Adventures to Imagine

"Starting from an examination of the rich legacy of Russian music up to 1700, Marina Ritzarev explores the development of music over the course of the eighteenth century, a period of especially intense Westernization and secularization." "The book highlights the importance of previously marginalized sectors - serf culture, choral sacred culture, the contribution of foreign musicians, the significant influence of Freemasonry, the role of Ukrainian and West-European cultures and so on - as well as casting new light on the well-researched topic of Russian opera." "Much new archival material is introduced, and revised biographies of the two leading eighteenth-century Russian composers, Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky, are provided, as well as those of the serf composer Stepan Degtyarev and the Italian Giuseppe Sarti." "The book places eighteenth-century Russian music will be of particular importance for the study of European musical cultures remote from such centers as Italy, Germany-Austria and France. Eighteenth-century Russian music is organically linked with its past and future and its contributory role in forming the Russian national identity and developing the Russian idiom is clarified."--BOOK JACKET.