Tibie Paoim

Dmitry Bortniansky was born in October 1751 in the city of Glukhov, Cossack Hetmanate, in the present-day Ukraine.  At aged seven, Dmitry's prodigious talent at the local church choir afforded him the opportunity to go the capital of the Russian Empire and sing with the Imperial Chapel Choir in St. Petersburg. There Dmitry studied music and composition under the director of the Imperial Chapel Choir, the Italian master Baldassare Galuppi. When Galuppi returned to Italy in 1769, he took the boy with him. In Italy, Bortniansky gained considerable success composing operas: Bortniansky returned to the Saint Petersburg Court in 1779 and flourished creatively. He composed at least four more operas, piano sonatas and a cycle of French songs, plus liturgical music for the Eastern Orthodox Church. Here he combined the Eastern and Western European styles of sacred music, incorporating the polyphony he learned in Italy; using a style descended from the Venetian technique of the Gabrieli’s. Bortniansky's genius proved too great to ignore, and in 1796 he was appointed Director of the Imperial Chapel Choir, the first director from the Russian Empire. According to musicologists Bortnyansky developed a style and characteristics in his compositions which were to influence the following generations of composers such as Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. Bortnyansky's work became the subject of special attention of Ukrainian musicians. A 1925 published article called upon Ukrainian musicians to develop the traditions established by Bortnyansky, and "to dive deeper and more thoroughly into the great cultural treasury concentrated in Bortnyansky's works, to find the sources in it and foundations of our revival".