The music of the times of Anna Ioannovna and Yelizaveta Petrovna was performed at the Presidential Library

A concert "Balls. Music. Intrigues. Anna Ioannovna and Yelizaveta Petrovna" took place within the framework of the project "Music of the Russian Statehood". The audience not only heard the works of that time, but also learned what secrets were kept by the Russian imperial court and which composers and conductors were then in favor.

Artistic director of the festival "Palaces of St. Petersburg", virtuosic violinist Maria Safaryants noted the important role of the state in the development of the country's musical culture. The sound of old musical instruments, costumed shows, multimedia effects - all this was accompanied by a fascinating commentary of historian Alexander Myasnikov. According to him, both empresses loved music and contributed to its spread.

The Empress Anna Ioannovna, the niece of Peter I, signed in 1738 a decree to open a special school in the town of Glukhov in Chernihiv province, where twenty boys were trained in singing and playing instruments. From here, from Glukhov, future composers Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortnyansky were brought to St. Petersburg. The Empress strengthened the importance of the Court Chapel, the main musical institution of Russia, which keeps the local singing traditions. The choir, which consisted of 50 palace singers, made a strong impression on the St. Petersburg and visiting music lovers.

"One of the mandatory tasks of the court is the regular holding of balls. They completely superseded the idea of ​​assemblies, - Alexander Myasnikov said. - Balls were held at the court and in the houses of the nobility. Anna Ioannovna loved to give sumptuous balls, and herself took part in all the courtly entertainments". And the special charm of the life of Anna Ioannovna's court were both at balls and between them. As a rule, it was a foreign one. The compositions of composers Corelli, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Rameau, Handel, Scarlatti, Gluck were performed.

So, the daughter of Peter I – Yelizaveta - enters the Russian throne. The Empress possessed an extraordinary rumor, in her education music played an important role. By order of the Empress at the court, in addition to the Italian opera and the court choir, the first horn orchestra and the orchestra of the Janischar (Turkish) music appeared. Yelizaveta Petrovna managed to instill in Russians the love of opera. Few people know that at her coronation the opera "Mercy of Titus" was performed by one of the most popular composers of the time, "the king of belcanto" by Hass.

Yelizaveta Petrovna held in her wooden Winter House such " masquerades" and festivals that foreign visitors and ambassadors long talked about them with surprise and delight. The will of the Empress visited masquerades as a kind of "duty": everyone who had access to the court was obliged to visit the "Masquerade Tuesdays". On some of the court masquerades, men were to come in female suits, and ladies in men's suits.

The music that sounded this evening in the Presidential Library on the Senatskaya Square, 3, contributed to the immersion in the era of two famous empresses. Soloist from Italy Francesca Biliotti, perfectly mastering the style of Baroque music; an ensemble of ancient music "Barocco Concertato", specializing in the performance of baroque and classic music in a historical, authentic context; theater of historical dance "Small Trianon", combining in its repertoire recreated dances of the XVII-XVIII centuries with author compositions; "The Russian Horn Chapel", which is called the "timbre of Russia", and the Ensemble of Soloists of the Konstantinovsky Orchestra performed works by Vivaldi, Vitali, Purcell, Handel and "Orpheus of the Russian Violin" by Ivan Khandoshkin.