Post by Bandura on Jan 15, 2006 12:03:14 GMT -5
Lot of interesting information about T. Bilohradsky.
From The Moscow Weiss Lute Manuscript introduction by Tim Crawford
www.orphee.com/weismain.htm
The lute in eighteenth-century Russia
The tumultuous changes wrought in Russia by Peter the Great (1672-1725)
were as significant for cultural life as for the
political future of the emerging world power. In order to modernise and
?Westernise? his realm, Peter imported foreign
soldiers, engineers, physicians, administrators, workmen and, of course,
artists of every kind. His new capital, St
Petersburg, was founded in 1703 on the Baltic marshes; the government
moved there in 1712, although Moscow, the ancient
capital of Muscovy, retained much political, religious and social
importance, and the Court itself remained there until 1730.
Peter?s reforms were carried on, with associated legal, religious and
constitutional changes, by his successors, Catherine I
(c.1684 -1727), Peter II (1715 -30), Anna Ivanovna (1693 -1740), Ivan VI
(infant, murdered 1741), Elizaveta Petrovna (1709 -
62), Peter III (1728 -1762) and Catherine the Great (1729 - 96), during
a century of dynastic rivalries and strife. The Russian
throne was allied by marriage to several German noble families and much
of the bitterness in the struggles for power in
the Romanov family was due to the preference granted by various rulers
to foreign influence, notably to the large
number of Germans who dominated the administrative system.
It is not surprising, therefore, to discover that the history of music
in Russia during the eighteenth century was largely one
of ?Germanisation?. But the characteristic forms and inflections of
Russian folk music provided?as they still do?a strong
vein of influence on ?art? music by native composers, a trait which was
to culminate in the ?nationalistic? style of Russia?s
first truly great composer Mikhail Glinka (1804-57). During the Baroque
period local ?folk? musicians were employed in
large numbers; frequently imported from rural villages to great houses
in the cities, they satisfied their employers?
characteristically Russian need for contact with their cultural roots.
At the same time, the trend towards Western musical
ideals began to be supported actively by various members of the Royal
family as patrons and, later, by a significant
number of aristocratic and royal dilettante musicians as participants.
Peter the Great?s German son-in-law, Karl Ulrich, Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp, started the trend, bringing his ?kleine
Kammer-Kapelle? with him to St Petersburg on his marriage to Peter?s
daughter, Anna, in 1720. Consisting of a few violins,
as well as a viola d?amore, a viola, a cello and a double bass with
pairs of oboes, flutes, horns and trumpets with drums,
this ensemble made a huge impact on the St Petersburg musical scene,
introducing for the first time the Italian music by
Corelli, Tartini and others that formed the basic repertory of the court
bands of Europe at the time. Their repertory also
included the latest music by Germans such as Telemann, Heinichen and
Fux, as well as compositions by members of the
group themselves. The Holstein Kapelle won acclaim for its performances
with the Ducal choir during the three days of
celebrations which followed the treaty with Sweden in 1721.(16) The
German band-members trained many young Russian
musicians, who attained their own distinction in later years.
The Royal court, inspired by Holstein?s example and the rise in demand
throughout Europe for opera seria, became
formally involved in recruiting foreign musicians in the early 1730s.
Czarina Anna Ivanovna, although personally
uninterested in music, initiated negotiations at the highest level with
the Court of Saxony in order to obtain the services of
some members of the Elector?s over-abundant musical, theatrical and
operatic establishment. In May 1730, the Russian
diplomat assigned to the task wrote to his opposite number in Dresden
describing the Czarina?s ?shopping list? for a group
of performers to form a new ?Musique de Cabinet?. She wanted it to
be:(17)
composed of elite musicians acknowledged as virtuosi?for
we don?t lack good musicians here?but she would
wish that these few persons from this country or abroad
each excel in their speciality, if possible. She would
like a good harpsichordist who is at the same time a
composer, two singers for Italian and German arias, one
of them a castrato if possible and the other a female
singer who is not ugly or disagreeable but is above all
pretty and who has decent manners. A good lute-player
taught by [lit. ?from the hand of ?] our friend Mr
Weis, to whom I wish you to pay my compliments. A good
oboist who also has distinction on the flute. A good
bassoonist.
In the event, the Saxon Elector and King of Poland, August the Strong,
loaned three excellent singers who arrived in
Moscow with a group of five instrumentalists of the highest quality, and
a company of Italian commedia dell?arte players
in February 1731. On this basis a more permanent Russian court ensemble
was eventually formed, and the shrewd
appointment of successive Italian maestri di capella ensured that the
best Italian singers and instrumentalists were
recruited for the Moscow Court, which enjoyed some of the best music in
Europe during the second half of the century.
