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The “Greek Project” of Catherine the Great and Giuseppe Sarti

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01411896.2013.752246

1547-7304

Bella Brover-Lubovsky,

Historical Influence and Diplomacy

Abstract The musical spectacle The Early Reign of Oleg—written by Empress Catherine II, with music by Giuseppe Sarti, Vassily Pashkevitch, and Carlo Canobbio—was performed in 1790 in St. Petersburg. Glorifying Russia's past and extolling its military power, the production foretold Catherine's unrealized plan of restoring the Byzantine Empire on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire through the inclusion of an excerpt from Euripides's Alcestis as a closing Greek Scene (Act V, scene 4). A multifaceted analysis of Sarti's music for the scene addresses such devices as melodrama, monodic texture, and the use of particular tonal structures, poetic meters, and melodic patterns appropriate for Attic paeans. Oleg's Greek Scene comprises Sarti's ingenious response to the pivotal antica e moderna debate, as well as to the political, intellectual, and cultural climate of late-eighteenth-century Russia. Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1393/07). An unpublished abridged version of this essay was awarded the Thurnau Prize for Music Theater Studies, Bayreuth University (2009). I express my deep gratitude to Dörte Schmidt, Helen Geyer, Marina Ritzarev, Alice McVeigh, Bonnie Blackburn, Don Harrán, Gilad Rabinovitch, and Elena Abramov-van Rijk, who helped to shape my concepts with their inspiring observations and comments. Notes 1 The situation remains unaltered following the recent appearance of three new studies: Marina Ritzarev, Eighteenth-Century Russian Music (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2006); Lurana Donnels O'Malley, The Dramatic Works of Catherine the Great: Theatre and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2006); and Inna Narodnitskaya, Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from State to Stage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 2 Empress Catherine II, “Nachal'noe upravlenie Olega,” in Complete Works, ed. Arseny I. Vvedensky, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg: Marks, 1893), vol. 1. During her reign (1762–1796), Catherine wrote and published three volumes of Russian plays, many of which were produced at the court and in private theaters. Her oeuvre includes librettos for five comic operas based on fairy tales and meant as moral instruction for her grandsons, the future tsars Alexander I and Nikolay I. See Narodnitskaya, Bewitching Russian Opera, 81–111. 3 Letter to Alexander Khrapovitskii, 28 August 1789; [Catherine II], “Chastnaia Perepiska Imperatritsy Kateriny II s A. V. Khrapovitskim (Private Correspondence of Empress Catherine II with A. V. Khrapovitskii, 1788–93),” Russkii arkhiv 10 (1872), 204. 4 See Nikolai Findeizen, History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800, trans. Samuel W. Pring, ed. Miloš Velimirović and Claudia R. Jensen, 2 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 2:103, 523n.186; Robert Aloys Mooser, Annales de la musique et des musiciens en Russie au XVIIIe siècle, 3 vols. (Geneva: Mont-Blanc, 1948–51), 3:557–59; Narodnitskaya, Bewitching Russian Opera, 143. 5 Mooser refers to the documents of the Archives Théâtre Imperiale/Arkhivy Imperatorskogo Teatra, III, 162. See Mooser, Annales, 3:555nn.2, 3. 