MDR Rundfunkchor

Risto Joost, MDR Rundfunkchor – Confessions of Faith: Choral Concertos by Bortniansky & Schnittke (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 54:54 minutes | 500 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Genuin

Revered by his contemporaries as the “Orpheus of the Neva”, Dmitry Stepanovych Bortniansky is today regarded as one of the leading representatives of the classical period in Russia. He was born in 1751 in Glukhov (Hlukhiv), Ukraine, where he started vocal training at the age of six and was one year later, due to his unusual talent, accepted into the St. Petersburg Imperial Chapel Choir founded by Tsar Peter I. The young musician’s most influential teacher was Baldassare Galuppi, highly respected at the time, whom Catherine II in 1763 had brought to St. Petersburg as her court conductor. With him Bortniansky studied harpsichord and musical theory as well as perfecting his vocal technique. When Galuppi returned to Venice in 1768 the aspiring musician was allowed to accompany his teacher in order to continue and complete his studies. During his subsequent ten-year sojourn in Italy Bortniansky also wrote some “Italian” opere serie such as Cretone (1776), Alcide (1778) and Quinto Fabio (1778) which were premiered in Venice and Modena respectively.
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