The small but distinguished instrumental ensemble loaned by the Elector
of Saxony was drawn from his polnischer
Kapelle, a small ensemble which normally accompanied him on his annual
trips to Warsaw, and consisted of their Italian
harpsichordist, composer and Kapellmeister, Giovanni Alberto Ristori
(1692-1753), a violinist, a ?Violgambiste?, two
horn-players and a bassoonist.(18) The group of Italian comedy-players
was under the direction of Ristori?s 73-year-old
father, Tomaso.(19) The party, numbering 34 persons in all, was escorted
on the arduous and dangerous journey from
Warsaw to Moscow by a guard of Russian soldiers. The comedy-players (and
probably the instrumentalists, too) were paid
one thaler per day, while Ristori and the singers received a silver
rouble per day. Because there was no Court theatre in
the Kremlin, they took a portable stage with them, and performed for a
delegation of Chinese diplomats in pantomime
(without singing) since the Czarina could not understand Italian.(20)
Ristori?s oratorio, La Deposizione della Croce, was
performed at Dresden in Holy Week, 1732, so it seems probable that he,
at least, had returned some time before then.
The group of musicians from Saxony did not, contrary to the Czarina?s
expressed wish, include a lute player, presumably
because none of Weiss?s pupils at that time was available. However, a
lutenist, Timofei Bielogradski, was appointed in
1739.(21) We have little detailed information about Bielogradski?s
life.(22) It is clear, however, that he must have been a
remarkable musician. There are enough references to his virtuosity to
suggest that he was a worthy member of the
illustrious group of professional lute players who carried on the
tradition of Weiss?s manner of playing into the early
pre-classical period. The two most distinguished Weiss pupils of this
generation were Adam Falckenhagen (1697-c1761) and
Johann Kropffgans (1703-after 1769). Another important lutenist of the
later eighteenth century was Weiss?s own son
Johann Adolf Faustinus (1741-1814).(23) Unfortunately, Bielogradsky has
left no evidence of activity as a composer, unlike
his German fellows; we must presume that he depended on his powers of
improvisation and his skill as an interpreter of
the music of others.
The earliest, and probably most reliable source of information about
Bielogradsky is a historical account of music and
theatre in Russia by the German chronicler, Jakob von St?hlin, published
in 1770. Referring to events following the
peformance of the opera Semiramide (music by the Russian Imperial
Kapellmeister Francesco Araja) in Moscow in
January 1738, St?hlin mentions Bielogradsky?s appointment:(24)
At just about this time the court acquired a splendid
lutenist, Mr Beligradski, born a Ukrainian, whom the
Imperial Russian Privy Counsellor and Ambassador, Count
Kayserling, formerly (1733) took with him as
Pandorist to Dresden, and apprenticed him to the famous
Weiss for several years. He plays, fully in the style
of his great teacher, the weightiest solos and hardest
concertos, and accompanies himself in opera- and other
arias, which he sings with as much strength as grace,
after the best manner of Annabili from Dresden, Faustina,
and other great artists, with whom he had been acquainted
at Dresden for many years, in a pleasant
?Sopralto? voice.
Although the actual date of Bielogradsky?s birth is unknown, we can
surmise that he was probably born around 1710 or
perhaps a little later since he was apprenticed to Weiss in 1733.
St?hlin refers to him as ?einem gebornen Ukrainer,? but
there is some confusion about his place of birth. Somewhat later
secondary sources refer to him as born in Circassia, a
mountainous province in the Caucasus to the east of the Black Sea.(25)
It seems altogether more likely that this is in fact a
phonetic confusion with the Ukrainian city of Cerkassy, which lies some
95 miles south-east of the capital, Kiev.(26)
According to St?hlin, before he took up the lute Bielogradsky was a
Pandurist, or player of the Ukrainian Pandor. Since
this is must be etymologically related to the modern Ukrainian bandura,
a multi-stringed instrument which combines
elements of the psaltery and the lute, it is perhaps important to take
careful account of what St?hlin actually says about the
instrument. Earlier in his narrative of Russian musical history he gives
a lengthy account of Russian folk instruments in
current use including the Kuhhorn (Cow?s horn), the Gudok (rebec), the
Balalajka, the Dutka or Schwer?n
(double-tubed reed pipe), the Rileh and the Walynka (bagpipes).
Following an account of a crude form of iron cymbals
he heard played by two young apprentice blacksmiths, he gives a fairly
detailed description of the Pandor and its
players:(27)
To the incomparably better class of music, actually
Russian as well, and certainly also not disagreeable to
sensitive ears, belong the Pandor and the Gusli
(psaltery), which are no more to be found among the common
people, but only in the towns and in the houses of
aristocrats.
The Pandor, which is also not unknown in Germany, gets
pretty close to a lute in its whole construction as well
as in its sound; only excepting that the neck is usually
somewhat shorter, and it is strung with fewer strings.
One could therefore with justification call it the half
lute. It actually originated in Poland or in the Ukraine,
from where the most and best Pandurists in Russia also
come. On the whole this province compares to the
other provinces of the Russian empire as by reputation
Provence does to the other regions of France. The
southerly situation of the country, an abundance of all
vegetables and fruits, and the naturally-inspired
voluptuous life of the lively inhabitants, are among its
chief distinguishing features. Everyone sings, everyone
dances and plays in this country.