6 On September 15, 1789, Khrapovitskii reports: “Her Majesty checked the last costumes for Oleg and approved of them. They are taken from old chronicles, and after the portraits of Leon and Zoe, for it is in their time that the plot takes place.” Cited after Mooser, Annales, 3:555: “Sa Majesté a regardé les derniers costumes pour Oleg et les a approuvés. Ils sont pris dans les vieilles chroniques, et d'après les portraits de Léon et de Zoé, parce que c'est en leur temps que l'action a lieu.” 7 About a dozen original scores of this edition are still preserved in various university and public libraries listed in Répertoire international des sources musicales (Kassel/Basel: Bärenreiter, 1978), 7:344–45. A piano-vocal score was issued in 1893 (Moscow: Jurgenson). I thank the Newberry Library, Chicago, for their kind permission to use their copy of the 1791 score for this article. 8 Vassily N. Tatischev, Istoria Rossiĭskaia s Samykh Drevneishikh Vremën (History of Russia Dating Back to the Most Ancient Times), 7 vols. [1768–1784] (Moscow: USSP Academy of Science Press, [1768–84], 1962–68), 2; Catherine II, Zapiski kasatel'no rossiiskoi istorii (Notes Concerning Russian History), 6 vols. (St. Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences Publishing, 1787–1794). 9 Catherine II, Nachal'noe upravlenie Olega. All the translated citations, unless otherwise stated, are mine. 10 See Yakov S. Lurie, “The Problem of Source Criticism (with Reference to Medieval Russian Documents),” Slavic Review 27/1 (1968), 1–22; Sergey L. Peshtich, Russkaia Istoriografia Vosemnadtsatogo Veka (Russian Historiography of the 18th Century), 2 vols. (Leningrad: Leningrad University Press, 1961–1965). 11 “Podrazhanie Shekspiru bez Sokhraneniia Teatral'nykh Obyknovennykh Pravil.” 12 Chastnaia Perepiska Imperatritsy Ekateriny II s A. V. Khrapovitskim (Private Correspondence of Empress Catherine II with A. V. Khrapovitskii), 14: “Quand on peut représenter vingt-quatre heures en une heure et demie, pourquoi ne pas résumer deux ans dans le même temps?” Cited after Mooser, Annales, 3:551n.3. See O'Malley, The Dramatic Works of Catherine the Great, 121–67. 13 Simmons suggested that the former is quite similar to Henry V (Act IV, sc. 3), whereas the latter is definitely inspired by Henry VIII (Act IV, sc. 1). Ernest I. Simmons, “Catherine the Great and Shakespeare,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 47 (1932), 790–806. 14 Simmons, “Catherine the Great and Shakespeare,” 805. 15 Narodnitskaya, Bewitching Russian Opera, 119. 16 Pierre Brumoy, Le Théâtre des Grecs, 2nd ed., 16 vols. (Paris: Chez les Libraires Associés, 1763). See L.P.E. Parker, Euripides Alcestis with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), xxix–xxxi; Herbert Hunger, Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, mit Hinweisen auf das Fortwirken antiker Stoffe und Motive in der bildenden Kunst, Literatur und Musik, 6th ed. (Vienna: Hollinek, 1969), 23–26. 17 Alexander P. Sumarokov, Polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ [Complete Works], 2nd ed. (Moscow: University Press, Novikov, 1787), vol. 4. 18 Although Euripides' works are not divided into acts and scenes, Catherine's play indicates the location of the scenes in Alcestis as Act III, sc. 1–3. In Sumarokov's version these scenes are notated identically, although it lacks the ode to Apollo—the pinnacle of the entire scene. 19 See Perepiska A. A. Bezborodko's Kniazem P. A. Rumiantsevym [Correspondence of A. A. Bezborodko and Count P. A. Rumiantzev, 1775–1791] (St. Petersburg, 1900), 319–23. 20 John T. Alexander, Catherine the Great: Life and Legend (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 237. 21 Dnevniki A. V. Khrapovitskogo, 1782–93 (A. V. Khrapovitskii's Diary, 1782–93) (St. Petersburg: [n.p.], 1874), 238. 22 See Sergey Platonov, Lektsii po Russkoi Istorii [Readings in Russian History] [1917] (St. Petersburg: Stroilespechat, 1993), 369–70; Vassily Kliutchevsky, A History of Russia: IX–XIX Centuries, trans. C. J. Hogarth, 4 vols. (London: J. M. Dent and New York: E. P. Dutton, 1926), vol. 2, Lecture 76; Alexander, Catherine the Great, 247. 