Music of Ukraine
Ukraine is an Eastern European country situated north of the Black Sea, formerly part of the Soviet Union. Ethnic Ukrainians live in the countries that surround Ukraine as well: Belarus, Russia, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Moldova and in diaspora, in countries like the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, etc. Ukraine has always been a home to many ethnic groups other than Ukrainians, including Lemkos-Rusyns, Hutsuls, Poles, Jews, Greeks, Gagauz, Karaim, Armenians, Germans, Tatars, etc. with unique musical traditions of their own.
Traditional Music
The most striking general characteristic of Ukrainian folk music in general is that its vast majority is in minor modes or keys (unlike, for example, music of Baltic peoples). There is no rational explanation for this phenomenon, and the fact remains, while the people of Ukraine do not exhibit any inordinate moroseness, even under the weight of History which dealt the Ukrainians a low hand for a very long time, with several periods of virtual depopulation of the Land.
Ukrainian folk song can be divided into 3 broad aesthetic categories (a deliberate if necessary oversimplification...): The first is an archaic type of modal "a Capella" song in which a phrase sung by a soloist is answered by a choral phrase in 2- or 3- voice vertical polyphony/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/or plagal cadences in which the perfect fifth is a leading note to the tonic in cadential figures which move from IV to I in final resolutions. This feature is thought to have originated in Ancient Greece. 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.
Ukrainian vocal musics exhibit a wide variety of forms – monodic, heterophonic, homophonic, harmonic and polyphonic. Common traditional instruments include: the kobza (lute), Bandura, torban (bass lute), violin, basolya (3-string cello), the relya or lyra (hurdy-gurdy) and the cimbaly; the sopilka (duct flute), floyara (open, end-blown flute), trembyta (alpenhorn), fife, koza (bagpipes); and the buben (frame drum), tulumbas (kettledrum), resheto (tambourine) and drymba/varghan (Jew's harp). Traditional instrumental ensembles are often known as troïstï muzyki (from the ‘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, hopak, grachanyky, kolomïyka and hutsulka, metelitsya, shumka, arkan, kateryna kucherjava (La Mantovana) and chabarashka. Dances originating outside the region but which have been widely adopted include: the polka, mazurka, krakowiak, csárdás, waltz, barynya and tropak. Ukrainian instrumental and dance music was also influenced by Jewish and Gypsy ensembles.
The most distinctive musical instrument unique to Ukraine is currently the bandura, a 19th century invention used in folk and semi-classical music, and bandura's historical predecessors: torban, kobza and "starosvits'ka" bandura, all previously facing extinction, but now being revived. Starting in the 15th century, itinerant musicians called (kobzari) used the kobza to accompany dumas, epic sung poetry (dumy). In the 19th century many (but not all) of them were blind, and this stereotype remains in folk memory. The kobzari were organized in a professional guild, known as the "Kobzar Guild/Kobzars'kyj Tsekh". During Soviet era kobzari were persecuted, and many perished during Stalin's "purges" during 1930's. The Kobzar Guild has been revived in recent years, under the leadership of such fine singer-musicians as Kushpet, Kompanichenko, Drach, Cheremsky, Koval', Khaj and others.
Early in the 20th century, Pavlo Humeniuk of Philadelphia became famous in the USA for his fiddle music. American musicians, especially from the New York, Cleveland and Detroit areas, became well-known and, in many ways preserved Ukrainian traditions that faced extinction in Ukraine proper (such as Zinovy Shtokalko, Hryhory Kytasty, Julian Kytasty, Victor Mishalow, et al.).
Throughout Ukraine, vocal polyphony was once common, but it has been in decline in recent years, as Western pop and rock became prevalent. However there are groups dedicated to preservation to Ukrainian polyphony, notably "Bozhychi", "Ghutropravci", "Volodar", "Korali" and "Drevo".
The Hutsuls, Carpathian mountain tribe, are known for their trembita, a type of alpenhorn, and their multiple varieties of the flute (sopilka). Hutsul folk melodies, rhythms and dance moves were effectively used by the Ukrainian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 Ruslana.
One of the most important and truly original musicians to come out of Ukraine in recent years is the ultra-avantgarde folk singer and harmonium player Mar'jana Sadovs'ka.
Ukrainian pop and folk music arose with the international popularity of groups like Vopli Vidoplyasova, Vij, Okean Elzy, et al. and individual musicians, such as Julian Kytasty, Oleg Skrypka and Mar'jana Sadovska, all of whom dress traditional music in ultra-avantgarde forms.