The most frequently-encountered instrument is the Pandor,
on which the expert Ukrainians play the finest
Polish and Ukrainian dances, and know how to accompany
themselves in their many and truly tender songs. As
nowadays very many young people in the Ukraine dedicate
themselves to this instrument with special
diligence, there has always been an abundance of
Pandurists. Of these many formerly took themselves from
time to time to Moscow and Petersburg, where they were
taken on in the houses of great Russian gentlemen
as house-musicians or Pandorists, who sing and play during
meals, but also are obliged to teach this instrument
to any of the household serfs who shows a liking and
aptitude for music. These Ukrainian Pandorists are mostly
merry and nimble birds, who in their songs very vividly
express passion with facial expressions and gestures,
and otherwise are pretty accustomed to fooling about. I
have known some of the best, who while singing and
playing dance around the room to their melodies in very
fine Ukrainian style, and without the least pause in
their playing, can bring a full glass of wine placed on
the Pandor to their mouth and drink from it. They are
always distinguished in their dress from the other
servants in the aristocratic houses, not going about in
French or German attire, like the others, but in long and
light Ukrainian clothes, with slashed and dangling
sleeves to their overcoats, like those of the Poles, the
front panels of which they always gather up and tuck
into their sashes when they are playing and dancing.
I notice, that over at least the last twenty years in the
houses of the prominent nobility in Russia these
Pandorists and merrymakers are ever more in decline, just
as finer taste on the Clavier, the violin, the flute
and the horn, and fondness for Italian music in general
take hold, as I shall describe further below.
St?hlin then goes on to describe the Gusli, a folk psaltery (liegende
Harfe) before resuming his account of the
development of music in Russia in the eighteenth century. The most
striking point about this passage in the present context
is that St?hlin describes a lute-like instrument apparently similar to
the German mandora,(28) rather than the earlier form
of the surviving Ukrainian bandura, which is well documented from the
early nineteenth century as an instrument
broadly resembling the lute, but with a large, almost circular body
carrying many diatonically-tuned strings somewhat in
the manner of the psaltery.(29)
Further confusion is thrown on the matter by the existence of other
Ukrainian lute-related instruments such as the kobza
and the torb?n. The latter instrument is normally assumed today to have
been a kind of variant bandura, but it may have
had a more independent existence in the eighteenth century:(30)
The theorbo, an instrument which was similar to the lute
and which was popularly called the ?aristocrat?s
bandura,? was widespread among the Ukrainian nobility and
Kozak officers.
Perhaps the instrument played by Bielogradsky and others in the grand
town-villas of the music-loving Russian aristocracy
was indeed this ?aristocrat?s bandura?.(31) However, the matter cannot
be pursued in any further detail here. St?hlin?s
identification of the ?Pandor? as the ?half lute? at least suggests that
it was a fingerboard-stopped instrument like the lute
proper, whereas the multi-strung bandura, even in the old diatonic form
as played by the famous blind wandering
minstrel of the next century, Ostap Veresai (1803-90), would have
demanded a very different technique, all the strings
being played without stopping with the left hand.
(There are some 19th-century [?] paintings of Cossacks playing lute-like
instruments, identified today as ?Kobzas?,
presumably by analogy with the extant Romanian lute of that name. How
similar these are to St?lin?s ?half lute? may be
judged from the samples here.)
St?hlin tells us that Count Kayserling took Bielogradsky with him to
Dresden from Russia. Hermann Karl, Baron Keyserling
(or Keyserlingk) (1696-1764) was President of the recently-founded
Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg, and
was an active music-lover and supporter of the arts. In December 1733 he
took up his post in Dresden as Russian Imperial
Ambassador to the Polish and Saxon courts and was eventually created
Count by the Polish King and Elector of Saxony in
1741. Keyserling is best known to music history as a patron of J.S.
Bach. He acted as intermediary in Bach?s appointment as
Hof-Komponist to the Dresden court in 1736. Bach?s ?Goldberg? Variations
BWV988 were composed in 1741 for
performance by Keyserling?s harpsichordist, J.G. Goldberg.
A later biographical reference places Bielogradsky in Berlin in
1737.(32) We do not know if Bielogradsky was still in
Keyserling?s service at this time, but his reputation was clearly
spreading. In Berlin, he seems to have begun his activities
as a lute teacher. In 1735 the East Prussian Count Truchsess-Walburg, on
one of his frequent trips from K?nigsberg, brought
to Berlin a young musical servant. Johann Reichardt (1720-80), who
became a lutenist of distinction, was himself the father
of the famous composer and writer on music, Johann Friedrich Reichardt.
