ABSTRACT
Dmitry Bortniansky inherited a choir not only in a hostile period, but also in the same desperate economic and organizational state of all the subsidized institutions at the end of Catherine's rule. Bortniansky's directorship of the Cappella in the early nineteenth century coincided with the beginning of a new period in history and style, which totally changed his approach to its repertoire. Bortniansky's main professional concern at the Court Cappella was that of vocal training. In 1814, Bortniansky received an Imperial directive to publish the plainsong as an official state Liturgy in the form of Prostoe penie, Bozhestvennoy liturgii Zlatoustogo, and izdrevle po edinomu predaniu upotreblyaemoe pri Vysochayshem dvore. Whatever knowledge of Bortniansky's public life that can be gleaned from indirect information, suggests his connections with artists and art connoisseurs. In Russia, Bortniansky was the last in line of those who had secularized paraliturgical music, beginning with the patriarch who had introduced partes concertos into Russia in the mid-seventeenth century.