23 O'Malley, The Dramatic Works of Catherine the Great, 164. 24 See Konstantin N. Leontiev, “Byzantium and the Slavs” and “Pan-slavism and the Greeks,” in The East, Russia, and Slavdom against the Current: Selected Writings, ed. George Ivask, trans. George Reavey (New York: Weybright & Talley, 1969). 25 [Nikolay L'vov and Ivan Prach], Kollektsia narodnykh russkikh pesen s ikh golosami [A Collection of Folk Russian Songs with Their Tunes] [St. Petersburg: College of Mining Press, 1790] (Moscow: State Music Publishing, 1955). 26 The preface to the second edition (St. Petersburg: Schnor, 1806) shortens the whole discourse and eliminates L'vov's praise of the supposedly Greek origins of Russian music, instead strongly advocating the autonomy of Russian folk music and its independent development. See A Collection of Russian Folk Songs by Nikolai L'vov and Ivan Prach, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown, with introduction and appendixes by Margarita Mazo (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1987), 35; Ritzarev, Eighteenth-Century Russian Music, 199–211; Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 3–24. 27 Matthew Guthrie, Dissertations sur les Antiquités de Russie (St. Petersburg: Imprimerie du Corps Imperiale des Cadets Nobles, 1795), title page. “Dissertations sur les Antiquités de Russie; contenant L'ancienne Mythologie, les Rites païens, les Fêtes sacrées, les jeux ou Ludi, les Oracles, l'ancienne Musique, les instrumens de musique villageoise, les Costumes, les Cérémonies, l'Habillement, les Divertissemens de village, les Mariages, les Funérailles, l'Hospitalité, les Repas, &c. &c. des Russes; comparés avec les mêmes objets chez les Anciens, & particulièrement chez les Grecs.” 28 Guthrie, Dissertations sur les Antiquités de Russie, 37. 29 Guthrie, Dissertations sur les Antiquités de Russie, 37–38. 30 The 1893 piano-vocal score presents Oleg as written by Pashkevitch. See also Yury V. Keldysh, Russkaia musika vosemnadtsatogo veka [Eighteenth-Century Russian Music] (Moscow: Science, 1965), 376; Alexander Rabinovitch, Russkaia muzyka do Glinki [Russian Opera before Glinka] (Leningrad: State Music Publishing, 1948), 81–82. According to Ritzarev, Pashkevitch was favored by Catherine “to set to music her own folkish librettos, in which she shrewdly manifested her policy of official nationalism” (Eighteenth-Century Russian Music, 205). 31 The songs are the lyrical Chto ponizhe bylo goroda Saratova and a graceful dance tune, Zain'ka poskachi. See Appendix 2 in A Collection of Russian Folk Songs, ed. Brown and Mazo. Mazo's reference to one more citation—Pri dolinushke kalinushka from entr'acte III—is inexact. 32 Sarti also presented organ recitals at St. Petersburg's Catholic church and served as music instructor to the Theatre School. See Muzykal'ny Peterburg: XVIII vek. Ėntsyklopedicheskii slovar' [Musical St. Petersburg: The Eighteenth Century, Encyclopedic Dictionary], ed. Anna L. Porfirieva, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg: Russian Institute of Art History Publishing, 1996–2002), 3:79–92. 33 From 1787 to 1791 Sarti lived in a residence given to him by his admirer Prince Potemkin, who additionally offered him a directorship of the Music Academy in the newly founded city Ekaterinoslav, later moved to Kremenchug. 