Galuppi Baldassare (Baldassarre Galuppi)

Galuppi Baldassare (Baldassarre Galuppi)

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• Music in Russia in the XVIII century

Biography

Baldassare Galuppi, nicknamed Buranello, was born on October 18, 1706 in Burano, Venice.

1765: Arrival for service in Russia

Baldassare Galuppi's stay in Russia lasted 3 years (1765-68). By the time he arrived in St. Petersburg, Galuppi was already a world famous composer, famous primarily for his comic operas; also in his native Venice, he held the prestigious positions of maestro di capella of St. Mark's Cathedral and one of the four famous conservatories - Incurabili (Ospedale degli Incurabili).

The idea to invite a musician who reached the height of his fame belonged to Peter ^[1], but it was realized only under Catherine II after long negotiations with the Italian side.

Undoubtedly, for the Russian imperial court, Galuppi was of interest primarily as an opera composer, but his activity was not limited only to composing and staging performances. In an unexpected way, Galuppi influenced a completely different sphere of Russian musical life - church singing. Many researchers associate with Galuppi the beginning of a new era in the history of the choral concert genre. And although there are other opinions on this matter, the influence of his compositions on the development of the genre is indisputable. Despite the fact that Galuppi did not spend so long in Russia, he left a firmly rooted tradition here: he returned in 1779, after ten years of studying with Galuppi in Italy, to his homeland Dmitry Bortnyansky, one of the most influential Russian musicians of his time.

The details of Galuppi's stay in Russia are known mainly thanks to the testimony of Jacob von Shtelin, a German scientist who was working at the Russian Imperial Court at that time. In "Reports on Music in Russia," written in 1769, just a year after Galuppi's departure from Petersburg, J. von Stelin conveys the composer's admiration for court singers: "I have never heard such a magnificent choir in Italy" (Un si magnifico coro non ho mai sentio in Italia). Perhaps it was the high level of the choir that inspired the famous Italian bandmaster to create spiritual concerts for worship on Church Slavonic texts. Galuppi also gave the choir a significant role in the opera Iphigenia in Tauris, composed specially for Russia, to the libretto by M. Coltellini, ten choral numbers of which, according to Shtelin, "were excellently performed."

The imperial court was more impressed with his works for the opera stage, the productions of which were a noisy success. However, a short time after Galuppi's departure from Russia, his operas were forgotten. At the same time, his spiritual writings on Church Slavonic texts soon after their creation sounded in many areas of the Russian Empire and were preserved in the repertoire of church choirs in the mid-2010s.

It is not possible to establish the exact number of works written by Galuppi for the Russian Orthodox Church by 2017. American researcher D. Monson in the Grove Dictionary mentions a manuscript stored in the Russian State Library, which contains 15 works by Galuppi for the Russian Orthodox Church. The same information is provided by the Russian musicologist A. L. Porfiriev in the encyclopedic dictionary "Musical Petersburg." However, for 2017, only two manuscripts containing Galuppi's works on Church Slavonic texts were found in the Russian State Library, and these manuscripts have different origins: one of them, the chant of Flesh falling asleep, is from the Sheremetev Foundation (Volochanovo), the other, the Service of God Galuppiev (Liturgy), is from the Yaroslavl region.

In the article "The Italian Diaspora in Russia of the 18th Century" (2001), M. G. Chivalev and A. L. Porfiriev write: "Today, about [!] 14 Russian choral works of Galuppi are known"; in this case, the authors give only six titles. Indeed, six of Galuppi's spiritual works are:

• Glory. Only-begotten Son,
• Good Joseph,
• Flesh falling asleep,
• My heart is ready,
• Judge, Lord and
• The Lord will hear

were published in the second half of the 1810s by his student D. Bortnyansky. It is these compositions that the composer and teacher of the Court Singing Chapel P. Vorotnikov lists in the article "Berezovsky and Galuppi," apparently based on the editions of the chapel. Obviously, Galuppi created other works on Church Slavonic texts: for example, the names of six more of his spiritual works are known, which appear in the announcements of the Moskovskiye Vedomosti newspaper of 1797 and 1804, but notes by 2017 could not yet be found^[2]

Autographs of Galuppi's choral compositions on Church Slavonic texts have not been preserved. Some of the author's manuscripts belonged to the Court Singing Chapel, but by 2017 their traces were lost. Handwritten sources of Russian church music by Galuppi span an extensive geography. They were discovered:

• in the All-Russian Musical Association of Musical Culture named after M.I. Glinka,
• in the Russian State Library in Moscow,
• in the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg,
• in the Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine in Kyiv,
• in the Berlin State Library (in the collection of C.F. E. Bach from the collection of the Singing Academy, as well as in the collection of G. Pölhau),
• in the Austrian National Library (collection of the Vienna Court Chapel).

These sources contain information about the performing practice of their time.

1768: Departure from St. Petersburg

In 1768, as the chief court bandmaster of Catherine II, Galuppi was replaced by Tommaso Traetta, at that time one of the most prominent representatives of the Neapolitan opera tradition.

1771: Opera "Misogynist"

Main article: Misogynist (Galuppi opera)

L'inimico delle donne (roughly: "Misogynist") is an opera buffa (original title: "Jokoso Drama") by Baldassare Galuppi in three acts on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati. The play premiered in the fall of 1771 at the Teatro San Samuel in Venice.

1785: Death in Venice

Galuppi died on January 3, 1785 in Venice.

Шаблон:XVIII Century Music CD

Notes