Russian sacred music — first of all, the musical image that makes up liturgical singing of the Russian Orthodox Church — has undergone many changes over the years of its existence. The study of ancient manuscripts — records of the so-called hook letter — gave medievalists of the 19th century an idea of an unique, unborrowed, completely original genesis of ancient Russian church chants. Developing in its own special way, Russian church music was enriched with many genre forms. From the time of Peter I, a period of transformation of church chants began under the influence of Western European music. This was a beginning of decline of church singing, a loss of our own traditions. Church music followed in the wake of either Italian or German fashion. Western harmonization of Eastern melody unrecognizably changed the old chants, leveled out the semantic content. Nevertheless, another tendency gradually matured: starting with Bortnyansky (18th century), Russian composers increasingly resorted to their roots, using original Russian melodies as the basis of their works, theologians and music theorists were engaged in the study of ancient Russian musical culture. By the end of the 19th century, the composer school «New Direction» began to form, convinced of the need for reforms in liturgical music, the motto of which became the expression of their teacher and inspirer Stepan Vasilyevich Smolensky — «return home». Over the years of the existence of their association — until the October Revolution of 1917 — the composers of the New Direction updated and enriched repertoire of church music, while acting carefully and cautiously, in accordance with the charter of the Orthodox Church. The main principle of their work was adherence to the spirit of churchliness: after all, modifications in the musical image of the church service concealed the danger of introducing an inappropriate secular element into it. A great support for composers-innovators was the assistance of the clergy themselves: many priests who had a musical intuition and even a musical education willingly went along with the reforms. Archpriests Mikhail Lisitsyn, Vasily Metallov, Dmitry Allemanov were themselves church composers, as well as theoreticians and musicologists. In their works, they theoretically substantiated, systematized and described the principles and approaches of the «New Direction». The work of the composers of the New Direction turned out to be very fruitful and rich in discoveries, new musical achievements, which were later picked up by composers of our time, established in the compositional creativity and choral performance.

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