Under the patronage of Count Truchsess the
elder Reichardt began his formal musical training with violin lessons
from a pupil of Franz Benda, and lute lessons, as his
son?s memoirs tell us, from ?eine Russe Pelegrazki?.(33) Through
Reichardt?s later activities as a lutenist and teacher there
grew up a significant K?nigsberg school of lute playing. Bielogradsky
was held in much the same esteem in the East
Prussian capital as was his own teacher, S.L. Weiss, and his son Johann
Adolf Faustinus Weiss, who spent at least seven years
in K?nigsberg in the 1750s.(34) Bielogradsky?s name lived on until the
1840s in German musical dictionaries; in 1841 he was
referred to as ?one of the esteemed lutenists of the instrument?s last
period?.(35)
Bielogradsky?s 1739 appointment at the Russian Court, where he may have
been already well known, even employed, as a
bandurist, was at first short-lived, since Czarina Anna Ivanovna died in
the following year. During the long period of
mourning and political instability that followed (the heir apparent, the
infant Ivan VI, was murdered in 1741) several court
musicians, including Bielogradsky, were employed at Dresden by Count
Br?hl, the corrupt Prime Minister to the Polish King
and Saxon Elector, Friedrich August II.(36) Count Heinrich von Br?hl
(1700-63) is infamous in German history for draining the
financial resources of Saxony at a critical point in its history in
order to enrich himself and tighten his personal control
over the Elector. It was said that his own personal household was far
more magnificent than that of the Elector himself, and
that he employed over 200 servants. Whether Bielogradsky remained in
Dresden for longer than the year of official
mourning is unknown, but undoubtedly he resumed contact with Weiss, and
it was probably at this time that he worked
professionally with the singers Annabili and Faustina.
Bielogradsky was back in the service of Czarina Elizaveta Petrovna at
her accession in 1741, or at least soon afterwards. It
seems that he remained in constant royal favour for three decades from
his appointment in 1739. In 1767 he retired, and
Catherine the Great altogether exceptionally granted him a pension of
1000 roubles, and heating expenses of 500 roubles,
as well as free use of a coach belonging to the Court.(37) As St?hlin
refers to Bielogradsky in the present tense in his 1770
account of his playing,(38) we can suppose that his comfortable
retirement lasted into the new decade.
Apart from Bielogradsky another lutenist had been employed by the
Russian Court in the late 1740s. Ivan Stepanovich is
recorded as entering royal service in October 1746, having recently
returned from Saxony.(39) Mooser speculates,
reasonably, that Stepanovich, like Bielogradsky before him, was a pupil
of Weiss in Dresden, although there is no further
documentary evidence of this. It is interesting to note that in 1748 not
only were the two lutenists, Bielogradsky and
Stepanovich, employed at the Russian Court, on a salary of 500 roubles
each, but there were in addition three more
modestly-paid bandurists, who between them earned only 340 roubles.(40)
The German 13-course lute may have been
regarded as a kind of ?bridge? between the bandura, the folk instrument
beloved of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian
aristocrats, and the more ?courtly? Western music that was increasingly
ousting it in popularity. Perhaps it is even possible
that the lute had some influence on the later development of the
construction of the Ukrainian bandura? But such
interesting questions are far beyond the scope of this study.
Much work remains to be done on the history of the lute and other
plucked-string instruments in Russia and Eastern
Europe in general. Undoubtedly there were many other players in the
later eighteenth century, both professional and
amateur. With the limited resources available I have only uncovered one
further reference to the lute. St?hlin describes
the court performance of Domenico Dalloglio?s setting of La Russia
aflitta e rinconsolata, St?hlin?s prologue to Hasse?s La
Clemenza di Tito, which was given during the celebrations following
Elizaveta Petrovna?s coronation in Moscow in 1742.
The expression of the musical passions in Dalloglio?s setting was so
effective, according to the proud librettist, that(41)
at the performance of the same, particularly in Ruthenia?s
aria, ah! miei figli, &c., accompanied by a loud lute
played by Secretary Spitz and a gentle flute, the
sensitive Czarina herself could not hold back her tears.
Bielogradsky?s career has been explored here in some detail. He was an
artist of international repute and was known as a
lute teacher, but it must be stressed that although it was a reasonable
guess that the Moscow MS was written by him,(42) or
under his direction, there were several others, including Ivan
Stepanovich and, perhaps, Secretary Spitz, who could have
compiled such a collection. The music could have been partially or
wholly copied from a source in Bielogradsky?s or
another player?s possession, or, less likely given its general level of
accuracy, copied out from memory by a visiting
player. It was certainly not begun before Bielogradsky?s last working
years: the paper suggests a terminus post quem of
1768, the year after his retirement. Bielogradsky could, of course, be
the composer of the pieces in the MS that seem to be
in the style of a follower or pupil of Weiss, rather than by the great
Dresden lutenist himself. Unfortunately we have no
documentary evidence that gives us any information about Bielogradsky?s
activities as a composer, or even whether he
attempted composition. Undoubtedly he was an accomplished improviser, as
was his great teacher, but St?hlin suggests that
he made his reputation as an interpreter of Weiss?s music.
An alternative scenario, pure speculation owing to the defacement of the
original title-page, is that the ?maitre? referred
to there was a visiting member of the K?nigsberg school of lute players
founded by Bielogradsky?s pupil, Reichardt, and to
which Weiss?s son Johann Adolf Faustinus belonged in the 1750s.(43)
Stretching a semantic point perhaps beyond its limits, it
could possibly be argued that since the Christian name of ?Mr Weiss in
Dresden? is not given, it could also refer to J.A.F.
