Russkaya Cappella Online Festival of Music

Yestignei Fomin (1761 - 1800) is best known today for his operas. A contemporary of Mozart and Borynyansky, he was the son of a soldier, however his musical promise was spotted early and cultivated in St Petersburg.  He studied in Bologna for a time, returning to St Petersburg to teach at the Theatrical School and compose operas. His Italian education is reflected in the style of his music, although he freely used Russian stories and musical folk idioms. This video is a selection from Fomin's opera 'The Coachmen at the Staging-Post'; you may recognise a version the song 'In the Field Stood a Birch Tree' in the third piece.

This entry is a little unusual, as it is about a musician rather than an individual piece. Anton Rubinstein is a hugely significant figure in the development of Russian music; he founded the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1862 and became its first Director. His brother, Nikolai, founded the Moscow Conservatory in 1866. Anton Rubinstein was famous in the nineteenth century for his bravura performances at the piano, and was a prolific composer of operas, piano concertos and symphonies. This recording was the focus of a presentation by Christoph Flamm at the recent Early Recordings: Methodologies in Research and Practice online conference. It comes from Julius Block's collection of wax cylinders, and while the pianist hasn't been definitively identified, it is very likely to be Rubinstein accompanying the tenor Vasily Samus . There are two short songs here, with a fragment of speech in between; the first, 'Yearning', is by Rubinstein and the second, 'Don Juan's Ser

This piece returns us to choral music after the delightful loopiness of Shostokovich's dancing noses. Alexander Gretchaninoff was a contemporary of Rachmaninoff and Kastalsky, and like them, wrote large-scale works for choir in the second decade of the twentieth century. Gretchaninoff is probably best known in choral circles for his All Night Vigil, which predates Rachmaninoff's setting by three years.  His settings of music for Passion Week may be less familiar; this version of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence starts serenely and concludes with a double-choir mimicking the distinctive sound of Russian bells.