Music of Ukraine - Art (Classical) Music

Art (Classical) Music

Ukrainian art (classical) music can be divided up into ethnic sub-categories:

• 1) Composers and performers of Ukrainian ethnicity living in Ukraine.
• 2) Composers and performers of non-Ukrainian ethnicity who were born or at some time were citizens or were active in Ukraine.
• 3) Ethnic Ukrainian composers and performers living outside of Ukraine within the Ukrainian diaspora.

The music of the above groups differs considerably, as did the audiences for whom they cater.

The first category is closely tied with the Ukrainian national school of music spearheaded by Mykola Lysenko. It includes such composers as Kyrylo Stetsenko, Mykola Leontovych, Levko Revutsky, and Sydir Vorobkevych. Most of their music contains Ukrainian folk figures and are composed to Ukrainian texts.

The second category is of particular importance and international visibility, because of the large percentage of ethnic minorities in urban Ukraine. This category includes such composers as Franz Xavier Mozart, Isaak Dunayevsky, Rheinhold Gliere, Yuliy Meitus and Sergei Prokofiev, performers Volodymyr Horovyts, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter and Isaac Stern. The music of these composers rarely contains Ukrainian folk motives and more often is written to the texts of Russian or Polish poets.

In the third category we have a number of prominent individuals who are often not part of the mainstream Ukrainian culture but who have made a significant impact on music in Ukraine, while living outside of its borders. These include historic individuals such as: Bortniansky, Berezovsky, Vedel, Tuptalo and Titov. It also contains Soviet composers such as Mykola Roslavets and Isaak Dunayevsky who were born in Ukraine but who moved to other cultural centres within the Soviet Union. In North America we have Mykola Fomenko, Yuriy Oliynyk, Zinoviy Lavryshyn and Wasyl Sydorenko.