34 See Perepiska Kateriny II s G. A. Potëmkinym 1769–91 [Catherine II and G. A. Potemkin. Private Correspondence 1769–91], Literature Monuments, no. 1020 (Moscow: Russian Academy of Science, 1997). Khrapovitskii overtly refers to Catherine's disappointment with Cimarosa's choral writing and her intention to hire Sarti for this task: “The chorus by Cimarosa did not please. That will not do. I sent Oleg to Prince Potemkin, so that it will be Sarti who will compose the music.” Catherine's letter to Alexander Khrapovitskii of 28 August 1789. See [Catherine II], “Private Correspondence,” Russkii Arkhiv 10 (1872), 204. Cited after Mooser, Annales, 3:552: “Le chœur de Cimarosa n'a pas plu. Cela ne peut aller. J'ai envoyé Oleg au prince Potemkine, pour que ce soit Sarti qui compose la musique.” 35 Cited after Mooser, Annales, 3:552: “Encore, mon ami, je te prie, quand tu en auras le loisir, de ne pas oublier de commander à Sarti de faire les chœurs pour Oleg. Nous avons reçu un de ses chœurs qui est très bien; ici on ne sait pas aussi bien composer.” 36 See Ritzarev, Eighteenth-Century Russian Music, 62, 107. 37 Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia universalis sive ars magna consoni et dissoni in X libros digesta, 2 vols. (Rome: Corbelletti, 1650), 1:541. “In fragmento Pindari antiquissimo, notis musicis Veterum Graecorum insignito, quae quidem notae, siue characteres musici cum ijs, quos Alypius in tono Lydio exhibet sunt idem; Verba Odes Pindaricae notis musicis Veteribus usitatis expressa sequuntur; tempus non notae; sed quantitas syllabarum dabant.” 38 Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna [1581], fascimile ed. (New York: Broude Bros., 1967), 92–95, 97. Among the works thus inspired, the best known became Benedetto Marcello's Estro poetico-armonico: Parafrasi sopra li primi venticinque salmi [vols. 5–8: li secondi venticinque salmi] (Venice: Lovisa, 1724–26). 39 Giambattista Vico, On the Ancient Wisdom of the Italians, in Vico, Selected Writings, ed. and trans. Leon Pompa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 73. 40 Pierre Jean Burette, “Dissertation sur la mélopée de l'ancienne musique,” Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions 7 (1731), 261–319. 41 Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Kritische Einleitung in die Geschichte und Lehrsätze der alten und neuen Musik (Berlin: Lange, 1759), 200–201, table 2. 42 Charles Burney, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, 4 vols. [1776–1789] (Baden-Baden: Heitz, 1958), 1:100–104. 43 Apart from numerous references, this musical example was quoted and discussed by Johann Nicolaus Forkel, Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Schwickert, 1788–1801), 1:423–36, and in the early twentieth century, among others, by Curt Sachs, Musik des Altertums (Breslau: Jedermanns Bücherei, 1924), 289–93, and Maurice Emmanuel, s.v. “Grèce” in Albert Lavignac, Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire, 11 vols. (Paris: Delagrave, 1913–1931), 1:377–537, at 477. 44 Henri M. Berton, De la musique mécanique et de la musique philosophique (Paris, 1826), 17, as cited in Margery Stomne Selden, The French Operas of Luigi Cherubini (Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 1951), 101. 45 Sarti's visceral kinship with Vallotti's acoustical conceptions later led to his invention of a tool for measuring vibrations and establishing a pitch standard for the St. Petersburg orchestras. Upon his presenting a lecture, “Sur le moyen de compter les vibrations des sons et d'en comparer la célérité avec la mesure du tems” to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1796 (on May 23 and October 3), Sarti was accepted as a member. See also Patrizio Barbieri, “Giuseppe Sarti fisico acustico e teorico musicale,” in Giuseppe Sarti musicista Faentino: Atti del convegno internazionale Faenza 25–27 novembre 1983, ed. Mario Baroni and Maria Gioia Tavoni (Modena: Mucchi, 1983), 221–40; Bella Brover-Lubovsky, “Sarti, Cherubini, and the Musica antica movement in Italy,” in Cherubini—vielzitiert, bewundert, unbekannt, ed. Helen Geyer (Sinzig, Germany: Studio-Verlag, 2012). 