Muzyka fortepianowa w XVIII-wiecznej Rosji

This monograph examines the origins of Russian music and piano-related culture in Czarist Russia in the 18th century. What made it distinct from Western European music was the fact that it was heavily influenced by the practice of playing the goose, considered a national instrument. Frequent reference to the ways of playing them, basing the melodic material on folk themes and ways of transforming them ways of transforming them (hence the frequent use of variation forms) accounted for the peculiarity of the of the process of formation of music composed for keyboard instruments. This did not exclude cultivation of forms and genres borrowed from Western Europe, which, however, was usually of an epigonish nature. The emergence of institutional forms of musical education during the analyzed period, the emergence in Russia of music publishing houses printing compositions by domestic and foreign artists, a press reporting on cultural events, trade in foreign instruments and the beginnings of their domestic production, or, finally, Russian translations of books devoted to the teaching of keyboard instruments made it fashionable to practicing music. This was in line with the Enlightenment ideas adopted in Russia. The contemporary reception of 18th-century Russian piano music is devoted to the last chapter.