Richard Baker tells the stories behind 1,000 years of great music. Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was tone deaf but was so determined to make hers the most magnificent court of her time that money was no obstacle to buying in musicians from all over Europe. She patronised opera and theatre, and employed a number of foreign musicians at court, notably the Italians Paisiello, Galuppi and Cimarosa. Yet the traffic was not all one-way. Many serf composers went to Italy to be trained, and, returning to their homeland, they began the first stirrings of a Russian School.