Though the western conception of Ukrainian art music may once have stopped at Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate of Kiev”, the depth of her musical culture – often misattributed, misunderstood, and even misspelled – is at last coming to light. Subjugated by foreign rulers for centuries, composers in Ukraine have alternately struggled to assert a national musical voice and to accommodate the shifting styles imposed from without.

Kyiv, along with the western Ukrainian city of L’viv, was an important meeting place for Western music and native Slavic traditions. Situated at a vital intersection of the trade routes between Northern Europe and the Black Sea, the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv developed a cosmopolitan culture. Under the sphere of Russian influence for centuries, Kyiv was slow to exhibit a truly Ukrainian voice in art music – the magnificent Ukrainian liturgical music is, of course, an entirely different matter.

During the second half of the 19th century, important musical organizations and societies were built according to prominent German models. In Kyiv, these included the Kyiv Philharmonic Society, a resident string quartet, and the state-funded Kyiv Russian Music Society, which established a music school – later the orchestral conservatory – in 1868.

The founding of the Kyiv Opera in 1867 marked the beginning of an institution that would later become the focus of musical life in Ukraine. In addition to the standard operas by Rossini, Tchaikovsky, and later Puccini, the Kyiv Opera became the staging ground for a nationalist repertory of works drawing on Ukrainian legends and folk melodies. The movement contributed to a larger revival of Ukrainian music in general. One of its leading figures was Mykola Lysenko (1842 – 1912).

Lysenko, sometimes called the “father of Ukrainian music”, was born in Krynky in 1842. The son of a landowner, Lysenko was deeply impressed by the folk songs of local peasants during his youth. The art songs, to texts of Shevchenko, recapture a sense of his rustic early surroundings. He later studied natural science at the University of Kyiv, and between 1866 and 1868 took courses in piano and composition with Karl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory. From 1874 – 1876, Lysenko studied orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov in Saint Petersburg, where he also organized a choir to give performances of Ukrainian folk music. In 1904, he founded a musical institute in Kyiv and was active as a composer, performer, ethnomusicologist, and teacher. Lysenko was extremely influential for the next generation of Kyivan composers, especially as they sought to formulate a Ukrainian musical identity. His Rhapsody Number 2,Opus 18 is a colorful work, incorporating Ukrainian dance rhythms and folk melodies into a bravura piano idiom heavily influenced by Liszt.

Among the composers most directly influenced by Lysenko were Yakiv Stepoviy (1893 – 1921), his brother Fedir Yakymenko (1876 – 1945), and Kyrylo Stetsenko (1882 – 1922). In the face of increasing tsarist censorship, this group remained defiantly patriotic in their treatment of native Ukrainian themes. Stepoviy’s Prelude (dedicated to the exiled poet Taras Shevchenko) is one of a number of such works heard on concert programs, which also served as rallying points for Ukrainian nationalism. The arrival of the early Soviet regime effectively put a stop to such a focus of composition, and in fact forced the exile of Yakymenko to Paris.

After the 1917 revolution, music developed into a two-tiered system combining earlier traditions of folk music with Soviet patterns of musical composition, performance, and evaluation – generally controlled by an administrative hierarchy centered in Moscow. These same years saw the deaths of the older group of composers and the exodus of several promising young talents. In this time of severe ideological restriction, composers once again faced the prospect of finding an appropriate musical dialect. In Kyiv, two outstanding teachers remained to train a new generation of Ukrainian composers. Lev Revutsky (1889 – 1977) was a student of Lysenko and Gliere. He later became a professor at the Kyiv Conservatory and was elected to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 1957. The Song for Piano, Opus 17 is an early work, dating from 1929. Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895 – 1968) studied law, but also took lessons from Fliere at the Kyiv Conservatory. Eventually, he taught there from 1935 – 1968. In his operas, symphonic and chamber music, Lyatoshynsky attempted to form a broadly “national” style, blending Ukrainian folk motifs with a characteristically Russian romanticism. The Trio Number 2, Opus 41 was written in 1942, and impressions of the war are especially prominent in the first movement. Lyatoshynsky has been viewed as the most influential 20th century composer in Ukraine.

Hryhoriy Mayboroda (b. 1913) was a student of Revutsky, graduating from the Kyiv Conservatory in 1941. He was appointed to the faculty in 1952 and has written operas, orchestral works, and numerous vocal pieces. Mayboroda’s style follows the heroic themes of the Soviet school of social realism. His opera, Taras Shevchenko, dates from 1964.

Ukraine’s most western musical center is L’viv. Long an important cultural center under Polish and Austrian domination, it developed a rich musical life by the early 18th century. Ukrainian musical brotherhoods of professional musicians, active in religious and secular popular music, were established long before that. Not until the 19th century, however, did a distinctly Ukrainian profile emerge in L’viv’s art music. Again, the formation of a nationalist opera
would prove decisive. In 1864, a Ukrainian Theatre was founded, which provided a forum for composers like Anatol Vakhnyanyn (1841 – 1908). Vakhnyanyn studied in Vienna, and was later a member of the Austrian parliament. His first opera – Kupalo – was produced in 1892. Denys Sichynsky (1865 – 1963) a composer, conductor, and conservatory teacher was another prominent figure in L’viv. Sichynsky organized choral organizations and the preservation of Ukrainian folk songs.

From the 1870’s, a fine Polish conservatory was the center of musical life in L’viv. In 1903, the Lysenko Music Institute was founded to serve as a distinctly Ukrainian center for musical training. The two amalgamated in 1939 to form the Lysenko Conservatory. Its staff included Vasyl Barvinsky (1888 – 1963) and Stanislav Lyudkevych (1879 – 1979). Barvinsky, a composer, pianist, and musicologist, studied in L’viv and then in Prague. He was the director of the Lysenko Music Institute from 1915, and exerted a strong influence on Ukrainian art music. Deeply admired for his teaching, Barvinsky later showed great heroism during his years in a Soviet concentration camp. Lyudkevych studied with Zemlinsky in Vienna and then taught in L’viv. His works include operas, patriotic cantatas, and symphonic pieces. He also made editions and settings of Ukrainian folk songs. Myroslav Skoryk (b. 1938) taught at the conservatories in both L’viv and Kyiv, and also in Moscow. His Burlesque for Piano and Song for Violin and Piano were composed in the 1960’s.

From the end of the 19th century, a large number of Ukrainian artists, facing tsarist or Soviet censorship and oppression, left Ukraine but continued to practice their musical skills while dispersed in foreign lands – especially in France, Germany, and the United States. Fedir Yakymenko, an early student of Lysenko, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Scriabin, was forced to emigrate to France in the 1920’s. There, he encountered the style of the French “impressionist” composers. With his name and music forbidden in the Soviet Union, Yakymenko died in Paris in 1945. Stefania Turkevych-Lukyanovych emigrted to England after the Second World War, and her works show the strong influence of Schoenberg and non-traditional techniques of composition.

A large number of expatriate Ukrainians settled in the United States. Ihor Sonevytsky (b. 1926) trained as a composer and musicologist in Munich and immigrated to the United States. As a co-founder of the Ukrainian Music Institute of America, Sonevytsky has been active in arranging festivals of Ukrainian music. He is a prolific composer with over sixty art songs to his credit. Mykola Fomenko (1894 – 1961) came to New York in 1951 and taught at the Ukrainian Music Institute of America. His works include operas, symphonic compositions, chamber music, and art songs.

(Dr. Filenko completed his degree in Ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1998.)