Sarti: Te Deum Settings for Prince Potemkin's Victories
Te Deum Settings for Prince Potemkin's Victories
Edited by Bella Brover-Lubovsky
SET177 Sarti: Te Deum Settings for Prince Potemkin's Victories
This publication is a set of two volumes, each sold separately.
At the end of his long and remarkable career, the Italian composer Giuseppe Sarti (1729–1802) traveled to the Russian Empire at the invitation of Catherine the Great. After a brief period spent composing for the empress’s court in St. Petersburg, Sarti entered the service of the military leader, statesman, and music-lover Prince Grigorii Potemkin. Through his affiliation with Potemkin, Sarti found himself personally involved in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–91, during which his patron led Russian troops to victory in several notable battles. Sarti commemorated two of these military successes with new choral-orchestral settings of the Te Deum to be performed at grandiose victory celebrations. Though lauded by contemporary audiences for their lavish orchestration and dramatic presentation of the liturgical text, these two works have largely gone unperformed since the early nineteenth century. Now available for the first time in published editions, these Te Deum Settings for Prince Potemkin’s Victories, edited by Bella Brover-Lubovsky, promise a rewarding concert experience for performers and audiences alike.