SOUNDS AND VIEWS: Ukrainian themes, continued (01/16/00)

SOUNDS AND VIEWS

by Roman Sawycky

Ukrainian themes, continued

Following the wonderful reaction to the first concert at the Ukrainian Institute of America centering on European music with Ukrainian influences, Mykola Suk, artistic director of the Music at the Institute (MATI) series, began planning a sequel. More than a year in the making, the program will present several rare scores that have recently come to light.

Works by gifted, albeit lesser-known, composers, as well as by great masters will be showcased.

Czech composer David Popper wrote extraordinarily idiomatic cello music in the late 19th century, which remained for decades in the international repertoire. His "Fantasia on Ukrainian Songs," Op. 43, is a welcome find. It is well-crafted in its theme; the six variations and a spirited finale are intended for an accomplished soloist.

Franz Xaver Mozart, the younger son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was dedicated to organizing music education in western Ukraine in the first decades of the 19th century. The folk tunes this virtuoso pianist absorbed came directly from the musical population he came to know so well. The humorous "U Susida Khata Bila" (The Neighbor's White House) was featured in his "Ukrainian Variations" for piano (1820) mistitled by a Milan publisher as "Air Russe Variee," Op. 18. At that time the younger Mozart was competing with analogous variations based on Ukrainian material penned by Beethoven and Weber.

In the early part of the 20th century American composer Sidney Homer wrote "The Cossack" (Kozak), Op. 5, for his wife Louise, then leading soprano at the Metropolitan Opera. Published by the prestigious G. Schirmer in both German and English, with the text derived by H.G. Chapman from happy Ukrainian tunes, the music was Homer's own and decidedly modern for American songwriting of 1910. Its rhythm recalls "Kozachok" dances.

Another rarity, the "Two Songs of Little Russia" in an English version by Harold Flammer, was arranged by the eminent violinist Efram Zimbalist for lyric soprano and also was published by Schirmer in 1916. The setting easily combines the somber "Wind Song" with the brighter "The Neighbor's White House" tune heard in the Mozart piece, and was made famous in antique recordings by Met Opera stars Alma Gluck and Adamo Didur.

One hit song favored by American GI's during World War II was Jack Lawrence's "Yes, My Darling Daughter." This was an adaptation of the famous ballad "Oy Ne Khody Hrytsiu" (Don't Go, Greg) that retained the original melody attributed to the legendary songstress Marusia Churai. Lawrence, however, preferred the light approach, and his witty text bears little connection with the original song of tragic love.

Published in 1939 in New York, this song was recorded the following year by a very young and pretty singer gifted with a sultry mezzo voice who billed herself Dinah Shore. She sold almost 1 million dics and launched her career. Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters followed with their versions of this hit, labeled "Voca-Dance."

In a letter to Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner lavished a supreme compliment: "When I first read your 'Mazeppa' orchestral score, it took my breath away; I pitied the poor horse ..." Liszt, the consummate romantic was captivated for decades by Byron's and Hugo's verses depicting Ukraine's last great Kozak, Hetman Ivan Mazepa, and produced several instrumental masterpieces on this heroic theme. For the composer, however, the wild horse ride served only as a symbolic backdrop on which Liszt immortalized the intrinsic superiority of good over evil and showed the triumph of genius against all odds.

Count Andriy (Andreas) Rozumovsky, patron of the arts and son of the last Kozak hetman of Ukraine, had at his disposal in Vienna at the dawn of the 19th century a sumptuous palace, complete with one of the best string quartets of the day, which premiered the latest chamber music.

Among the count's closest friends was Beethoven, who dedicated his Symphonies No. 5 and 6 and Three String Quartets, Op. 59, to Rozumovsky out of gratitude for the noble patronage. The quartets incorporated Ukrainian (sometimes mislabeled as Russian) folksongs, which the master preferred to Russian ones. According to Russian scholar Viacheslav Paskhalov "the reason for this preference is clear; it lies in the closeness of Ukrainian melodies to the European musical system." (See his study "Russian Themes in Beethoven," Moscow, 1972.)

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The scores of F.X. Mozart, Homer, Zimbalist and Lawrence to be presented by MATI come from this writer's collection. The works of Mozart and Popper are being performed for the first time in New York.

From tough Kozaks and thundering hoofs, through Viennese elegances to hits of Manhattan, Ukraine's soul, as reflected in Western music, will be presented at the institute on January 22 at 8 p.m. by Wendy Waller, soprano; Juliana Osinchuk and Serhiy Kryvonos, pianists; Natalia Khoma, cellist; and the Laurentian String Quartet.

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