Classical Music
There are also musicians (Julian Kytasty, Kostyantyn Chechenya, Wolodymyr Smishkewych, Vadym Borysenko and Roman Turovsky-Savchuk) who have been preserving Ukrainian music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Eras (See http://polyhymnion.org/torban for in-depth discussion of Ukrainian music and its instruments from antiquity to our time).
Ukraine and its diaspora have also produced a great number of fine classical and avant-garde composers and musicians with widely varying degrees of affinity with the folk idioms, from extreme (in the case of Lysenko, Kytasty, Andrec or Turovsky) to none (See: Baley, Silvestrov, Hrabovsky), with many more in between (Skoryk, Stankovich, Karabits, Leontovych, Liatoshinsky, Revutsky, Kos-Anatol'sky, Andrij Bondarenko).
Ukraine has produced a large number of great performers of Classical music (both ethnic Ukrainians and not, such as Borys Gmyrja, Vladimir Horowitz, Roman Kofman, Ivan Kozlovsky, Salomeja Krushel'nyts'ka and many others.
Popular performers in Ukraine
- Okean Elzy – popular rock band
- Ruslana - singer , composer , pianist , conductor (http://www.ruslana.com.ua/)
- Vopli Vidoplyasova – Ukrainian folk-rock (http://vopli.com.ua)
- Plach Yeremiji – rock music
- Viy – Ukrainian folk-rock (http://www.viyfrom.kiev.ua/)
- Julian Kytasty – singer, composer, kobzar, bandurist
- Mariana Sadovska – singer, composer (http://www.mo-productions.com/marianasad.html)
Other Ukrainian musicians and composers
- Mykola Lysenko. 1842-1912. Composer. He is considered the father of Ukrainian classical music.
- Semen Hulak Artemovsky. 1813-1873. Composer of opera "Zaporozhetz za dunayem" (Kozaks beyod the Danube).
- Mykola Leontovich. 1877-1921. Composer. Best known for his arrangement of Shchedryk, which became known in North America as "Carol of the Bells."
- Dmytro Bortnyansky [1], [2]. 1751-1825. Ukrainian liturgical composer. Born Hlukiv, Ukraine.
- Reinhold Gliere. 1875-1956. Composer. Born in Kyiv.
- Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello
- Peter Tchaikowsky. 1840-1893. Born in Russia to a Ukrainian father and a French mother. His Symphony #2 is nicknamed "Ukrainian Symphony" because of its use of Ukrainian folk themes. He wrote an opera "Mazepa" based on Pushkin's poem. His family owned estates in Ukraine and he collected Ukrainian folk music.
- Myroslav Skoryk. Ukrainian classical composer.
- Virko Baley. Composer. Conductor of Las Vegas Symphony.
- Karol Szymanowski. 1882-1937. Composer. Born in Ukraine.
- Volodymyr Ivasiuk. 1949-1979. Ukrainian popular song composer. His best known song is Chervona Ruta.
- Dmitri Tiomkin. 1899-1979. Born Poltava, Ukraine. American film composer (academy award for score of movie High Noon, also best song from that movie "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling"). A U.S.A. postage stamp was issued in his honor.
- Stepan Rak. 1945- . Prolific Czech composer and guitarist. "... identifies the village Chust in Ukraine as the place where the newborn infant, who was later christened as Stepan Rak, was found by Soviet soldiers in a bomb-wrecked house."
- Gary Kulesha. Ukrainian-Canadian composer.
