The Golden Three

Music at the Russian Imperial Court in the mid 18th century was largely provided by itinerant Italian masters like Paisiello, Galuppi & Manfredini, but by the end of the century a group of three talented Ukrainians began to take St Petersburg by storm. Maxim Berezovsky, Artemy Vedel and Dimitri Bortniansky became known as The Golden Three, and provided four successive monarchs with chamber music, choruses and operatic entertainments. Lucie Skeaping looks at the lives and music of these three, now uncelebrated composers, alongside the music of some of their western European teachers.