46 Francescantonio Vallotti, Della scienza della moderna musica, teorica e pratica, MS, Archivio della Cappella Musicale di S. Antonio, Padua [ca. 1779], ed. Giancarlo Zanon (Padua: Il Messaggero di S Antonio, 1950), 394. “Ma quello che più importa e mi stimola a risparmiare la fatica si è che simile lavoro a nulla affatto servirebbe: non per metterli in pratica, perchè non si adattano alla odierna musica nostra, checchè ne dicano alcuni meno informati dell'antica greca musica: non per intender i grechi componimenti, dei quali appena ne abbiamo qualche frammento in un inno di Pindaro al sole pervenuto.” A similar assertion comes from Rousseau, who refers to “the melody of an ode of Pindar set to music two thousand years ago!” See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Essai sur l'origine des langues,” in Traités sur la musique [1781], ed. and trans. Edward A. Lippman, in Musical Aesthetics: A Historical Reader, 3 vols. (New York: Pendragon Press, 1986), 1:324. 47 An extensive polemic on the authenticity of this fragment emerged in the late nineteenth century. See August Wilhelm Ambros, Geschichte der Musik, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Leuckart, 1887), 1:276; Johann Friedrich Bellermann, Die Tonleitern und Musiknoten der Griechen (Berlin: Förstner, 1847), 4; Karl von Jan, “Die Handschriften der Hymnen des Mesomedes,” Neue Jahrbücher 141 (1890), 679–88; François-Auguste Gevaert, Histoire et théorie de la musique de l'antiquité, 2 vols. (Gand, Belgium: Annoot-Braeckman, 1875–81), 1:6, 142, 470; Hugo Riemann, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1919), 131; Rudolf Westphal, Harmonik und Melopöie der Griechen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1863), xlv. In the 1920s–1940s, classical philologists and musicologists applied modern critical standards to Kircher's alleged citation. See Herman Abert, Gesammelte Schriften und Vorträge (Halle: Niemeyer, 1929), 38; Adolphe Rome, “L'Origine de la prétendue mélodie de Pindare,” Les Études classiques 1 (1932), 3–12; Adolphe Rome, “Pindare ou Kircher?,” Les Études classiques 4 (1935), 337–50; Paul Friedländer and Herbert Birtner, “Pindar oder Kircher?,” Hermes 70/4 (1935), 463–75; Paul Maas and Joseph Müller-Blattau, “Kircher und Pindar,” Hermes 70/1 (1935), 101–6; J. F. Mountford, “The Music of Pindar's ‘Golden Lyre',” Classical Review 49/2 (May 1935), 62–63; J. F. Mountford, “The Music of Pindar's ‘Golden Lyre',” Classical Philology 31/2 (1936), 120–36; and Otto J. Gombosi, “The Melody of Pindar's ‘Golden Lyre',” Musical Quarterly 26 (1940), 381–92. They tested the genuineness of the enigmatic quotation in terms of the syllabic arrangement of the tune, its metric incongruities and syntactic structures, and disputed whether Kircher was its discoverer or merely its forger. Eventually, Adolphe Rome showed that the Pindaric text printed by Kircher was simply copied from Erasmus Schmid's edition, Pindarou Periodos: Hoc est Pindari lyricorum principis … (Wittenberg: Schurer, 1616). Gombosi further proved that its melodic mode is certainly not Lydian but either Hyperlydian or Hypophrygian (i.e., the modes still unknown to Pindar), and that the tessitura of Kircher's example exceeded the upper limit of the compass of the seven-string lyre and calls for F and G strings, lacking in Pindar's time. 48 [L'vov and Prach], A Collection of Folk Russian Songs, 39. 49 A Collection of Russian Folk Songs, ed. Brown and Mazo, xiv. See also Ritzarev, Eighteenth-Century Russian Music, 206–11, and Musical St. Petersburg, ed. Porfirieva, 3:87–88. 