Weiss as well as to his father; Johann Adolf Faustinus returned to
Dresden around 1760 and was formally appointed as
Hof-Lautenist in his father?s place in 1763.(44) Unfortunately, the bulk
of his own lute music was lost in the destruction of
K?nigsberg during World War II, so there is little basis for a stylistic
comparison that might confirm this speculation as a
serious possibility.(45)
From The Moscow Weiss Lute Manuscript introduction by Tim Crawford
www.orphee.com/weismain.htm
The lute in eighteenth-century Russia
The tumultuous changes wrought in Russia by Peter the Great (1672-1725)
were as significant for cultural life as for the
political future of the emerging world power. In order to modernise and
?Westernise? his realm, Peter imported foreign
soldiers, engineers, physicians, administrators, workmen and, of course,
artists of every kind. His new capital, St
Petersburg, was founded in 1703 on the Baltic marshes; the government
moved there in 1712, although Moscow, the ancient
capital of Muscovy, retained much political, religious and social
importance, and the Court itself remained there until 1730.
Peter?s reforms were carried on, with associated legal, religious and
constitutional changes, by his successors, Catherine I
(c.1684 -1727), Peter II (1715 -30), Anna Ivanovna (1693 -1740), Ivan VI
(infant, murdered 1741), Elizaveta Petrovna (1709 -
62), Peter III (1728 -1762) and Catherine the Great (1729 - 96), during
a century of dynastic rivalries and strife. The Russian
throne was allied by marriage to several German noble families and much
of the bitterness in the struggles for power in
the Romanov family was due to the preference granted by various rulers
to foreign influence, notably to the large
number of Germans who dominated the administrative system.
It is not surprising, therefore, to discover that the history of music
in Russia during the eighteenth century was largely one
of ?Germanisation?. But the characteristic forms and inflections of
Russian folk music provided?as they still do?a strong
vein of influence on ?art? music by native composers, a trait which was
to culminate in the ?nationalistic? style of Russia?s
first truly great composer Mikhail Glinka (1804-57). During the Baroque
period local ?folk? musicians were employed in
large numbers; frequently imported from rural villages to great houses
in the cities, they satisfied their employers?
characteristically Russian need for contact with their cultural roots.
At the same time, the trend towards Western musical
ideals began to be supported actively by various members of the Royal
family as patrons and, later, by a significant
number of aristocratic and royal dilettante musicians as participants.
Peter the Great?s German son-in-law, Karl Ulrich, Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp, started the trend, bringing his ?kleine
Kammer-Kapelle? with him to St Petersburg on his marriage to Peter?s
daughter, Anna, in 1720. Consisting of a few violins,
as well as a viola d?amore, a viola, a cello and a double bass with
pairs of oboes, flutes, horns and trumpets with drums,
this ensemble made a huge impact on the St Petersburg musical scene,
introducing for the first time the Italian music by
Corelli, Tartini and others that formed the basic repertory of the court
bands of Europe at the time. Their repertory also
included the latest music by Germans such as Telemann, Heinichen and
Fux, as well as compositions by members of the
group themselves. The Holstein Kapelle won acclaim for its performances
with the Ducal choir during the three days of
celebrations which followed the treaty with Sweden in 1721.(16) The
German band-members trained many young Russian
musicians, who attained their own distinction in later years.
The Royal court, inspired by Holstein?s example and the rise in demand
throughout Europe for opera seria, became
formally involved in recruiting foreign musicians in the early 1730s.
Czarina Anna Ivanovna, although personally
uninterested in music, initiated negotiations at the highest level with
the Court of Saxony in order to obtain the services of
some members of the Elector?s over-abundant musical, theatrical and
operatic establishment. In May 1730, the Russian
diplomat assigned to the task wrote to his opposite number in Dresden
describing the Czarina?s ?shopping list? for a group
of performers to form a new ?Musique de Cabinet?. She wanted it to
be:(17)
composed of elite musicians acknowledged as virtuosi?for
we don?t lack good musicians here?but she would
wish that these few persons from this country or abroad
each excel in their speciality, if possible. She would
like a good harpsichordist who is at the same time a
composer, two singers for Italian and German arias, one
of them a castrato if possible and the other a female
singer who is not ugly or disagreeable but is above all
pretty and who has decent manners. A good lute-player
taught by [lit. ?from the hand of ?] our friend Mr
Weis, to whom I wish you to pay my compliments. A good
oboist who also has distinction on the flute. A good
bassoonist.
In the event, the Saxon Elector and King of Poland, August the Strong,
loaned three excellent singers who arrived in
Moscow with a group of five instrumentalists of the highest quality, and
a company of Italian commedia dell?arte players
in February 1731. On this basis a more permanent Russian court ensemble
was eventually formed, and the shrewd
appointment of successive Italian maestri di capella ensured that the
best Italian singers and instrumentalists were
recruited for the Moscow Court, which enjoyed some of the best music in
Europe during the second half of the century.
