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| Music of Ukraine | ||||||||
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Ukrainian music covers diverse and multiple component elements of the music that is found in the Western and Eastern musical civilization. It also has a very strong indigenousSlavic andChristian uniqueness whose elements were used among the areas that surround modernUkraine.[1]
Ukraine is also the rarely acknowledged musical heartland of the formerRussian Empire, home to its first professional music academy, which opened in the mid-18th century and produced numerous early musicians and composers.[2]
Modern Ukraine is situated north of theBlack Sea, previously part of theSoviet Union. Several of its ethnic groups living within Ukraine have their own unique musical traditions and some have developed specific musical traditions in association with the land in which they live.
Ukraine found itself at the crossroads of Asia and Europe and this is reflected within the music in a perplexing mix of exoticmelismatic singing with chordal harmony which does not always easily fit the rules of traditional Western European harmony.The most striking general characteristic of authentic ethnic Ukrainian folk music is the wide use of minor modes or keys which incorporate augmented 2nd intervals. This is an indication that the major-minor system developed in Western European music did not become as entrenched in Ukraine.
Rhythmically the music rarely uses complex time-signatures, but compound meters are encountered, and the music can be extremely complex harmonically.
Harmonically three and even four part harmony had developed and was recorded in the central steppe regions of Ukraine, but was not in popular use in the mountain regions by the late 19th century.
Ukrainian folk song singing style can be divided into a number of broad aesthetic categories.
1. Solo singing – primarily ritual songs includingholosinnya sung at wakes.
2. Solo singing with instrumental accompaniment by professional itinerant singers known askobzari orlirnyky. The highest form of development of this style of singing can be seen in the lyric historical folk epics known asdumy sung to the accompaniment of thebandura,kobza or lira (lirnyk).Dumy were sung primarily in the dorian mode.
3. The third is an archaic type of modal "a cappella" vocal style in which a phrase sung by a soloist is answered by a choral phrase in 2- or 3- voice verticalpolyphony/heterophony/harmony. The vocal inflection here is quite mediaeval in character, and some peculiarities of distinctly Ukrainian flavor are noticeable, such as parallel fifths and octaves, and several types of plagal cadences. This type of song, once dominant, after 1650 has ceded its hegemony to the newer tonal types, but can still be found in isolated villages. This style is evident in the "Koliadka" and "Shchedryk".
4. The other vocal styles are marked by the influences exerted by European music, by paraliturgical music ofDanylo Tuptalo and his circle in the early 18th century, and later by classical music and urban culture.
Ukrainian vocal music exhibits a wide variety of forms – monodic, heterophonic, homophonic, harmonic and polyphonic.
One of the most active proponents of Ukrainian vocal music isNina Matviyenko, along with recently established groups dedicated to the preservation of traditional polyphony such as "Bozhychi", "Hurtopravci", "Volodar", "Korali" and "Drevo". Popular folk songs include:
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Common traditional instruments include: the kobza (lute), bandura,torban (bass lute),violin,basolya (3-string cello), the relya orlira (hurdy-gurdy) and thetsymbaly; thesopilka (duct flute),floyara (open, end-blown flute),trembita (alpenhorn),fife,volynka (bagpipes); and thebuben (frame drum), tulumbas (kettledrum),resheto (tambourine) anddrymba/varhan (Jaw harp). Traditional instrumental ensembles are often known as troïstï muzyki (literally ‘three musicians’ that typically make up the ensemble, e.g. violin, sopilka and buben). When performing dance melodies instrumental performance usually includes improvisation.
The traditional dances of Ukraine include: the Kozak,Kozachok,Tropak,Hopak,Hrechanyky,Kolomyjka andHutsulka,Metelytsia,Shumka,Arkan,Kateryna (Kadryl) andChabarashka. Dances originating outside the Ukrainian ethnic region but which are also popular include: thePolka,Mazurka,Krakowiak,Csárdás,Waltz,Kamarinskaya andBarynya. Ukrainian instrumental and dance music has also influenced Jewish ("Hava Nagila" - "Let's Rejoice") and Gypsy music and much of it was included in the repertoire of itinerantklezmorim.
Early in the 20th century,Pavlo Humeniuk of Philadelphia became famous in North America for his fiddle music.
