Mykola Lysenko

Mykola Lysenko (1869).

Statue of Mykola Lysenko in Kiev.

Mykola Lysenko's grave at Baikove Cemetery in Kiev.

Mykola Vitaliiovych Lysenko (Ukrainian: Микола Віталійович Лисенко, 22 March [O.S. 10 March] 1842 – 6 November [O.S. 24 October] 1912) was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist.

Biography

Lysenko was born in Hrynky, Kremenchuk Povit, Poltava Governorate,^[1] the son of Vitaliy Romanovich Lysenko (Ukrainian: Віталій Романович Лисенко). From childhood he became very interested in the folksongs of Ukrainian peasants and by the poetry of Taras Shevchenko. When Shevchenko's body was brought to Ukraine after his death in 1861, Lysenko was a pallbearer. During his time at Kiev University, Lysenko collected and arranged Ukrainian folksongs, which were published in seven volumes. One of his principal sources was the kobzar Ostap Veresai (after whom Lysenko later named his son).

Lysenko was initially a student of Biology at the Kharkiv University, studying music privately. On a scholarship which he won from the Russian Music Society he pursued further professional music studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. It is there that he understood the importance of collecting, developing and creating Ukrainian music rather than duplicating the work of Western classical composers.

On his return to Kiev he continued to create Ukrainian themed compositions. His Ukrainophilic approach to composition was not supported by the Russian Imperial Music Society which promoted a Great Russian cultural presence in Ukraine. As a result Lysenko severed his relationship with them, never to compose any music set to the Russian language, nor allow any translations of his works into the Russian language.

In order to improve his orchestration and composition skills the young Lysenko traveled to St. Petersburg where he took orchestration lessons from Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov in the mid 1870s, but his fervent Ukrainian national position and disdain for Great Russian autocracy retarded his career. He supported the 1905 revolution and was in jail briefly in 1907. In 1908, he was the head of the Ukrainian Club, an association of Ukrainian national public figures in Kiev.

For his opera libretti Lysenko insisted on using only the Ukrainian language. Tchaikovsky was impressed by Lysenko's Taras Bulba and wanted to stage the work in Moscow, but Lysenko's insistence on it being performed in the Ukrainian language, not Russian, prevented the performance from taking place in Moscow.

In his later years, Lysenko raised funds to open a Ukrainian School of Music. His death was widely mourned throughout Ukraine. Lysenko's daughter Mariana followed her father's footsteps as a pianist, and his son Ostap also taught music in Kiev.

Music

Piano music

Lysenko's piano music is little known outside Ukraine. His piano works were considered by Soviet musicologists to be derivative of Chopin. As a result they have not sparked as much interest to musicologists as his vocal music.

Vocal music

Lysenko's early vocal music consisted of settings of Ukrainian folk songs and compositions primarily to the poetry of Taras Shevchenko. Later he began to include other Ukrainian poets in his portfolio and also translations of works by German poets, some of which he did himself.

Interest in Lysenko's art songs to the words of prominent Ukrainian poets such as Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, and Oleksander Oles is increasing, partly due to the recent efforts of the British opera singer Pavlo Hunka.

Operas

Lysenko wrote a number of operatic works, including Natalka Poltavka, Utoplena (The Drowned Woman, after Gogol's May Night) and Taras Bulba.

Musicological studies

Lysenko made the first ethno-organological studies of the music of the blind kobzar Ostap Veresai which he published in 1873-4; they are still exemplary. In this work Lysenko demonstrated the way in which Ukrainian melodic material differs from Russian analogues by its unique use and approach to chromaticism (something that was censored out in Soviet republications).

Lysenko continued to research and transcribe the repertoire of other kobzars from other regions such as Opanas Slastion from Poltava and Pavlo Bratytsia from Chernihiv. He also made a thorough study of other Ukrainian folk instruments such as the torban. His collection of essays about Ukrainian folk instruments, makes him the founder of Ukrainian organology.

Students

See also

• Lysenko music school
• List of Ukrainian composers

References

• The World of Mykola Lysenko: Ethnic Identity, Music, and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Ukraine. Taras Filenko, Tamara Bulat. Ukraine Millennium Foundation (Canada). 2001. Hardcover. 434 pages. ISBN 966-530-045-8.

1. ^ Encyclopedia of Ukraine (English)

External links

• International Mykola Lysenko Foundation
• Ukraine Millennium Foundation
• Review by Natalie Kononenko
• Lysenko String Quartet in d minor Sound-bites and short bio
• Ukrainian Art Song Project
• Free scores by Mykola Lysenko at the International Music Score Library Project

Persondata
Name	Lysenko, Mykola
Alternative names
Short description	Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist
Date of birth	22 March 1842
Place of birth	Hrynky, Kremenchuk Povit, Poltava Governorate
Date of death	6 November 1912
Place of death