Easter music during the reign of Alexei Romanov and Peter the Great
Channel: Evgeny Skurat
Date: 2020-04-12

This concert program is a mixture of Russian archaic and baroque polyphonic music (a capella) with organ compositions of Early baroque composers. During the reign of Tsar Alexei Romanov and Peter the Great Russian music was changing influenced by European musical styles. Italian and Holland composers caused the strongest influence which formed a new musical styles in Russia. That's why we have chosen the masterpieces of Jan Swellink and Girolamo Frescobaldi. Along with choral motets by Monteverdi and Schütz those organ toccata could inspired Ukrainian and Russian musicians to adapt European esthetics on Eastern Slavic soil.

Next two articles will make you acquainted with a history of Russian polyphonic music.

1. “The polyphony emerged in Russia long before its musical culture experienced European influence. The polyphony of Old Russia was linear. This modal system allows any kind of the intervals of diatonic scale which are considered consonances. In the oral tradition of a folk music those voices were improvised by the singers according to the strict rules. In the late 15th century the polyphony appeared in church music. The Old Russian “Znamenny” plainchant was modified into the “Putevoy” (leading-the-way) chant and became the core (cantus firmus) melody for the polyphonic style compositions. In later sources this style is indicated as Troestrochie (three-line). The main melody is called ”Way” (Put), and 2 others - “upper” and “lower” . The lower voice is the most melismatic and the upper voice has a very expressive rhythmic structure. The leading voice is rather stable and slow. In the time of Ivan the Terrible - late 16 century, when the neumatic notation was improved and the tradition of professional singing flourished, vocal scores often have all three voices realized in writing. Apart from "Strochnoy" chant there also existed a 4-part "Demestvenny" chant. The cantus firmus of this chant has its own system of musical phrases which makes it different from Znamenny-Putevoy chant. In 17th century Strochnoy and Demestvenny chants were used by professional singers alongside to Western Monteverdi-like polyphonic style. In early 18th century Russian archaic polyphony was fully replaced by late-baroque styles. Those unique old-Russian polyphonic compositions are now performed and recorded after three hundred years of oblivion”.

2. “In the second half of the 17th century, the professional Russian chanters, experts in performing "Strochnoy" and "Demestvenny" music became acquainted with the western Renaissance and early Baroque style and also with the tradition of linear notation, instead of neums. Very soon after, Russia developed new styles of polyphonic writing. We can distinguish two main directions of this development. 1) The concert style chant, imitating the church music of Monteverdi and Schütz. This style, inspired by Polish musical culture, appears first in what we know as modern Ukraine. By the mid-17th century composers and singers of this new style are invited from Ukraine to work in Russia. For the first time in the Russian music, composers give up the use of the Znamenny and Putevoy-chant, and adhere to the aesthetics of Western harmony based on consonance versus dissonance. One of the outstanding composers in this style was Vasily Titov. 2) The Chronos ensemble is specialized in the different baroque style, known as a “continuous polyphony”. As in the Strochnoy chant, this style extends the tradition of polyphonic adaptations of ancient monody. Instead of the resources of polyphonic imitation or antiphonal writing, the expressivity of this style lies in an amazing richness of harmony resembling that of Monteverdi’s late madrigals or Gesualdo’s responsories. All the parts develop themes closely linked to the Znamenny melody (in the tenor) and follow or imitate its original and expressive rhythm. The angelic, other-worldly Znamenny chant descends on earth and inhabits the four-part world of major-minor harmony, embellished with the embroidery of the partes voices, the vistuoso passages in the base part, the many-colored chains of triads, articulated by emerging cadences. This art is joyful and strikingly refreshing. Now, a whole new world of sonorities sparkles with energy, shimmering in a full range of colors, without a single rest in rhythm, yet it centers around the clearly audible, reigning sacred melody of the original Znamenny chant.”