The small but distinguished instrumental ensemble loaned by the Elector
of Saxony was drawn from his polnischer
Kapelle, a small ensemble which normally accompanied him on his annual
trips to Warsaw, and consisted of their Italian
harpsichordist, composer and Kapellmeister, Giovanni Alberto Ristori
(1692-1753), a violinist, a ?Violgambiste?, two
horn-players and a bassoonist.(18) The group of Italian comedy-players
was under the direction of Ristori?s 73-year-old
father, Tomaso.(19) The party, numbering 34 persons in all, was escorted
on the arduous and dangerous journey from
Warsaw to Moscow by a guard of Russian soldiers. The comedy-players (and
probably the instrumentalists, too) were paid
one thaler per day, while Ristori and the singers received a silver
rouble per day. Because there was no Court theatre in
the Kremlin, they took a portable stage with them, and performed for a
delegation of Chinese diplomats in pantomime
(without singing) since the Czarina could not understand Italian.(20)
Ristori?s oratorio, La Deposizione della Croce, was
performed at Dresden in Holy Week, 1732, so it seems probable that he,
at least, had returned some time before then.
The group of musicians from Saxony did not, contrary to the Czarina?s
expressed wish, include a lute player, presumably
because none of Weiss?s pupils at that time was available. However, a
lutenist, Timofei Bielogradski, was appointed in
1739.(21) We have little detailed information about Bielogradski?s
life.(22) It is clear, however, that he must have been a
remarkable musician. There are enough references to his virtuosity to
suggest that he was a worthy member of the
illustrious group of professional lute players who carried on the
tradition of Weiss?s manner of playing into the early
pre-classical period. The two most distinguished Weiss pupils of this
generation were Adam Falckenhagen (1697-c1761) and
Johann Kropffgans (1703-after 1769). Another important lutenist of the
later eighteenth century was Weiss?s own son
Johann Adolf Faustinus (1741-1814).(23) Unfortunately, Bielogradsky has
left no evidence of activity as a composer, unlike
his German fellows; we must presume that he depended on his powers of
improvisation and his skill as an interpreter of
the music of others.
The earliest, and probably most reliable source of information about
Bielogradsky is a historical account of music and
theatre in Russia by the German chronicler, Jakob von St?hlin, published
in 1770. Referring to events following the
peformance of the opera Semiramide (music by the Russian Imperial
Kapellmeister Francesco Araja) in Moscow in
January 1738, St?hlin mentions Bielogradsky?s appointment:(24)
At just about this time the court acquired a splendid
lutenist, Mr Beligradski, born a Ukrainian, whom the
Imperial Russian Privy Counsellor and Ambassador, Count
Kayserling, formerly (1733) took with him as
Pandorist to Dresden, and apprenticed him to the famous
Weiss for several years. He plays, fully in the style
of his great teacher, the weightiest solos and hardest
concertos, and accompanies himself in opera- and other
arias, which he sings with as much strength as grace,
after the best manner of Annabili from Dresden, Faustina,
and other great artists, with whom he had been acquainted
at Dresden for many years, in a pleasant
?Sopralto? voice.
Although the actual date of Bielogradsky?s birth is unknown, we can
surmise that he was probably born around 1710 or
perhaps a little later since he was apprenticed to Weiss in 1733.
St?hlin refers to him as ?einem gebornen Ukrainer,? but
there is some confusion about his place of birth. Somewhat later
secondary sources refer to him as born in Circassia, a
mountainous province in the Caucasus to the east of the Black Sea.(25)
It seems altogether more likely that this is in fact a
phonetic confusion with the Ukrainian city of Cerkassy, which lies some
95 miles south-east of the capital, Kiev.(26)
According to St?hlin, before he took up the lute Bielogradsky was a
Pandurist, or player of the Ukrainian Pandor. Since
this is must be etymologically related to the modern Ukrainian bandura,
a multi-stringed instrument which combines
elements of the psaltery and the lute, it is perhaps important to take
careful account of what St?hlin actually says about the
instrument. Earlier in his narrative of Russian musical history he gives
a lengthy account of Russian folk instruments in
current use including the Kuhhorn (Cow?s horn), the Gudok (rebec), the
Balalajka, the Dutka or Schwer?n
(double-tubed reed pipe), the Rileh and the Walynka (bagpipes).
Following an account of a crude form of iron cymbals
he heard played by two young apprentice blacksmiths, he gives a fairly
detailed description of the Pandor and its
players:(27)
To the incomparably better class of music, actually
Russian as well, and certainly also not disagreeable to
sensitive ears, belong the Pandor and the Gusli
(psaltery), which are no more to be found among the common
people, but only in the towns and in the houses of
aristocrats.
The Pandor, which is also not unknown in Germany, gets
pretty close to a lute in its whole construction as well
as in its sound; only excepting that the neck is usually
somewhat shorter, and it is strung with fewer strings.
One could therefore with justification call it the half
lute. It actually originated in Poland or in the Ukraine,
from where the most and best Pandurists in Russia also
come. On the whole this province compares to the
other provinces of the Russian empire as by reputation
Provence does to the other regions of France. The
southerly situation of the country, an abundance of all
vegetables and fruits, and the naturally-inspired
voluptuous life of the lively inhabitants, are among its
chief distinguishing features. Everyone sings, everyone
dances and plays in this country.
