Dmitry Bortniansky | |
|---|---|
Дмитрий Бортнянский | |
.jpg) Portrait by Mikhail Belsky (1788) | |
| Born | Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky 28 October 1751 |
| Died | 10 October 1825 (aged 73) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Era | Classical |
Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky[1][2][n 1] (28 October 1751 – 10 October [O.S. 28 September] 1825) was a Russian Imperial composer[3] of Ukrainian Cossack origin.[4] He was also a harpsichordist and conductor who served at the court of Catherine the Great. Bortniansky was critical to the musical history of both Russia and Ukraine, with both nations claiming him as their own.[5]
Bortniansky, who has been compared to Palestrina,[6] is known today for his liturgical works and prolific contributions to the genre of choral concertos.[7] He was one of the "Golden Three" of his era, alongside Artemy Vedel and Maxim Berezovsky.[8][9] Bortniansky was so popular in the Russian Empire that his figure was represented in 1862 in the bronze monument of the Millennium of Russia in the Novgorod Kremlin. He composed in many different musical styles, including choral compositions in French, Italian, Latin, German, and Church Slavonic.
Dmitry Bortniansky was born on 28 October 1751 in the city of Glukhov,[10][11][12] Cossack Hetmanate, Russian Empire (in present-day Ukraine). His father was Stefan Skurat (or Shkurat), a Lemko-Rusyn Orthodox religious refugee from the village of Bartne in the Małopolska region of Poland. Skurat served as a Cossack under Kirill Razumovski; he was entered in the Cossack register in 1755.[13] Dmitry's mother was of Cossack origin; her name after her first marriage was Marina Dmitrievna Tolstaya, as a widow of a Russian landlord Tolstoy, who lived in the city of Glukhov. At age seven, Dmitry's prodigious talent at the local church choir afforded him the opportunity to go to the capital of the empire and sing with the Imperial Chapel Choir in Saint Petersburg. Dmitry's half-brother Ivan Tolstoy also sang with the Imperial Chapel Choir.[14] There Dmitry studied music and composition under the director of the Imperial Chapel Choir, the Italian master Baldassare Galuppi. When Galuppi left for Italy in 1769, he took the boy with him. In Italy, Bortniansky gained considerable success composing operas: Creonte (1776) and Alcide (1778) in Venice, and Quinto Fabio (1779) at Modena. He also composed sacred works in Latin and German, both a cappella and with orchestral accompaniment (including an Ave Maria for two voices and orchestra).
Bortniansky returned to the Saint Petersburg Court Capella in 1779 and flourished creatively. He composed at least four more operas (all in French, with libretti by Franz-Hermann Lafermière): Le Faucon (1786), La fête du seigneur (1786), Don Carlos (1786), and Le fils-rival ou La moderne Stratonice (1787). Bortniansky wrote a number of instrumental works at this time, including piano sonatas, a piano quintet with a harp, and a cycle of French songs. He also composed liturgical music for the Eastern Orthodox Church, combining the Eastern and Western European styles of sacred music, incorporating the polyphony he learned in Italy; some works were polychoral, using a style descended from the Venetian polychoral technique of the Gabrielis.
After a while, Bortniansky's genius proved too great to ignore, and in 1796 he was appointed Director of the Imperial Chapel Choir, the first director from the Russian Empire. With such a great instrument at his disposal, he produced scores upon scores of compositions, including over 100 religious works, sacred concertos (35 for a four-part mixed choir, 10 for double choruses), cantatas, and hymns.
Bortniansky died in St. Petersburg on 10 October 1825, and was interred at the Smolensky Cemetery in St. Petersburg. His remains were transferred to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in the 20th century.[15]
In 1882, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky edited Bortniansky's liturgical works, which were published in ten volumes. Bortniansky wrote operas and instrumental compositions, but his sacred choral works are performed most often today. This vast body of work remains central not only to understanding 18th-century Orthodox sacred music, but also subsequently influenced Russian and Ukrainian composers in the 19th century.[citation needed]
The tune he wrote for the Latin hymn Tantum Ergo eventually became known in Slavic lands as Коль славен (Kol Slaven), in which form it is still sung as a church hymn today. The tune was also popular with freemasons. It travelled to English-speaking countries and came to be known by the names Russia, St. Petersburg or Wells. In Germany, the song was paired with a text by Gerhard Tersteegen and became a well-known chorale and traditional part of the military ceremony Großer Zapfenstreich (the Grand Tattoo), the highest ceremonial act of the German army, rendered as an honor for distinguished persons on special occasions. Before the October Revolution in 1917, the tune was played by the Kremlin carillon every day at midday.[citation needed]
James Blish, who novelized many episodes of the original series of Star Trek, noted in one story, "Whom Gods Destroy", that Bortniansky's Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe was the theme "to which all Starfleet Academy classes marched to their graduation."[citation needed]
Bortniansky composed "The Angel Greeted the Gracious One" (hymn to the Mother of God used at Pascha) as a trio used by many Orthodox churches in the Easter season.[citation needed]
Bortniansky's work had a significant impact on the development of Russian and Ukrainian music.
Almost half a century of Bortniansky's life was associated with music education, with the most important processes of the formation of musical culture in Russia.[16] According to Russian musicologist Boris Asafyev, "Bortniansky developed a style with characteristic inversions, which retained its influence for several following generations. These typical appeals not only reached Mikhail Glinka, but also Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin".[17]
At the same time, beginning in the 1920s, Bortniansky's work became the subject of special attention from Ukrainian musicians. Stanyslav Lyudkevych's article "D. Bortniansky and Contemporary Ukrainian Music" (1925) called on Ukrainian musicians to develop the traditions established by Bortniansky, "to dive deeper and more thoroughly into the great cultural treasury concentrated in Bortniansky's works, to find the sources in it and foundations of our revival".
Traditionally, Ukrainian musicologists emphasize the use of intonations of Ukrainian folk songs in choral work, since the composer's first musical impressions were obtained in Ukraine. Most of Bortniansky's friends in the choir were Ukrainian, as was his teacher Mark Poltoratsky.[citation needed] In particular, Lydia Korniy notes:[18]
Lyudkevych also notes Ukrainian intonations in Bortniansky's works:
although he adopted the manners of the Italian style and became a reformer of church singing in St. Petersburg, nevertheless, all his works (even with such disgusting to our spirit "fugues") hid so much typically Ukrainian melody that because of it he just now became unpopular Muscovites, and every foreigner from the first time hears in them something unknown to himself, original[clarification needed][19]
The influence of Bortniansky's work is noted in the works of Ukrainian composers Mykola Lysenko, Kyrylo Stetsenko, M. Verbytsky, Mykola Leontovych, M. Dremlyuga, Levko Revutsky, K. Dominchen, B. Lyatoshynsky, and others.
