Fathers and sons of partes music: A Concert by Vasily Titov in a mid-eighteenth-century arrangement

Anna V. Bulycheva

Abstract


In 2022, Evgeniya E. Gatovskaya published scores of fifteen four-voice partes concerts by Vasily Titov (c. 1650–1709). At least two of them were arranged in the mid-eighteenth century for the most widespread vocal scoring of the period: twelve voices. The arrangement of the concert Oh, how many blessings the damned one deprived himself has survived well enough to reconstruct its full score. It represents a rare type of twelve-voice scoring: for four choirs without altos. The score of the work, compiled from the partbooks of the Synodal Choral Collection of the State Historical Museum (Doc. 46), is published for the first time in the appendix to this article. Comparative analysis of the two versions of the concert revealed that this arrangement is a free adaptation, in which modifications affected not only texture but also key, rhythm, melodic figuration, and formal proportions. Furthermore, the arrangement introduces new sections absent from the original. The alterations made during the arranging process demonstrate the direction in which the partes style evolved in the first half of the eighteenth century, becoming significantly Russified and absorbing certain features of traditional genres of Russian sacred music.

Keywords: Russian Baroque, partes singing, Vasily Titov, choral arrangement, twelve-voice scoring, mensural rhythm

For citation: Bulycheva A. V. (2026). Fathers and sons of partes music: A Concert by Vasily Titov in a mid-eighteenth-century arrangement. Contemporary Musicology, 10(3), 72–107. https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2026-3-072-107

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2026-3-072-107

Copyright (c) 2026 Anna V. Bulycheva

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/