50 Giuseppe Sarti, Eclaircissement sur la musique composée pour Oleg. Its original is in the possession of the Biblioteca Comunale, Faenza. Reprint in G. Pasolini Zanelli, Giuseppe Sarti musicista del '700 (Faenza: Biblioteca Comunale, 1883), 113–22. “Je me flatte de pouvoir démontrer que les Modes anciens grecs étaient exactement tels que je les ai composés, tant à l'égard de leur diapason que de leurs caractères. J'ai exprès inséré entre les différents Modes de cette musique un chant original grec que j'ai copié d'après les anciens caractères, par le moyen des tables d'Alypius, auteur grec, pour qu'on puisse juger si tout le reste que j'ai composé est dans le costume grec.” 51 Natchal'noe upravlenie Olega, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Jurgenson, 1893). Guthrie (Dissertations sur les antiquités de Russie, 37–38) also suggests that Sarti was using Kircher. His expanded footnote on pages 36–37 reiterates the entire history of Kircher's “discovery” of the first Pythian tune, and mentions earlier specimens of the Greek melodies cited, including those appearing in the Galilei treatise. “Les anciennes chansons des choeurs villageois russiens [Pesni horovodnia, ou chansons pour les choeurs] chantées encore aujourd'hui par les paysans, ont une resemblance frappante avec les odes de Pindare, non seulement à cause de leur division en deux parties, mais encore pour la mélodie, pour la composition & pour la forme: en un mot, que les chansons grecques & russiennes sont dans le style que les Italiens appellant canto-fermo. M. Prach ajoute que plusieurs des anciennes chansons lentes [Pesni protiajnia, ou chansons lentes], comme il les appelle dans son recueil, font du meme style; commençant ordinairement avec une seule voix & finissant avec le chœur, comme l'ode de Pindare, en sorte qu'il les croit originaires de la Grèce.” 52 L'vov refers to Forkel in “On Russian Folk Singing”; he may well also have been acquainted with the studies by Meibom, Marpurg, and La Borde that address Kircher's quotation. See T. P. Samsonova, “Biblioteka muzykal'nykh klassov Akademii khudozhestv v XVIII veke [Library of the Art Academy Musical Classes in the Eighteenth Century],” in Russkie biblioteki i ikh chitatel' [Russian Libraries and Their Readers] (Leningrad: Nauka, 1983), 193–203. 53 Sarti, Eclaircissement. “La scène d'Euripide, dans l'emploi où elle est destinée, devra sans doute être exécutée dans le costume ancien Grec, par conséquent la musique ne doit pas s'écarter de cette prescription: c'est pour cela que j'ai hasardé d'y composer une musique tout-à-fait Grecque, par rapport au Chant. Je l'ai cependant accompagnée par nos instruments, selon, l'harmonie moderne, d'une façon pourtant à ne pas la défigurer. Il serait insupportable aujourd'hui d'entendre une musique toujours à l'unisson comme était celle des Grecs.” 54 The ancient sources mentioned by Sarti are identified by Tito Gotti, “Erudizione e insolita drammaturgia nella storia di Oleg,” in Giuseppe Sarti musicista Faentino, ed. Baroni and Gioia Tavoni, 113–34, 121–22. 55 See, for example, Zarlino's introductory chapter to his Sopplimenti musicali (Venice: Sanese, 1588), 7–8: “I have not failed to see and read all those writers, Greek as well as Latin, that I have been able to get my hands on who treat of musical matters, as among the Greeks are Aristoxenus, Euclid [i.e., Cleonides], Nicomachus, Ptolemy, Aristides Quintilianus, Emmanuel Bryennius, Gaudentius the philosopher, Bacchius, Psellus, and Alypius, together with some other writings that are incomplete and by other anonymous authors, although the majority of the exemplars are (I lament over this), partly because of antiquity, partly because of the ignorance of the scribes, imperfect and incorrect.” Cited after Claude V. Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 273. 56 See Selden, The French Operas of Luigi Cherubini, 378–87. 