A 70th birthday appreciation of composer Ihor Sonevytsky (01/12/97)

A 70th birthday appreciation of composer Ihor Sonevytsky

This tribute to composer Ihor Sonevytsky was delivered on the occasion of a composer's evening held recently at the Ukrainian Institute of America to mark Mr. Sonevytsky's 70th birthday.

by Oleksander Kuzyszyn

In his book "What to Listen for in Music," Aaron Copland, the greatest American composer, states: "Melody is only second in importance to rhythm in the musical firmament. As one commentator has pointed out, if the idea of rhythm is connected in our imagination with physical motion, the idea of melody is associated with mental emotion. The effect upon us of both these primary elements is equally mysterious." Later Copland adds: "In writing music, a composer is forever accepting or rejecting melodies that come to him spontaneously. In no other department of composition is he forced to rely to the same extent on his musical instinct for guidance."

In paying tribute to the creative legacy of Dr. Ihor Sonevytsky, Aaron Copland's words seem especially poignant. For it is in the genre of vocal music that Dr. Sonevytsky has made and continues to make his most important contributions as a composer - a genre in which melodic inspiration and craftsmanship are everything. In his many art songs, choral works, as well as in his opera, "The Star," the individuality of this composer's gift for melody is strikingly evident. The seemingly inexhaustible well of Dr. Sonevytsky's melodic imagination is impressive enough. After all, a good number of composers have achieved considerable success with far less emphasis on melody. Of these, several have enjoyed long, productive careers without ever writing a single memorable tune. In fact, true melodicism is an elusive and rare gift.

But the gift itself is not the entire story. What is most admirable about Dr. Sonevytsky's music is the seamless integration of a truly inspired "melos" with an aesthetic clarity, an economy of means and an emotional directness. The deceptive simplicity that results is the very quality which is often lacking in contemporary music. All too often, technical pyrotechnics and self-serving intellectualism obscure, or worse, entirely obliterate the visceral impact of a piece of music. The best works, however, move us emotionally, spiritually, despite the sophistication of their construction. Guided by this principle in all his creative endeavors, Dr. Sonevytsky has never lost sight of this basic artistic truth. The result has been a consistent and convincing writing style that gains momentum with every listening.

It is a style especially well suited to sacred music - a primary focus of Dr. Sonevytsky's compositional activity. The sacred song "Thy Loving Kindness" from the cycle "Canti Spirituali" serves as a vivid example of the composer's highly refined melodic craft. The opening melodic statement descends gently in stepwise motion, mirroring the act of supplication expressed in the liturgical text. The next melodic phrase, through ascending arpeggiation, heightens the tension ever so slightly, only to close with another stepwise descent. In the second half, as the text describes the act of prayer, the melody first wavers in a short sequence, then stabilizes in a descending pattern of thirds leading to a gentle cadence. As is typical of Dr. Sonevytsky's vocal music, not a note is wasted. Every phrase and gesture are pregnant with restrained emotion, or as Copland described it, "mental emotion," so appropriate for this sublimely pious text.

In recent years, the works of the Eastern European "mystics," including the Estonian Arvo Part, Poland's Henryk Gorecki and the Russian Georgi Sviridov have become the rage here in the U.S., the so-called latest trend in contemporary composition. At least in part, the profound effect of this music on the American listener is due to the stark contrast it provides to the typical American lifestyle - boisterous, materialistic and often shallow in its scope and vision. How ironic that those very qualities in the music of the Eastern European mystics that so intrigue American audiences have been integral to Dr. Sonevytsky's music since his "Ave Maria" written way back in 1947. Ironic, but not surprising.

Creatively, Dr. Sonevytsky is a descendant of the musical legacy of the 18th century Ukrainian masters of sacred choral music: Dmytro Bortniansky and Artem Vedel. His volume "Artem Vedel and His Musical Legacy," published in 1966 in New York, is the seminal musicological work about this composer. For Dr. Sonevytsky, spirituality was a way of life from the very beginning. His grandfather was the Rev. Klyment Sonevytsky, a spiritual leader in his native village of Hadynkivtsi in western Ukraine. Mykhailo Sonevytsky, the composer's father, was a long-time seminary teacher and later a professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. In the 1970s, Dr. Sonevytsky followed in his father's footsteps and, although living in New York, flew to Rome regularly to lecture at this same university.