References
- Alexis Kochan and Julian Kytasty. "The Bandura Played On". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 308-312. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Victor Mizynec, Folk Instruments of Ukraine. 1987. Bayda Books, Doncaster, Australia. ISBN 0-908480-19-9
- Roman Turovsky, "TORBAN: The Lute in Ukraine": http://polyhymnion.org/torban
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ukraine, §I: Art music
BIBLIOGRAPHY P. Kozyts'ky: Spiv i muzyka v Kivsky akademïïza 300 rokivïï isnuvannya (1917) [Singing and music at the Kiev Academy during its 300 years of existence] (Kiev, 1971)
M. Hrinchenko: Istoriya ukrainskoï muzyky (Kiev, 1922; Eng. trans., 1961)
V. Barvyns'ky: ‘Ohliad istorïï ukraïns'koï muzyky’ [A survey of the history of Ukrainian music], Instoriya ukraïns'koï kultury, ed. I. Kryp'yakevych (Lwów, 1937)
B. Kudryk: Ohlyad istorïi ukrains'koï tserkovnoï muzyky [Outline of the history of Ukrainian church music] (Lwów, 1937)
V. Dovzhenko: Narysy z istorïi ukrains'koï radyanskoï muzyky [Study of the history of Soviet Ukrainian music] (Kiev, 1957–67)
A. Rudnytsky: Ukraïns'ka muzyka: istorychno-krytychny ohlyad [Ukrainian music: a historical and critical outline] (Munich, 1963)
L. Arkhimovych and others: Narysy z istorïï ukraïns'koï muzyky [Outline of the history of Ukrainian music] (Kiev, 1964)
Ukrains'ke Muzykoznavstvo [Ukrainian musicology] (Kiev, 1963–98)
M. Hordiychuk: Ukraïns'ka radyans'ka symfonichna muzyka [The symphonic music of the Soviet Ukraine] (Kiev, 1969)
O. Shreier-Tkatchenko: Istoriya ukrayns'koy dozhovtnevoy muzïkï [The history of Ukrainian music before the October Revolution] (Kiev, 1969)
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O. Shreier-Tkatchenko, ed.: Istoryia ukraïns'koï muzyky (Kiev, 1980)
N. Herasymova-Persyds'ka: Partesniy kontsert v istorii muzïkal'noy kul'turï [The Partesny concerto in the history of musical culture] (Moscow, 1983)
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Y. Stanishevsky: Operny teatr Radyans'koï Ukrainy [Opera theatre in Soviet Ukraine] (Kiev,1988)
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L. Arkhimovych, ed.: Istoriya Ukraïns'koï Radyans'koï muzyky [The history of Soviet Ukrainian music] (Kiev,1990)
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A. Khredorovnich, A.Konoshchenko and B. Arsen: Ukraïns'ki pis'ni z notamï [Ukrainian songs with music] (Odessa, 1900–04)
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O. Kolberg: Wołyń obrzędy, melodye, pieş'ni [Rituals, melodies, songs], ed. J. Tretyak (Kraków, 1907/R)
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F.M. Kolessa: Rytmika ukrayins'kykh narodnykh pisen' [The rhythm of Ukrainian folksongs] (Lemberg, 1906–7)
F.M. Kolessa: ‘Über den melodischen und rhythmischen Aufbau der ukrainischen (kleinrussischen) rezitierenden Gesänge, der sogenannten “Kosakenlieder”’, IMSCR: III Vienna 1909, 276
F.M. Kolessa: ‘Das ukrainische Volkslied, sein melodischer und rhythmischer Aufbau’, Österreichische Monatsschrift für den Orient, xlii (1916), 218
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F.M. Kolessa: Narodni pisni z Halyts'koï Lemkivshchyny [Folksongs from west Galicia, Lemky country] (Lwów, 1929)
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R. Harasymchuk: Tantse hutsulskiye (L'viv, 1939)
Yu. Kostyuk: Ukrayins'ki narodni pisni Pryashivs'koho krayu (Bratislava, 1958)
M.O. Hrinchenko: Vybrane, ed. M.M. Hordiychuk (Kiev, 1959)
Z.I. Vasylenko, ed.: Zakarpatski narodni pisni (Kiev, 1962)
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M.M. Hordiychuk, ed.: Ukraïns'ke narodne bahatoholossya: zbirkny pisen' (Kiev, 1963)
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K. Vertkov, G.Blagodatov and E. Yazovitskaya, eds.: Atlas muzïkal'nïkh instrumentov narodov SSSR [Atlas of the musical instruments of the peoples of the USSR] (Moscow, 1963, 2/1975 with 4 discs)
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A.I. Humenyuk: Ukraïns'ki narodni muzychni instrumenty [Ukrainian folk musical instruments] (Kiev,1967)
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V.L. Goshovsky: U istokov narodnoy muzïki slavyan [The sources of Slavonic folk music] (Moscow, 1971)
K.L. Kvitka: Izbrannïye trudï [Selected works], ed. V.L. Goshkovsky (Moscow, 1971–3)
S.Y. Hrytsa: Melos ukrayins'koï narodnoï ėpiky (Kiev, 1979, enlarged 2/1990 as Ukrainskaya pesennaya epika)
A.I. Ivanyc'kyj: Ukrayins'ka narodna muzychna tvorchist' (Kiev, 1990)
Musicae Aes Et Scientia. Naukovyi Visnyk, Vypusk 6 [Scholarly Herald, Volume 6], Natzional'na Akademiya Ukrainy [National Music Academy of Ukraine], Kyiv, 1999