57 Cited after Pasolini Zanelli, Giuseppe Sarti musicista del '700, 119. “È detto dagli antichi autori che il Modo Missolidio è consacrato alle Tragedie, perché, di tutti i Modi, è il più triste, e che il Dorico poteva qualche volta mescolarvisi nei passi vigorosi.” 58 Sarti, Eclaircissement. “Néanmoins on lit dans Aristote que la Lyre et la Tibia s'écartaient quelques fois de la voix, tout en y revenant promptement pour ne pas offenser l'oreille.” The Parisian harpist virtuoso Jean-Baptiste Cardon was specially invited to St. Petersburg for Oleg's premiere. 59 A paean is an ancient Greek choral hymn that is addressed to Apollo, Artemis, Zeus, Dionysus, Asclepius, or Hygieia. It was defined by Proclus more specifically as a type of song to be sung to Apollo and Artemis. It can also be used with regard to military hymns, hymns composed for an important event, and later to hymns addressed to persons of reknown. Thomas J. Mathiesen, “Paean,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007–2012), http://0-www.oxfordmusiconline.com.source.unco.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/20689, accessed 14 November 2012. 60 Sarti, Eclaircissement. “L'unique différence qu'il y a de cette musique à celle des anciens Grecs, c'est d'être accompagnée symphoniquement, tandis que la leur ne l'était qu'à l'unisson. Si cette musique ne cause pas chez nous des impressions si fortes et si vives que chez les Grecs en leurs temps fameux, c'est qu'ils avaient une façon de l'écouter bien différente de la nôtre: chez eux c'était le pur sentiment qui agissait en écoutant, chez nous ce n'est que la sensation passive causée par cette enchanteresse harmonie simultanée qui, par sa volupté, nous assoupit l'activité du sentiment … A nos oreilles habituées dès l'enfance au tracas du contrepoint, il faut de l'harmonie simultanée. Néanmoins je me flatte qu'ayant rendu cette harmonie aussi servile au chant que possible.” 61 Lettere del Sig. Francesco Maria Zanotti del Pad. Giambattista Martini Min. Conv. del Pad. Giovenale Sacchi C. R. B. Accademici dell'Istituto di Bologna (Milan: Pirola, 1782), 16. “Ma la novità di un pieno all'unisono non mai più innanzi udito fece il giù grande effetto. Laonde i Compositori d'allora in poi incominciarono a pensare, che gli unisoni adoperare si potessero non solo senza biasimo, ma con lode … Ma checchessia di questo, oggidì dagli Scrittori comunemente gli unisoni si adoperano senza alcuna difficoltà, e adoperati a luogo, e tempo producono ottimo effetto: cosicchè la presente esperienza solve la opposizione, che alcuni già facevano contro l'antica musica de' Greci, non parendo loro possibile, che essendo quella composta di unisoni potesse tanto piacere, quanto narrasi.” 62 For example, his most successful opera seria, Giulio Sabino (1781), contains a final nearly unison triumphal ensemble for six soloists, “Di nobili ardori.” 63 Cited after Pasolini Zanelli, Giuseppe Sarti musicista del '700, 118. “Ho esaminato il testo di questo frammento, e non ho trovato che la seconda antistrofa sia corrispondente, nel numero dei versi, alla sua strofa che la precede; … Occorreva una poesia, perché le strofe e le antistrofe non potrebbero essere tali, senza un ritmo metrico. Il sig. Sierchkarof si è prestato a fornirmi una poesia proprio secondo il ritmo e il numero che gli ho prescritto.” 64 The mixed meter of Euripides' original text combines dactylo-epitrite and iambic cretic. See Parker, Euripides Alcestis, 170. 