The Specifics of Russian Religious Music of the 19th – Early 20th Centuries

This article examines the distinctive features of Russian religious music of the 19th – early 20th centuries, with a focus on two principal directions: liturgical church singing and extra-liturgical forms of sacred music. The study analyzes the main trends in the development of this genre field during the period under consideration: on the one hand, the preservation and revival of ancient Orthodox chant traditions within liturgical practice; on the other, active compositional creativity that enriched sacred music through the professional means of secular musical culture. Particular attention is paid to the formation, in the late 19th – early 20th centuries, of a national style of church music (the so-called “New Direction”), based on an appeal to ancient chants and folk-song elements of harmonization. The phenomenon of the sacred concert is also explored as a distinctive extra-church form of performing sacred compositions that became widespread in the culture of the time. The article concludes that Russian sacred music of this period functioned as a connecting link between ancient chant traditions and the compositional achievements of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, synthesizing a canonical foundation with the rich expressive possibilities of individual authorship. All statements and conclusions are based on an analysis of specialized studies and primary sources from the period in question.