Although most instrumental dance music in Ukraine can be sung to, there exist in Ukraine a group of professional folk musicians who sing to their own accompaniment. These itinerant musicians were generically calledkobzari (kobzar – singular), and accompanied their singing with thekobza,bandura, orlira. Although their origins stretch back to antiquity, their repertoire and customs directly date back to the 17th century in which they depict the period of the conflicts between theKozaks and various foreign oppressors. There were many cases of those folk singers being blind which became a stereotype in the cultural memory.
The kobzari organized themselves into regional professional guild-like structures, known as a "Kobzar Guild".
During Soviet era almost all of the traditional kobzari were killed, the bulk perishing during Stalin's "purges" during the 1930s. Even the instrument, kobza and bandura, were prohibited and confiscated, a practice of the Ukrainianethnocide that continued after the fall of theRussian Empire.
Under the inspiration of noted traditional banduristHeorhiy Tkachenko aKobzar Guild was re-established in 1991 in Kyiv byMykola Budnyk in order to revive and foster the ancient kobzar traditions. The Guild unites many singer-musicians in Ukraine and theUkrainian diaspora. Many of its members are not formally Conservatory trained.
With the establishment of the Soviet regime in Ukraine a policy based onstate atheism was instituted which gradually grew to an intolerance to organized religion. Religious music was not supported by the regime and in time was purged from performance. Many aspects of classical music were also branded as being bourgeois and decadent.
A movement was started in the 20s for "Proletarian songs" – music of the working people. In time it was noticed that this music only catered for the working classes in the cities and did not take into account the large percentage of Ukrainian peasants living in village setting. As a consequence, songs of the village were also defined as being also from the working class. Resulting from this reclassification the Soviet government began to give significant support to this form of music. Hence, various "fakeloric" ensembles came into existence. After World War II huge resources continued to be given to support this style of music in order to displace the onslaught of mass culture from the West.
Numerous folk choirs were established such as theVeriovka folk choir directed byHryhoriy Veriovka. A stylized dance troupe was established byPavlo Virsky based on a synthesis of ethnographic dance and ballet. Particularly popular were the numerous Bandurist Capellas. These particular pseudo-folk forms blending ethnographic materials in an art setting have also become popular in theUkrainian diaspora in North America.
In North America pseudo-folk or "reconstructive" bandurists such asZinoviy Shtokalko,Hryhoriy Kytasty,Julian Kytasty,Victor Mishalow, et al. have played a significant role in defining Ukrainian ethnicity in the New World, while fusing traditional musical material with new possibilities offered by contemporary instruments.
Of the traditional musics of non-Ukrainian ethnic minorities living in Ukraine possibly the richest and most developed is that of Jewish music (includingKlezmer,cantorial,Yiddish-language folksongs, andYiddish theatre music) which can trace most of its origins to the JewishPale of Settlement and to South-western Ukraine. It is estimated that one third of the total Jewish population of Europe lived on Ukrainian ethnic territory at the turn of the 19th century. Therefore a number of Soviet and Russian Empire Jewish folklorists collected and documented Jewish music primarily in Ukraine, includingS. Ansky,Susman Kiselgof,Moisei Beregovsky,Joel Engel, andSofia Magid. Many of these collected works are now in the possession of theVernadsky National Library of Ukraine.
Russian music has also had a strong base for development in Ukraine. Many of the early performers onRussian folk instruments came from Ukraine and these performers often included Ukrainian melodies in their repertoire. The 4 string Russiandomra continues to be used and taught in Ukraine despite the fact that it has been replaced by the 3 stringdomra in Russia proper.