65 Cited after Pasolini Zanelli, Giuseppe Sarti musicista del '700, 120. “La prima strofa contiene due quadri: il primo è una esclamazione sulla generosità e la gloria della casa per le sue ospitalità. Il secondo è la descrizione dell'arrivo di Apollo che vi ha esercitato le funzioni di pastore, e ha fatto risuonare l'armonia pastorale nelle valli. Per l'uno e per l'altro, quantunque con differenti espressioni, ho preso in Modo Dorico, essendo dei Peani. Questo Modo maschio ed energico è il più nobile di tutti gli altri e il più serio. L'antistrofa seguente ha tre quadri, di cui l'uno rappresenta l'estasi delle tigri per l'armonia d'Apollo, e per la quale esse si familiarizzano con le greggi. Per questa espressione ho preso il Modo Ipojonico, perché è una specie di Frigio corretto e molle. Il secondo quadro rappresenta dei fieri leoni uscenti dalle foreste, resi docili e sottomessi dall'armonia di Apollo. Ho scelto per ciò il Modo dorico, volgendolo prima all'espressione coraggiosa, poi in quella devota. Il terzo esprime gli scherzi e i salti smisurati d'un giovane capriolo. Ho creduto adatto ad esso il Modo Lidio per la sua voluttà giocosa.” 66 In its harmonic-tonal variability, where the central pitch D is reharmonized variously in either G minor or B♭ major, it does indeed display some similarity with the Russian lyric song Vysoko sokol letaet, no. 34 in the L'vov–Prach collection. See [L'vov and Prach], A Collection of Folk Russian Songs, 11–12, and a discussion on page 45. 67 It is important to note that the Hypo-Ionian is the fourteenth tonos in the system of fifteen presented in Alypius' Introductio musica, although other Greek authors call it the Hypo-Iastian. This modal type features neither in the seven harmoniai system as recognized by Cleonides, Ptolemy, and the Harmonicists, nor in the system of thirteen tonoi as attributed by Cleonides to Aristoxenus. Thomas J. Mathiesen emphasizes that such a set of fifteen tonoi is preserved solely in Alypius' tables; see Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 381–87, 463–65. See also Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought, 299–318. 68 Example 10b is the same as Example 2; it is repeated here for ease of comparison with Example 10a. 69 Alypius, Introductio musica/Eisagōgē mousikē. “Alipio: Introduzione alla musica,” ed. and trans. Luisa Zanoncelli, in La manualistica musicale greca (Milan: Guerini, 1990), 371–463. 70 Sarti, Eclaircissement. “Pour les strophes et antistrophes je ne me suis pas conformé exactement aux rigides loix de la Tragédie ancienne, mais j'ai suivi Euripide lui-même … Il n'y aurait eu que du triste et du sombre en n'employant que les deux Modes prescrits par les lois, et cependant les paroles dont il s'agit ne sont pas larmoyantes. Je me suis donc tenu aux paroles en exprimant par différents Modes Grecs les différents tableaux qui y sont peints, même par le Mode Phrygien, avec tout son éclat, quoique dans le texte, Euripide n'y ait pas employé de Dithyrambe; mais il l'aura fait ailleurs. Sophocle avait aussi admis dans ses Chœurs l'harmonie Phrygienne. Aurais-je dû priver cette musique d'un Mode qui ranime et égaye ainsi les auditeurs? … on puisse cependant y concevoir les différentes affections des Modes anciens qui faisaient chez les Grecs de si grands effets. Par exemple, le Mode Dorien ne peut pas manquer d'inspirer une certaine vigueur; les Modes Hypo-Jonien et Lydien une certaine mollesse, mais d'une façon différente; et le Mode Phrygien l'enthousiasme et la véhémence.” 71 Cited after Mooser, Annales, 3:555. “La piece historique d'Oleg ma donne le branle: les choeurs d'Oleg sont le plus beaux de monde et sont le plupart de Sarti: tous les modes grecs y sont reunis.” 72 Vallotti, Della scienza della moderna musica, 449. “E lo stesso succedeva anche nella musica del Greci, imperocchè passavano liberalmente da uno all'altro tono il qual passaggio nella loro lingua chiamano metabole, essendo stato il primo a usare tale mescolanza Sacada Argivo. Come lo attesta Plutarco (De Musica), e quantunque in una stessa canzone, inno, ode o altro si usassero tu