"Starting from an examination of the rich legacy of Russian music up to 1700, Marina Ritzarev explores the development of music over the course of the eighteenth century, a period of especially intense Westernization and secularization." "The book highlights the importance of previously marginalized sectors - serf culture, choral sacred culture, the contribution of foreign musicians, the significant influence of Freemasonry, the role of Ukrainian and West-European cultures and so on - as well as casting new light on the well-researched topic of Russian opera." "Much new archival material is introduced, and revised biographies of the two leading eighteenth-century Russian composers, Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky, are provided, as well as those of the serf composer Stepan Degtyarev and the Italian Giuseppe Sarti." "The book places eighteenth-century Russian music will be of particular importance for the study of European musical cultures remote from such centers as Italy, Germany-Austria and France. Eighteenth-century Russian music is organically linked with its past and future and its contributory role in forming the Russian national identity and developing the Russian idiom is clarified."--BOOK JACKET.