Maxim Sozontovich Berezovsky ( ; ; ) 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 ; 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.
Biography
A lack of documentary evidence meant that little was known about Maxim Sozontovich Berezovsky until the 21st century. During the 1830s and 1840s, the librarians of the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella compiled details about his life and work. They had access to the composer's own scores and notes, but relied on anecdotal information from others who remembered him. The earliest writers to produce short biographies of Berezovsky were the German historiographer , the antiquary and book collector Eugene Bolkhovitinov, and the Russian poet and translator Nikolai Dmitrievich Gorchakov. Bolkhovitinov's unsubstantiated biography, written decades after Berezovsky's death, was used by later writers as the main source of information about the composer. Unconfirmed details still included in modern biographies include that he was a victim of his circumstances who was driven to suicide, either by debt or the lack of recognition of his creative genius.
Early life
Berezovsky's father may have belonged to the petty nobility. Contemporary descendants of a brother, Pavel, associate the family's origins with the Cossacks. The family's coat of arms has also been preserved, testifying to its Polish origins.
thumb|A part of a map, produced in 1769 by Johann Gottlieb Facius. [[Kyiv (labelled "Kiow") and Hlukhiv ("Gluchow") are shown on the left and right sides respectively.|upright=1.5]]
Berezovsky's place of birth, father's name, and supposed period as a scholar at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, are known only from verbal accounts, and so are not known for certain. When their voices changed, those with the best voices were then trained as adult singers, and freed if they were serfs. Those not selected generally found work as government employees, or choristers in monasteries.
Berezovsky is generally considered to have been a boy chorister at the school in Glukhov. His name does not appear in surviving documents of this institution, but as it was the only one in the Russian Empire that trained singers for the Imperial Court Choir, it is likely that he was educated there, as were other composers such as Artemy Vedel, Hryhorii Skovoroda, and . He may have composed three- and four-part motets as a boy.
It was asserted by some 19th-century sources that Berezovsky received part of his education at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, but when the academy's documents were made public at the start of the 20th century, Berezovsky's name was not found amongst any of the student lists. There is no documentary confirmation of Berezovsky attending the academy.
Oranienbaum, and Saint Petersburg
thumb| Prospect of the Grand Palace in Oranienbaum, based on a drawing by (1750s), [[Hermitage Museum|upright=1.8]]
On 29 June 1758, Berezovsky was accepted as a singer into the capella of the future Paul I of Russia, in Oranienbaum, near Saint Petersburg. There he sang in Italian operas and his name appears in printed librettos of the operas (1759) by Francesco Araja (when he played the role of Poro) and (1760) by Vincenzo Manfredini (when he portrayed Ircano). Some 1756 salary receipts are preserved, signed by "Beresevsky", that confirm that he was a paid as an opera singer at the Oranienbaum.
The future governor of Little Russia, Pyotr Rumyantsev, brought the 13-year-old Berezovsky to the royal court. and was taught composing by the Italian composer Baldassare Galuppi. Berezovsky surprised Tsoppis when he created a series of well-written choral concerts. Berezowsky's examination piece, , signed "Massimo Berezovsky", is now kept by the academy.