CHURCH MUSIC. Religious music existed in Ukraine before the official adoption of Christianity, in the form of plainsong or musica practica. With the conversion to Christianity in 988, the Byzantine chant was imported together with Byzantine ritual. The distinguishing feature of Ukrainian church music was its exclusively vocal nature. An original Ukrainian church music first emerged in the 11th century at the Kyivan Cave Monastery, where the so-called Kyivan Cave Monastery chant was evolved. From the mid-16th to the end of the 17th century a contrapuntal or polyphonic singing (vocal music with simultaneous but melodically independent parts or voices) was developed in Ukraine. Polyphonic music was cultivated primarily by church brotherhood choirs. The choral concerto in one movement, composed for non-liturgical texts, became a very popular form. The composers of polyphonic music were, among others, Mykola Dyletsky and Andrii Rachynsky. Several outstanding Ukrainian composers of liturgical music, including Maksym Berezovsky, Artem Vedel, and Dmytro Bortniansky, emerged during the latter half of the 18th century...

Church music

DYLETSKY, MYKOLA, b 1650? in Kyiv, d 1723? Music theoretician, composer, pedagogue. Dyletsky studied in Vilnius (1675) and worked for some time in Smolensk (1677), Kyiv, Moscow (1679), Saint Petersburg, Lviv, and Cracow. He was a master of polyphonic choral music. Among his works are compositions for four voices and eight voices, liturgical music, various motets, and canons. His most important theoretical work was Hramatyka muzykal’na (Musical Grammar), a textbook of polyphonic singing, which explains the fundamental theory of music, some principles of counterpoint, and the general rules of composition; it is illustrated by selections from the works of Dyletsky himself, M. Zamarevych, Ziuzka (probable pseudonym of either Lavrentii Zyzanii or Stepan Zyzanii), I. Koliada, M. Mylchevsky, Ye. Zakonnyk, and others. His theoretical views are augmented by comments on esthetics and on the educational value of music. The original text of the work, written in Vilnius in 1675, is not extant, but it exists in several variants and new redactions: 20 manuscript transcriptions are known...

Mykola Dyletsky

BEREZOVSKY, MAKSYM, b 27 October 1745 in Hlukhiv, d 2 April 1777 in Saint Petersburg. A prominent composer, one of the creators of the Ukrainian choral style in sacred music. Berezovsky studied at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy and sang in the court choir in Saint Petersburg. From 1759 to 1760 he performed as soloist with the Italian opera company in Oranienbaum near Saint Petersburg. From 1765 to 1774 he studied in Bologna, Italy, under Giovanni Battista Martini, and in 1771 gained the title of maestro di musica and became a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy. In 1775 he returned to Saint Petersburg, where, as a result of court intrigues and difficult circumstances, he committed suicide. Berezovsky was the first representative of the early Classicist style in Ukrainian music. He was the composer of the opera Demofonte, a sonata for violin and harpsichord, and of a series of sacred works (including 12 concertos), of which only a few have been preserved. The recent discovery of his unknown Symphony No. 11 indicates that a considerable number of his other instrumental compositions must have been lost...

Maksym Berezovsky

BORTNIANSKY, DMYTRO, b 1751 in Hlukhiv, d 10 October 1825 in Saint Petersburg. A prominent composer and conductor. After studying in the Hlukhiv Singing School, Bortniansky became a member of the court choir in Saint Petersburg in 1758. From 1769 to 1779 he studied in Italy, where he composed several operas to Italian librettos. Bortniansky also wrote liturgical works to Latin and German texts. On his return to Saint Petersburg he became a court composer, teacher, and conductor. During this period he composed his three French operas in 1786 and 1787. At the same time Bortniansky wrote a number of instrumental works (piano sonatas and a piano quintet with harp). In 1790 he wrote his Concerto-Symphony which for a long time (until the discovery of an earlier symphony by Maksym Berezovsky) was considered to be the first symphonic work composed in the Russian Empire. In 1796 he became the director of the court choir, which was composed mostly of Ukrainians and which he raised to a new level of excellence. During this period Bortniansky composed over 100 choral religious works...

Dmytro Bortniansky

VEDEL, ARTEM, b 13 April 1767 in Kyiv, d 26 July 1808 in Kyiv. Composer, conductor, singer (tenor), violinist, and teacher. Educated at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, Vedel worked briefly as a choirmaster in Moscow. In 1792 he returned to Kyiv to conduct a military choir. The period 1792-7 saw the height of his musical creativity and he composed most of his choral concertos and other works at that time. In 1797 Tsar Paul I prohibited the performances in churches of choral concertos or any other forms except for liturgical music. This prohibition proved particularly harmful to musical culture in Ukraine where choral concertos were particularly popular. Left without work, Vedel briefly joined the Kyivan Cave Monastery. He was banished to a mental asylum in 1799 after church authorities attributed to him some irreverent marginal notes scribbled in a religious book. The incarceration ended Vedel's creative work and led to his premature death. The publication and performance of his works were banned for over one hundred years after his death. Oleksander Koshyts was one of the first choirmasters to include Vedel's works in his choir's repertoire...

Artem Vedel