Composers of Ukrainian ethnicity that lived in Ukraine during the 19th century are associated with the a national school of music that was influenced by Ukrainian folk tunes and texts. Non-Ukrainian composers who lived in territories that now form part of modern Ukraine, such asFranz Xavier Mozart,Isaak Dunayevsky,Rheinhold Gliere, andSergei Prokofiev, rarely composed music that influenced in this way. Ukrainian-born composers who lived abroad, such asDmytro Bortniansky,Maksym Berezovsky,Artemy Vedel,Dimitry of Rostov,Mykola Fomenko,Yuriy Oliynyk,Zinoviy Lawryshyn,Wasyl Sydorenko,Mykola Roslavets and Dunayevsky, have had an influence upon Ukrainian classical music.[citation needed]
During the Baroque period, music was an important discipline for those that had received a higher education in Ukraine. It had a place of considerable importance in the curriculum of theKyiv-Mohyla Academy. Much of the nobility was well versed in music with manyUkrainian Cossack leaders such as (Mazepa, Paliy, Holovatyj, Sirko) being accomplished players of the kobza, bandura, or torban.
In the course of the 18th century in the Russian Empire, court musicians were typically trained at the music academy inHlukhiv and largely came from Ukraine. Notable performers of the era includeTymofiy Bilohradsky, who later studied the lute underSylvius Leopold Weiss in Dresden; his daughterYelyzaveta, who was a famous operatic soprano; andOleksiy Rozumovsky, a court bandurist and themorganatic husband of EmpressElizabeth.
The first professional music academy of theRussian Empire was established in Ukraine inHlukhiv in 1738, the Hlukhiv Music Academy, where students were taught to sing and play violin and bandura from manuscripts. As a result, many of the earliest composers and performers of the Russian empire were ethnically Ukrainian, having been born or educated inHlukhiv or having been closely associated with this music school.
During the 19th century,musical nationalism arose in Europe, characterized by an emphasis on national musical elements, and associated with the growth of national consciousness of European peoples. A Ukrainian nationalist movement in music appeared during the late 19th century. Ukrainian writers, poets, and professional musicians usedfolklore to arrangefolk songs. The opening of the first professional theatres inKyiv (1803) andOdesa (1810), which staged works on national themes, played an important role in the formation of Ukrainianopera. the first of which wasZaporozhets za Dunayem bySemen Hulak-Artemovsky (1863).
A key figure in the development of Ukrainian nationalist music during the 19th century was the composer, conductor and pianistMykola Lysenko,[3] whose compositions include nine operas, and music for piano. He used Ukrainian poetry, including that of the poetTaras Shevchenko. In 1904, Lysenko opened theRussian Empire's first Ukrainian music school in Kiev (now theLysenko State Music and Drama Institute [uk]). He is credited with establishing a classical music tradition that was a blend of folk music andclassical music forms.[3]
Lysenko's work was continued by other composers, includingMykola Leontovych,Kyrylo Stetsenko,Yakiv Stepovy, andStanyslav Lyudkevych.
In the period ofthe Liberation War numerous Ukrainian artistic groups were created. The Government of the Ukrainian State has taken a consistent position in the field of cultural development, including music, as evidenced by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers on the mobilization of literary, scientific, artistic and technical forces of Ukraine. In particular, by the decree of Pavel Skoropadsky in 1918, theState Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Ukrainian State Chapel, the First and Second National Choirs were established. The Kyiv opera was named the Ukrainian Drama and Opera Theater, and a significant number of world-famous operas have been translated into Ukrainian. Also in 1918, the Kobzar Choir was founded, which would later be revived as the State Bandura Chapel.
The arrival of Soviet authorities in Ukraine was marked by a number of tragic events. In 1921, Leontovych was killed by an agent of theCheka, and in 1928 the society in his memory were banned. Ukrainian art suffered the worst losses in the 1930s, during which the Soviet authorities exterminated several hundred bandura players, kobzars, and lyre players, and in 1938, musician and ethnographerHnat Khotkevych was shot among other artists of the"shot revival."
At the same time, the Soviet authorities opened a number of music institutions in various cities of Ukraine. In particular, these are opera and ballet theaters inKharkiv (1925),Poltava (1928),Vinnytsia (1929),Dnipropetrovsk (1931),Donetsk (1941), choral and symphonic groups were organized. According to the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party "On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations" in 1932, The Union of Soviet Musicians of Ukraine (later - "Union of Composers") was organized and entrusted with the functions of ideological control over compositions by Ukrainian composers.
Among Ukrainian composers of the Soviet period were Gliere,Borys Lyatoshynsky,Lev Revutsky,Mykola Vilinsky,Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky,Andriy Shtoharenko,Mykola Dremliuha,Vitaly Kyreyko.
