The premiere of Bortnyansky's symphony-concertante and other musical masterpieces of the epoch of Paul I are performed at the Presidential Library

April 27, 2018 the Presidential Library hosted the regular concert of the musical and educational project "Music of the Russian Statehood": "Paul I - Patron of the Arts".

The first part of the concert was almost entirely given to Mozart, the devoted admirer of which was Emperor Paul I. During the second visit of the royal couple of Paul Petrovich and Maria Feodorovna to Vienna, they were given the opera of a great composer, and the author himself sat at the harpsichord and controlled the play! Both Maria Feodorovna and her husband were very good pianists: the teachers of the imperial family were Giovanni Paiziello and Dmitry Bortnyansky himself.

In the Presidential Library this evening, the overture to the opera "The Magic Flute" by Mozart was performed by the State Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad region "Tavrichesky" under the direction of Mikhail Golikov. In Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet, the virtuosic Italian clarinetist Giampiero Sobrino soloed.

The second part of the concert at the Presidential Library presented the premiere performance of the Concert Symphony for Violin and Viola of the Russian Mozart by Dmitry Bortnyansky performed by Maria Safaryants (violin) and Svetlana Stepchenko (viola) in the XXI century. In the last century, the symphony was in oblivion and almost was not performed from the stage. The first notes were published in 1790 during the composer's lifetime, and were reissued only 163 years later - in 1953.

"Music of the Russian Statehood" is a cycle of ten multimedia concerts accompanied by a fascinating narrative of the famous Russian historian, writer, creator of the project "Russia is My History" Alexander Myasnikov.

Introducing the era of Paul I, the presenter tried to show the monarch in all his contradictions, it's no wonder that during the life of the emperor they called him "Russian Hamlet". The death of his father at the hands of the conspirators at the Ropsha Palace, the difficulty in communicating with his mother, Catherine II, who was on the throne Great, but could not establish close relations with her only son ... However, in his upbringing he invested a lot of energy and resources, of the most educated people of that time - Count N. I. Panin.

Paul I from childhood was engaged in music. The Grand Duke and his wife Maria Fedorovna played keyboards, sang French songs, purchased sheet music and libretto for French operas, and regularly attended court performances and concerts. Maria Feodorovna, in addition to the pianoforte, was very fond of playing the harp and taking lessons from the best harpists of that time. Her musical influences affected her children, who were eager to learn music and achieved significant successes: Alexander - in playing violin, Alexandra and Elena - in singing, playing the clavier and guitar, Nikolai - on the flute.

The voice of the evening was the magnificent soprano by Eleonora Lyons. Only for one day the Australian singer came to St. Petersburg for the performance at the concert "Paul I - Patron of the Arts". The Russian part of the "stellar horizon" this evening: violinist, Honored Artist of Russia, art director of the festival Maria Safaryants; viola player, soloist and accompanist of the viola group of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Spivakov Svetlana Stepchenko; pianist, laureate of international competitions Pavel Rikerus.

All the concerts of the music and educational project "Music of the Russian Statehood", organized by the Foundation of the International Festival of Classical Music "Palaces of St. Petersburg", are held in the Presidential Library online on its portal in the section "Live Broadcast".