The most frequently-encountered instrument is the Pandor,
on which the expert Ukrainians play the finest
Polish and Ukrainian dances, and know how to accompany
themselves in their many and truly tender songs. As
nowadays very many young people in the Ukraine dedicate
themselves to this instrument with special
diligence, there has always been an abundance of
Pandurists. Of these many formerly took themselves from
time to time to Moscow and Petersburg, where they were
taken on in the houses of great Russian gentlemen
as house-musicians or Pandorists, who sing and play during
meals, but also are obliged to teach this instrument
to any of the household serfs who shows a liking and
aptitude for music. These Ukrainian Pandorists are mostly
merry and nimble birds, who in their songs very vividly
express passion with facial expressions and gestures,
and otherwise are pretty accustomed to fooling about. I
have known some of the best, who while singing and
playing dance around the room to their melodies in very
fine Ukrainian style, and without the least pause in
their playing, can bring a full glass of wine placed on
the Pandor to their mouth and drink from it. They are
always distinguished in their dress from the other
servants in the aristocratic houses, not going about in
French or German attire, like the others, but in long and
light Ukrainian clothes, with slashed and dangling
sleeves to their overcoats, like those of the Poles, the
front panels of which they always gather up and tuck
into their sashes when they are playing and dancing.
I notice, that over at least the last twenty years in the
houses of the prominent nobility in Russia these
Pandorists and merrymakers are ever more in decline, just
as finer taste on the Clavier, the violin, the flute
and the horn, and fondness for Italian music in general
take hold, as I shall describe further below.
St?hlin then goes on to describe the Gusli, a folk psaltery (liegende
Harfe) before resuming his account of the
development of music in Russia in the eighteenth century. The most
striking point about this passage in the present context
is that St?hlin describes a lute-like instrument apparently similar to
the German mandora,(28) rather than the earlier form
of the surviving Ukrainian bandura, which is well documented from the
early nineteenth century as an instrument
broadly resembling the lute, but with a large, almost circular body
carrying many diatonically-tuned strings somewhat in
the manner of the psaltery.(29)
Further confusion is thrown on the matter by the existence of other
Ukrainian lute-related instruments such as the kobza
and the torb?n. The latter instrument is normally assumed today to have
been a kind of variant bandura, but it may have
had a more independent existence in the eighteenth century:(30)
The theorbo, an instrument which was similar to the lute
and which was popularly called the ?aristocrat?s
bandura,? was widespread among the Ukrainian nobility and
Kozak officers.
Perhaps the instrument played by Bielogradsky and others in the grand
town-villas of the music-loving Russian aristocracy
was indeed this ?aristocrat?s bandura?.(31) However, the matter cannot
be pursued in any further detail here. St?hlin?s
identification of the ?Pandor? as the ?half lute? at least suggests that
it was a fingerboard-stopped instrument like the lute
proper, whereas the multi-strung bandura, even in the old diatonic form
as played by the famous blind wandering
minstrel of the next century, Ostap Veresai (1803-90), would have
demanded a very different technique, all the strings
being played without stopping with the left hand.
(There are some 19th-century [?] paintings of Cossacks playing lute-like
instruments, identified today as ?Kobzas?,
presumably by analogy with the extant Romanian lute of that name. How
similar these are to St?lin?s ?half lute? may be
judged from the samples here.)
St?hlin tells us that Count Kayserling took Bielogradsky with him to
Dresden from Russia. Hermann Karl, Baron Keyserling
(or Keyserlingk) (1696-1764) was President of the recently-founded
Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg, and
was an active music-lover and supporter of the arts. In December 1733 he
took up his post in Dresden as Russian Imperial
Ambassador to the Polish and Saxon courts and was eventually created
Count by the Polish King and Elector of Saxony in
1741. Keyserling is best known to music history as a patron of J.S.
Bach. He acted as intermediary in Bach?s appointment as
Hof-Komponist to the Dresden court in 1736. Bach?s ?Goldberg? Variations
BWV988 were composed in 1741 for
performance by Keyserling?s harpsichordist, J.G. Goldberg.
A later biographical reference places Bielogradsky in Berlin in
1737.(32) We do not know if Bielogradsky was still in
Keyserling?s service at this time, but his reputation was clearly
spreading. In Berlin, he seems to have begun his activities
as a lute teacher. In 1735 the East Prussian Count Truchsess-Walburg, on
one of his frequent trips from K?nigsberg, brought
to Berlin a young musical servant. Johann Reichardt (1720-80), who
became a lutenist of distinction, was himself the father
of the famous composer and writer on music, Johann Friedrich Reichardt.
