 1764. His brother, Giuseppe, also