The generous offers of Catherine the Great drew Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785) to St. Petersburg in 1765. One can but admire the spirit of these eighteenth-century Italian musicians--many of them being well advanced in years--who were willing to leave the sunny skies of Italy for the "Boreal clime" of St. Petersburg. Galuppi acted as the Director of the Imperial Court Chapel for three years, and was the first foreigner to compose music to a text in the ecclesiastical Slavonic, and to introduce the motet (the Russian name for which is "concert") into the service of the Orthodox Church. His operas, _Il Ré Pastore_, _Didone_, and _Iphigenia in Taurida_, the last named being composed expressly for the St. Petersburg opera, were all given during his sojourn in the capital, but there is no record to prove that any one of these works was sung in Russian. Maxim Sozontovich Berezovsky[8] (1745-1777) studied at the School of Divinity at Kiev, whence, having a remarkably fine voice, he passed into the Imperial Court Chapel. In 1765 he was sent at the Government expense to study under the famous Padre Martini at Bologna. His studies were brilliant, and he returned to St. Petersburg full of hope and ambition, only to find himself unequal to coping with the intrigues of the Italian musicians at Court. Discouraged and disappointed, his mind gave way, and he committed suicide at the age of thirty-two. He left a few sacred compositions (_a capella_) which showed the highest promise. While in Italy he composed an opera to an Italian libretto entitled _Demofonti_ which was performed with success at Bologna and Livorno. Dmitri Stepanovich Bortniansky, born in 1751, also began his career as a chorister in the Court Choir, where he attracted the attention of Galuppi, who considered his talents well worth cultivation. When Galuppi returned to Italy in 1768, Bortniansky was permitted to join him the following year in Venice, where he remained until 1779. He was then recalled to Russia and filled various important posts connected with the Imperial Court Choir. He is now best known as a composer of sacred music, some of his compositions being still used in the services of the Orthodox Church. Although somewhat mellifluous and decidedly Italianised in feeling, his church music is not lacking in beauty. He wrote four operas, two to Italian and two to French texts. The titles of the Italian operas are as follows: _Alcide, Azioni teatrale postea in musica da Demetrio Bortnianski, 1778, in Venezia_; and _Quinto Fabio, drama per musica rappresentata nel ducal teatro di Modena, il carnavale dell'anno 1779_. The French comic opera _Le Faucon_ was composed for the entertainment of the Tsarevich Paul Petrovich and his Court at Gatchina (1786); while _Le Fils Rival_ was produced at the private theatre at Pavlovsk in 1787, also for the Tsarevich Paul and his wife Maria Feodorovna.