Under the patronage of Count Truchsess the
elder Reichardt began his formal musical training with violin lessons
from a pupil of Franz Benda, and lute lessons, as his
son?s memoirs tell us, from ?eine Russe Pelegrazki?.(33) Through
Reichardt?s later activities as a lutenist and teacher there
grew up a significant K?nigsberg school of lute playing. Bielogradsky
was held in much the same esteem in the East
Prussian capital as was his own teacher, S.L. Weiss, and his son Johann
Adolf Faustinus Weiss, who spent at least seven years
in K?nigsberg in the 1750s.(34) Bielogradsky?s name lived on until the
1840s in German musical dictionaries; in 1841 he was
referred to as ?one of the esteemed lutenists of the instrument?s last
period?.(35)
Bielogradsky?s 1739 appointment at the Russian Court, where he may have
been already well known, even employed, as a
bandurist, was at first short-lived, since Czarina Anna Ivanovna died in
the following year. During the long period of
mourning and political instability that followed (the heir apparent, the
infant Ivan VI, was murdered in 1741) several court
musicians, including Bielogradsky, were employed at Dresden by Count
Br?hl, the corrupt Prime Minister to the Polish King
and Saxon Elector, Friedrich August II.(36) Count Heinrich von Br?hl
(1700-63) is infamous in German history for draining the
financial resources of Saxony at a critical point in its history in
order to enrich himself and tighten his personal control
over the Elector. It was said that his own personal household was far
more magnificent than that of the Elector himself, and
that he employed over 200 servants. Whether Bielogradsky remained in
Dresden for longer than the year of official
mourning is unknown, but undoubtedly he resumed contact with Weiss, and
it was probably at this time that he worked
professionally with the singers Annabili and Faustina.
Bielogradsky was back in the service of Czarina Elizaveta Petrovna at
her accession in 1741, or at least soon afterwards. It
seems that he remained in constant royal favour for three decades from
his appointment in 1739. In 1767 he retired, and
Catherine the Great altogether exceptionally granted him a pension of
1000 roubles, and heating expenses of 500 roubles,
as well as free use of a coach belonging to the Court.(37) As St?hlin
refers to Bielogradsky in the present tense in his 1770
account of his playing,(38) we can suppose that his comfortable
retirement lasted into the new decade.
Apart from Bielogradsky another lutenist had been employed by the
Russian Court in the late 1740s. Ivan Stepanovich is
recorded as entering royal service in October 1746, having recently
returned from Saxony.(39) Mooser speculates,
reasonably, that Stepanovich, like Bielogradsky before him, was a pupil
of Weiss in Dresden, although there is no further
documentary evidence of this. It is interesting to note that in 1748 not
only were the two lutenists, Bielogradsky and
Stepanovich, employed at the Russian Court, on a salary of 500 roubles
each, but there were in addition three more
modestly-paid bandurists, who between them earned only 340 roubles.(40)
The German 13-course lute may have been
regarded as a kind of ?bridge? between the bandura, the folk instrument
beloved of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian
aristocrats, and the more ?courtly? Western music that was increasingly
ousting it in popularity. Perhaps it is even possible
that the lute had some influence on the later development of the
construction of the Ukrainian bandura? But such
interesting questions are far beyond the scope of this study.
Much work remains to be done on the history of the lute and other
plucked-string instruments in Russia and Eastern
Europe in general. Undoubtedly there were many other players in the
later eighteenth century, both professional and
amateur. With the limited resources available I have only uncovered one
further reference to the lute. St?hlin describes
the court performance of Domenico Dalloglio?s setting of La Russia
aflitta e rinconsolata, St?hlin?s prologue to Hasse?s La
Clemenza di Tito, which was given during the celebrations following
Elizaveta Petrovna?s coronation in Moscow in 1742.
The expression of the musical passions in Dalloglio?s setting was so
effective, according to the proud librettist, that(41)
at the performance of the same, particularly in Ruthenia?s
aria, ah! miei figli, &c., accompanied by a loud lute
played by Secretary Spitz and a gentle flute, the
sensitive Czarina herself could not hold back her tears.
Bielogradsky?s career has been explored here in some detail. He was an
artist of international repute and was known as a
lute teacher, but it must be stressed that although it was a reasonable
guess that the Moscow MS was written by him,(42) or
under his direction, there were several others, including Ivan
Stepanovich and, perhaps, Secretary Spitz, who could have
compiled such a collection. The music could have been partially or
wholly copied from a source in Bielogradsky?s or
another player?s possession, or, less likely given its general level of
accuracy, copied out from memory by a visiting
player. It was certainly not begun before Bielogradsky?s last working
years: the paper suggests a terminus post quem of
1768, the year after his retirement. Bielogradsky could, of course, be
the composer of the pieces in the MS that seem to be
in the style of a follower or pupil of Weiss, rather than by the great
Dresden lutenist himself. Unfortunately we have no
documentary evidence that gives us any information about Bielogradsky?s
activities as a composer, or even whether he
attempted composition. Undoubtedly he was an accomplished improviser, as
was his great teacher, but St?hlin suggests that
he made his reputation as an interpreter of Weiss?s music.
An alternative scenario, pure speculation owing to the defacement of the
original title-page, is that the ?maitre? referred
to there was a visiting member of the K?nigsberg school of lute players
founded by Bielogradsky?s pupil, Reichardt, and to
which Weiss?s son Johann Adolf Faustinus belonged in the 1750s.(43)
Stretching a semantic point perhaps beyond its limits, it
could possibly be argued that since the Christian name of ?Mr Weiss in
Dresden? is not given, it could also refer to J.A.F.
Weiss as well as to his father; Johann Adolf Faustinus returned to
Dresden around 1760 and was formally appointed as
Hof-Lautenist in his father?s place in 1763.(44) Unfortunately, the bulk
of his own lute music was lost in the destruction of
K?nigsberg during World War II, so there is little basis for a stylistic
comparison that might confirm this speculation as a
serious possibility.(45)