Maksym Berezovsky

Maxim Sozontovich Berezovsky (Russian: Максим Созонтович Березовский; Ukrainian: Максим Созонтович Березовський; c. 1745 – 2 April [O.S. 24 March] 1777) was a composer of secular and liturgical music, and a conductor and opera singer, who worked at the Saint Petersburg Court Chapel in the Russian Empire, but who also spent much of his career in Italy. He made an important contribution to the music of Ukraine. Together with Artemy Vedel and Dmitry Bortniansky, both of whom have cited him as an influence, Berezovsky is considered by musicologists as one of the three great composers of 18th-century Ukrainian classical music, and one of the Russian Empire's first composers.

Berezovsky's place of birth and his father's name are known only from verbal accounts. He is traditionally thought to have been educated at the Glukhov Singing School; he may have also attended the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, although this is uncertain. In 1758, he was accepted as a singer into the capella at Oranienbaum, before being employed at the imperial court of Catherine II in Saint Petersburg, where he received lessons from the Italian composer Baldassare Galuppi. In 1769, Berezovsky was sent to study in Bologna. There he composed secular works, including Demofonte, a three-act opera seria that was the earliest Italian-style opera to be written by a Ukrainian or a Russian composer. He returned to Saint Petersburg in October 1773. The circumstances of his death in 1777 are not documented.

Berezovsky is best known for his choral works, and was one of the creators of the Ukrainian sacred choral style. Few of his compositions are extant, but research in recent decades led to the rediscovery of previously lost works, including three symphonies. His opera and violin sonata were the first known examples of these genres by an Imperial Russian composer.

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