Thus, the purity and asceticism of Dr. Sonevytsky's music, the unadulterated nature of his melodic writing and the transparency of his musical textures, are simply an extension of his psyche and his being. There is nothing adopted in Dr. Sonevytsky's style - as an artist he is true to himself.

Dr. Sonevytsky embarked on his lifelong journey as a professional musician in 1944, when at 18, as a result of the recommendation of the renowned Ukrainian composer Vasyl Barvinsky, he was accepted into the composition class of Josef Marx at the Vienna Musical Academy.

At the end of World War II, however, Vienna was occupied by the Russian Communists, and as a result the Sonevytsky family ended up in a displaced persons camp in Munich. Here, in 1950, Dr. Sonevytsky completed his musical studies with a diploma in composition, conducting and piano performance from the State Musical Academy. Concurrently, he conducted the Ukrainian Opera Ensemble of B. Piurko, and was active as a piano accompanist.

His musical activities were then once again interrupted, when he and his family emigrated to the United States that same year. Life as an emigré in the United States forced Dr. Sonevytsky to branch out his musical activities. He helped organize the Ukrainian Music Institute, and served as its director from 1959 to 1961. In the next two decades he conducted five different Ukrainian choirs, organized and directed a Ukrainian string orchestra and opera ensemble, taught private students, wrote over 500 music-related articles for various newspapers and periodicals, wrote several books, edited many others, and accompanied a variety of singers, recording several LPs of vocal music with them.

In 1983, he organized and became president of The Music and Art Center of Greene County, where every summer world-class artists perform in an idyllic setting in the Catskills. In between, he wrote music, albeit much less than he would have preferred. As a leading musical citizen of the Ukrainian community in the United States, Dr. Sonevytsky has had to wear many hats, and the composer's hat often had to wait its turn. He did, however, manage to write incidental music to no less than 29 productions of the acclaimed Theatre Studio of Lydia Krushelnytsky, an opera, a ballet, some chamber music, a series of piano works and an impressive catalogue of choral and vocal music.

When Ukraine became independent in August of 1991, almost immediately leading Ukrainian musicians began to seek out and champion Dr. Sonevytsky's works. In recent years, several of his compositions received their world premieres at the Grazhda in Hunter, N.Y., performed by world-class artists from Kyiv, Lviv and other Ukrainian cities. Simultaneously, they were performed in Ukraine by leading choirs, instrumental ensembles and soloists to the great acclaim of Ukrainian audiences, the press and critics.

With the publication of a collection of his solo songs in 1993 by the Ukrainian State Publishing House Muzychna Ukraina, Dr. Sonevytsky became the first Ukrainian emigré composer to be published in his homeland. Two years later, his one-act opera "The Star" was published by this same firm. Also in 1995, the Lviv Composers, Union published a 100-page monograph on Dr. Sonevytsky's life and works, written by musicologist Stefania Pavlyshyn. Other publications are scheduled as well. It appears that after 46 long years Ihor Sonevytsky the composer has once again found his home.

Here in the West, those of us who have known Dr. Sonevytsky and his music are not at all surprised by his most recent successes. If anything, we feel somewhat guilty for taking 40 years to realize what our counterparts in Ukraine discovered after just five. As we finally examine and appreciate his life's work, we can at least take solace in the fact that, by all indications, this energetic, optimistic and good-natured 70-year-old has no intention of slowing down. There is still much more beautiful music in his soul, most of which, we trust, will find its way onto the printed page and compact disc, into the concert hall and into our hearts.

Dr. Sonevytsky, as you continue along your musical journey, we ask that for the duration of your trip, you dust off and don that last hat - the hat of the composer. We, in turn, will eagerly listen, because the music speaks for itself.

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