Gennaro Astarita's pieces in the Oleksii Rozumovskyi music collection

The aim of the study is to obtain information about the creative path of Italian composer G. Astaritа (с. 1745-1805) by the method of сomplex research of his music sources available in the Music Fonds Department of the V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine (VNLU). The methodology of the research is based on the application of methods of special historical disciplines - archeography, book studies and filigranology,musical source studies and personal empirical observations. The scientific novelty of the work. For the first time musical sources by G. Astarita from the VNLU fonds have been classified into the categories of autographs, authorized manuscripts and lifetime copies. The titles of some of the works have been clarified and some of them have been defined for the first time, possible ways of documents acquisition for the collection are outlined. It is confirmed that the handwritten score of the untitled opera [«Gernando e Costanza»] (1787, libretto «L'Isola disabitata» by P. Metastasio) is the autograph of the composer. The autograph of the Aria by Compagnone (1785-1787) was introduced into scientific circulation. The score of the opera «The Vendor of Sbiten» (1786, libretto by Ya. Kniazhnin) is an autograph, but in the vocal parts there are inscriptions except by Astarita also in other handwriting (that is, an authorised manuscript). Manuscripts of instrumental parts of the overture to the opera «The Vendor of Sbiten» are copies of the 18th century (c. 1786 year). For the first time, an extended list of G. Astarita's operas, compiled from various sources, with an indication of the genre, location and time of the premiere, supplemented by a translation of the titles into Ukrainian. Conclusions. The information from the manuscripts made it possible to adjust assertion about the composer’s creative heritage and biography, including his location in 1785-1787. In total, G. Astarita has written about 60 operas, almost 40 of them are varieties of Italian comic opera (drama giocoso, opera buffa, farsa), and 7 opera seria. G. Astarita’s operas were competitive in the 18th century judging from the repertoire of theaters and his music was supported by the general public. At the same time, the information obtained allowed us to contribute to the definition of musical tastes of representatives of the Ukrainian elite of the 18th century, since this documents are part of the music collection of Oleksii Rozumovskyi.