Kyrylo Rozumovsky’s kapelle and orchestra

Kyrylo Rozumovsky’s kapelle and orchestra. A musical ensemble established in Hlukhiv in 1751 at the court of Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky. It was comprised of a fairly large choir and an orchestra that included a string section, a large woodwind section, and kettledrums. At its heyday, between 1752 and 1764, the kapelle employed over forty singers and musicians and represented one of the most accomplished musical ensembles in the Russian Empire. The original group of musicians, assembled in 1751, most likely, by Rozumovsky’s aide-de-camp Grigorii Teplov, included a choir led by conductor Kornelii Yuzefovych and an orchestra made up mainly of foreign instrumentalists hired from Vienna. In 1753 Rozumovsky invited composer Andrii Rachynsky to assume the post of kapelle’s choirmaster and artistic director, while Yuzefovych continued to work as the second choir conductor; at times, they were assisted by the third choir conductor Stepan Krashevsky. There were a number of prominent singers in the choir, such as Hryhorii Bilohradsky, Stapan Kotliarevsky, Vasyl Kharchenko, Paraska Marchenko, Havrylo Martsynkovych, Mykola Klutarev, and Stepan Yevstafiev. In 1755 the majority of foreign musicians in the orchestra were replaced with talented local Ukrainian instrumentalists who were led by the Czech French-horn virtuoso Karel Lau. Among the leading members of this orchestra were Pavlo Prokopovych, Sava Prykhodovskyi, Toma Buchynsky, and Pavlo Poltoratsky (in the string section); Vasyl Kharchenko (who was also a singer), Kyrylo Ashytkov, Ilko Kolisnychevsky, Andrii Bazylevsky, and Pavlo Holubovsky (in the woodwind section); and Maksym Solennikov (kettledrums). Guest performers included notable instrumentalists and opera singers from France, Italy, and other European countries.

The kapelle and orchestra often took part in stagings of the works of opera an ballet together with the actors of Rozumovsky’s theatrical troupe. Their very first production in December 1751 was a French-language comedy La foire de Hizim (The Fair in Izium). Other notable productions included Alceste by Hermann Friedrich Raupach (1758). The stage designer for many of these performances was Hryhorii Stetsenko. In addition, following kepelle’s successful concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, members of this Hlukhiv collective ended up playing main roles in the first Russian-language opera production of Francesco Araja’s opera Tsefal i Prokris (Cephalus and Prokris, libretto by Aleksandr Sumarokov) staged in Saint Petersburg in 1755.

Apart from theatrical works, the kapelle and orchestra gave regular musical concerts, both of choral works and instrumental music. Apart from the masterpieces by contemporaneous stars of European music, many of the concerts featured arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs that were particularly favored by Kyrylo Rozumovsky. Of special importance were concerts of a cappella sacred choral music, such as the choral concertos of Andrii Rachynsky, which were the first local compositions to introduce elements of the classicist ‘Italian style’ of music to Left-Bank Ukraine as well as to Saint Petersburg and Moscow. In fact, it was the Rozumovsky kapelle that pioneered the musical style of classicism in the Russian Empire. Very likely, the young Maksym Berezovsky was a member of the Hlukhiv kapelle and was educated by Rachynsky, from whom he learned the principles of classicist composition.

Following the abolition of the Cossack Hetman state by Empress Catherine II in 1764 and the forced abdication of Kyrylo Rozumovsky, the size of his kapelle and orchestra (which were from then on no longer financed by the state) was greatly reduced. Thus, in 1799 the kapelle consisted of a choirmaster and 14 singers and musicians. After Hetman Rozumovsky’s death in 1803, the remaining members of his kapelle were transferred to his son Andrii Rozumovsky.

Kyrylo Rozumovsky’s kapelle and orchestra, as well as the closely related to it Rozumovsky’s theatrical troupe, had a considerable impact on the development of musical and theatrical culture in Left-Bank Ukraine in the second half of the 18th century. Apart from achieving high professional standards in their performances, this musical ensemble served as a model and inspiration for several Ukrainian noble families who established similar (albeit smaller) private kapellen and orchestras and thus, spurred the development of professional musical culture in Ukraine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rudchuk, Iurii. Dukhovna muzyka v Ukraïni (XVIII do XIX st.): Istoryko-muzykoznavche doslidzhennia (Kyiv 2006)
Iurchenko, Mstyslav. ‘Maksym Berezovs'kyi v Hlukhovi: Muzychne zhyttoa mista,’ Literatura ta kul'tura Polissia no. 102 (2021)

Marko Robert Stech

[This article was written in 2024.]