ABSTRACT
The 1760s in Russia, like every period heralding a liberal epoch, can indeed be called a 'thaw', creating a highly stimulating ambience for the new generation. Vincenzo Manfredini maintained connections with the aristocratic music lovers who used to frequent Oranienbaum, primarily Teplov, Olsufiev and Lev Naryshkin. Ignoring Baldassare Galuppi's initial success, Manfredini patiently bided his time, assessing his own situation. Galuppi planned the production with incredible pomp and the court had to meet his high standards of performance. The specifically Galuppian style of his other choral works, highly appreciated by his contemporaries, synthesized a rich and sophisticated polyphony of motet writing with the graciousness and simplicity of gallant early classicism. Galuppi's intensive dealings with the Court Choir may have determined his choice of Coltellini's libretto Ifigenia in Tauride for his St Petersburg opera of 1768, which contained ten choruses. At the Kievan Ecclesiastic Academy, Berezovsky might have been trained only in the partes-singing tradition, with its modality and Renaissance rhetoric.
