Last evening at rehearsal we reviewed for the first time "Shepherds of Bethlehem," a composition by Alexander Kastalsky. The piece is not only quite beautiful (it is somewhat reminiscent of the Ukrainian Carol "Good Evening to You (Dobri Vechir Tobi)" - which goes to show how connected Eastern European/Slavic carols are) but has an interesting history and is worth mentioning below.
The text is attributed to St. Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov (1651-1709), who was an outstanding scholar, poet and musician of his time. It was a surprise to me to learn about the saint's contribution to the arts. This text is found in one of his so-called "mystery plays" - a genre of plays that was popular in medieval Europe - called Christmas Drama. Nikolai Findeizen, a contemporary scholar of medieval Russian music, has the following to say about secular music in 17th century Russia and St. Dimitry's contribution to it:
The
management of the [Russian] public theater was entrusted to foreigners and "principals" imported to Moscow for this purpose, and theatrical performances were
also staged at the Moscow Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy and later at the Surgical School under the direction of Dr. Bidloo. Plays were produced
for the courts in the village of Preobrazhenskoe, where the theater was renovated by Tsarevna Natalia Alekseevna; later, plays were produced at Tsaritsa Praskov'ia Fyodorovna's residence in the village of Izmailovo. Copies of plays performed at the Kiev Academy, in the
metropolitan of Rostov's palace, and even in Novgorod have been
preserved. The repertory of all these theatrical enterprises can be
divided into three basic categories: mystery plays and school plays of
similar character; regular theatrical plays (comedies); and theatrical plays with political subtexts.
Mystery and school plays were performed at Kiev Academy, and from
there they passed to Moscow and Rostov. It is known that at the
founding of the Kiev Academy, Metropolitan Peter Mohila required the
poetry teachers to prepare a play for the annual summer festivities.
The subject matter was taken from the Bible, but over time as Russian
actors were brought in, topics from Russian history were selected.
These theatrical productions were slavish imitations of Western models,
although the same might be said of the Russian theatrical repertory of
this period as a whole. The extent of this borrowing may be seen in the text of
Dimitry Rostov's Deistvie na Strasti Khristovy (Passion Play), a mystery play in which one of the two
musical numbers were sung in Polish. St. Dimitry was one of the most
popular authors of mystery plays performed in schools; during his
residence in Rostov, the plays were staged in the Metropolitan’s
Krestovaia Palace.
About 200 years after St. Dimitry wrote this text for one of his "mystery plays," Alexander Kastalsky composed the current music for it (albeit a poetic English translation of it). Kastalsky's original composition was actually never published. Vladimir Morosan based it on a mimeograph copy found in the composer's archive in the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow.
Here is a nice recording of the original Russian composition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB2w_q_216w
I hope you enjoy it! (Please note that the audio and video do not line up properly; the audio is delayed a second or two delay in the video)
