Soloists of Catherine the Great

"Soloists of Catherine the Great" is a Russian baroque music ensemble created in 2002 by the St. Petersburg International Festival EARLYMUSIC. The ensemble combines performing practice with research and educational activities.

The artistic director of the ensemble is violinist Andrei Reshetin.

In addition to the premieres of Russian chamber and orchestra music, the ensemble carried out reconstructions of operas, ballets and dramatic performances. An important place in the repertoire of "Catherine the Great Soloists" is occupied by little-known or completely forgotten European music. The musicians pay special attention to the stylistic features of the performance, which have changed significantly over the century. The ensemble's permanent partner in theatrical projects was the St. Petersburg Angelini Ballet under the direction of Klaus Abromait (Berlin), the only professional baroque dance group in Russia, also created by the EARLYMUSIC festival.

Main projects

2024

Andrei Reshetin records a solo disc "Stronger than Death"

Main article: Stronger than death (Andrey Reshetin)

Andrey Penyugin leaves the ensemble

In 2024, violinist Andrei Penyugin left the composition of "Soloists of Catherine the Great" and acted as the founder of the St. Petersburg Baroque Ensemble.

2023: Disc "Who could love so passionately" with music by Nikolai Leontyev, Ivan Yunkin and Ignatius Dubrovsky

Main article: Who could love so passionately (Soloists of Catherine the Great)

2022: Andrey Reshetin volunteers for SVO

In 2022-2023, the head of the ensemble, Andrei Reshetin, served fourteen months in the First Front-line Creative Brigade during the Special Military Operation. He was the only volunteer in it, the rest of the artists were mobilized. He was hospitalized with a stroke and dismissed by age shortly before his 61st birthday.

2018: William Herschel's music premieres

The premiere of the Russian court drama of Alexei Mikhailovich's time "The Comedy about Nebuchadnezzar the Tsar, about the Body of Gold and about the Triech of the Dead in the Cave and Not Burned" by Simeon Polotsky took place at the XXI EARLYMUSIC festival in October 2018 and in December of the same year in the World Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin.

One-act ballets "Venice Carnival. Comedy of Masks, "" Louis XIV - King Dancer, "" Queens of the North "(directed by Klaus Abromait, 2018), prepared for the 200th anniversary of M. Petipa. These ballets reveal the magnificent but forgotten history of the genre in the Baroque era and the role of Russia in it.

Among the European discoveries of "Soloists..." the most striking event was the premiere of the music of the great astronomer William Herschel in 2018. This program - the result of research by the musician of the ensemble, Andrei Penyugin - combines unknown music of the scientist and video projection on the themes of his discoveries.

2017: Ballet-allegory "Union of Wind and Sea"

Allegory ballet "The Union of the Wind and the Sea" to the music of Yu. H. Ruman (directed by Klaus Abromait, 2017). The ballet was commissioned by the Swedish royal bandmaster Johan Helmich Rouman, the Russian ambassador to Stockholm, Count Nikolai Fedorovich Golovin, for the coronation celebrations of Emperor Peter II (1728).

2016: Production of the first Russian opera "Cephalus and Prokris"

The long-awaited premiere of the first Russian opera - "Cephalus and Prokris" by Alexander Sumarokov and Francesco Araya - took place in 2016. In December 2017, this opera was presented on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow).

2015: Production of the opera by Catherine II and V. Martin-i-Soler "Gorebogatyr Kosometovich"

The results of studying the stage Russian language of the XVII-XVIII centuries. and the European Baroque Theater were performances of Russian operas. In 2015, the opera by Catherine the Great and V. Martin-i-Soler "Gorebogatyr Kosometovich" was staged.

2007: Production of the first opera on the Russian plot - "Boris Godunov" by Johann Mattheson

Among the most important artistic achievements of the ensemble is the production of the first opera on the Russian plot - "Boris Godunov" by Johann Mattheson (1710, Hamburg), the European premiere of which took place in Hamburg, St. Petersburg and Moscow in 2007.

2003: Production of Paisiello's Imaginary Philosophers

In 2003, in honor of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg at the Hermitage Theater and at the Festival of Ancient Music in Utrecht, the ensemble presented the favorite opera of Catherine II "Imaginary Philosophers" by her court conductor Giovanni Paiziyello.

Authentic Performance or HIP

Authentic performance, authenticity is a movement in musical performance of the XX - XXI centuries, which sets as its task the most accurate reproduction of music of the past, just as it sounded in the original, that is, initially.

The term "authentic performance," which was used in the birth of this direction, in Western countries by 2023 is preferred by the term "historically informed performance" (historically informed performance, adopted abbreviation - HIP), which emphasizes the necessary awareness of the musician in performing techniques, tuning instruments, the conditions of the functioning of music in the church and at court and other features that make up the specifics of a particular old musical composition.

Authenticity is most often associated with the performance of Baroque music. Defining in movement is the interpretation of the old musical original, which is understood not so much as "voicing notes," but as a live "recalibration" of music. From this point of view, special methods of reading musical text are important - the skill "on the go" to decipher digital bass, determine the composition and number of performers (including the balance of vocal and instrumental principles), know the rules and performing techniques of the game (strokes, "good" and "bad" notes, agogy, dynamics, articulation, vibrato control, etc.), set the pace, choose, equip and adjust (pitch standard and musical system) instruments, be able to improvise, correctly ornamented musical text.

The most tangible authenticity manifests itself in the use of ancient, or "historical," musical instruments, for example, viola da gamba, baroque violin, viuela, longitudinal flute, harpsichord, hammer piano, natural trumpet, sakbut, organ, etc. At the same time, both original ancient instruments and modern reconstruction instruments modeled on (also based on ancient drawings and descriptions in treatises) original ones are called "historical" by authenticists.

In interpretations of baroque music, the implementation of choral and orchestral music by chamber compositions - chamber choir and chamber orchestra (now often called the "baroque orchestra") is considered authentic.