The 1960s are marked by the breakthrough of the Ukrainian school of composition on the world stage, the mastery of the latest trends in European musical culture. A group of Kyiv Avant-Garde artists is being formed in Kyiv, which includes composers such asValentyn Silvestrov,Leonid Grabovsky,Vitaliy Godziatsky, andVolodymyr Guba. The central figure in this group was the conductor Igor Blazhkov. As a result of differences with the retrograde tendencies of the official musical circles of the USSR, the members of the "Kyiv avant-garde" were subjected to various kinds of oppression.
In the 1970s and 1980s, composers became famous who expanded the traditional late Romantic style for Ukrainian music through the latest techniques of European modernism -Myroslav Skoryk,Yevhen Stankovych,Ivan Karabyts,Lev Kolodub, and others. Among composers of Ukrainian diaspora -Virko Baley.
After Ukraine gained independence, any ideological barriers were removed and composers got an opportunity to experiment with different styles and genres. Festivals of avant-gard music such asKyiv Music Fest,Kontrasty,Two Days and Two Nights of New Music were established. Among composers of new generation -Oleksandr Kozarenko,Volodymyr Runchak,Hanna Havrylets',Ivan Nebesnyy. In 2000s experimentalelectronic music in Ukraine began to develop, the leader of this trend isAlla Zahaikevych.
There are also musicians and ensambles that are difficult to categorize, such as
There are also musicians in Ukraine (Kostyantyn Chechenya, Vadym Borysenko) and in diaspora (Volodymyr Smishkevych,Julian Kytasty,Roman Turovsky) who have been preserving Ukrainian music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Eras.
The Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton (UMCE) was founded in 1984 inEdmonton, Alberta, Canada, and has performed at many events and festival both in Canada and internationally.[4][5] Performances includeExpo '86, the International Choral Festival, along with tours toUkraine,Poland, and Eastern Europe. Each year the UMCE hosts a Christmas concert, A Festive Mosaic.[6][7][8][9] The UMCE is also a member of the Alberta Choral Federation (ACF).[10] The UMCE has also performed numerous times with theEdmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO) at theWinspear Centre indowntown Edmonton.[5][11] As of 2016, the choir was conducted by Orest Soltykevych.[12][13] The UMCE has released four recordings, That Old Sheepskin Coat (1992), The Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton LIVE! (2002), Malanka Suite (2006), and Kateryna (2007).[7][14]
Pop music in Ukraine is Western influenced pop music in its various forms that has been growing in popularity in Ukraine since the 1960s. The 1970s saw the emergence of a number of folk rock groups such asKobza. Major contributions were made by songwriterVolodymyr Ivasyuk,Oleksandr Bilash. After Ivasyuk's death in 1979, developments in Ukrainian pop music almost ground to a halt. Even established folk-rock groups such as Kobza began to sing in Russian.
The revival of Ukrainian pop music emerged in 1990s after Ukraine gained an independence. TheChervona Ruta Festival played an important role in popularisation and evolution of the modern Ukrainian song. In 2004 Ruslana was a first Ukrainian singer who won theEurovision Song Contest.
Until theRusso-Ukrainian War broke out in 2014, theRussian language was widely used by Ukrainian artists in order to also reach audiences outside Ukraine who could understand Russian.[15] Russian-language songs gradually lost popularity in Ukraine after 2014, while Ukrainian-language music experienced a surge; this trend accelerated when the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.[15] Muzvar music journalist Julian Novak stated in July 2022: 'Many popular artists have decided to switch to the Ukrainian language, and change their existing Russian-language repertoire to Ukrainian.'[15] The war became an increasingly prominent theme in songs, with lyrics about consolation in trying times of losing loved ones and having to flee one's home and country, but also the courage to go on.[15] New musical tracks from Ukraine also incorporated ever more elements ofUkrainian folklore, such as the remake of a traditional lullaby byEurovision Song Contest 2022 winner "Stefania", and the use of the traditional flute.[15]
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The Polyphony Project, which is funded in part by theCreative Europe program of theEuropean Union, and which aims to "explore, preserve and present the living musical folklore of Ukrainian villages", has an online archive of Ukrainian folk music.[27]