fbpx
Wikipedia

Ukrainian folk music

February 24, 2023

Ukrainian folk music includes a number of varieties of traditional, folkloric, folk-inspired popular music, and folk-inspired European classical music traditions.

Ukrainian folk choir

In the 20th century numerous ethnographic and folkloric musical ensembles were established in Ukraine and gained popularity.

During the Soviet era, music was a controlled commodity and was used as a tool for the indoctrination of the population. As a result, the repertoire of Ukrainian folk music performers and ensembles was controlled and restricted.

Vocal music

Authentic folk singing

Ukrainians, particularly in Eastern Ukraine have fostered a peculiar style of singing – The White voice (Ukrainian: Білий голос). This type of singing primarily exploits the chest register and is akin to controlled yelling or shouting. The vocal range is restrictive and in a lower tessitura. In recent times vocal courses have been established to study this particular form of singing. Among the most popular exponents of traditional Ukrainian folk singing in the modern era are Nina Matviyenko and Raissa Kyrychenko.

Singing ensembles

Ensemble singing in 3 and occasionally 4 part harmony was one of the features of traditional village music in Ukraine. The multi-part singing used in Central Ukraine was thought to have been unique at the turn of the 19th century. Numerous folk choirs were established (Okhmatinsky choir) and studies published of the style of choral singing.

It was supported in the Soviet period in opposition to church music, as village song was viewed by the authorities as being more proletarian.

In recent times (post 1980s) there is a movement toward authentic ensemble singing particularly in eastern Ukraine with the establishment of various ensembles and festivals there focusing on this style of music. Notable groups who perform in this tradition are Dyke Pole and Bozhychi.

Folkloric ensembles

The first such ensemble in Ukraine was the Okhmatynsky Village Folk Choir organized by Dr Mykola Demutsky in 1889. Ethnographic ensembles became popular in the 20th century. These were usually choirs often with orchestral accompaniment and sometimes a group of dancers. They originally performed works based on the ethnic folk music of the area, however over the past 40 years they have become more academic regarding their performance style and material.

The most prominent professional groups are:

  • State Academic Merited Ukrainian Folk Choir named after Hryhory Veriovka (established 1943)

Regional groups include:

  • Veselka – (now known as Poltava) (est. 1987, Poltava)
  • Donbas – merited miners ensemble of song and dance (est. 1937 Donetsk)
  • Podolianka – ensemble of song and dance (est. 1938 Khmelnytsk)
  • Bukovina merited ensemble of song and dance (est. 1944, Chernivtsi)
  • Transcarpathian merited folk choir (est. 1945, (Uzhhorod)
  • Verkhovyna – merited Carpathian ensemble of song and dance (est. 1946, Drohobych)
  • Lionok – Polissia ensemble of song and dance (est. 1970, Zhytomyr)
  • Tavria – Women's vocal-choreographic ensemble (est 1971, Simferopol)
  • Slavutych – ensemble of song and dance (est. 1972, Dnipropetrovsk)
  • Volyn Folk Choir (est. 1978, Lutsk)
  • Zoria ensemble (est. 1987, Rivne)

Characteristics of these choirs was the use of chest register singing (particularly in Eastern Ukraine) and the use of Ukrainian folk instruments in the accompanying orchestras.

Art singing

In the 20th century, popular operatic singers like Modest Mencinsky and Solomea Krushelnycki included Ukrainian folk songs in their concert performances. Other prominent Ukrainian singers include Ivan Kozlovsky, Borys Hmyria, Anatoliy Solovianenko have also propagated the singing of Ukrainian folk songs and romances. In the United States Kvitka Cisyk also promoted art song.

Choral art singing

Choral singing has a rich tradition in Ukraine. While the Catholic West developing sophisticated vocal instrumental works, the Orthodox church frowned on the use musical instruments in sacred music and a cappella choral music was the only genre that was actively supported.

In the 20th century notable Ukrainian a cappella choirs have included the Ukrainian National Choir, Dumka (choir), Kiev frescoes and Boyan which is the touring choir of the L. Revutsky Capella of Ukraine.

Notable choral conductors include Olexander Koshetz, Wolodymyr Kolesnyk, Nestor Horodovenko, Dmytro Kotko.

Accompanied singing

In Ukraine there existed a class of professional musicians who sang to their own instrumental accompaniment. These professional musicians were often known as kobzari or lirnyky. This category also includes players of the torban and bandura. The repertoire of these itinerant musicians differed considerably from that sung by the folk including the performance of dumy (sung epic poems).

In the 20th century the vocal-instrumental tradition has grown into a movement where ensembles and whole choirs sing to their own accompaniment on these instruments. Notable examples include the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, The Canadian Bandurist Capella and the Kiev Bandurist Capella.

Traditional instrumental music

Ukrainians have a wealth of folk instruments and a well-developed tradition of instrumental music. This is particularly because the Soviet government strongly discouraged the population away from religious music and encouraged "proletarian" forms of musical performance.

The bulk of the ethnic Ukrainian population lived in a village setting and did not share the urban culture of the city based elite that controlled the country. As a result, traditional village music was encouraged and fostered.

Scholarship

The first significant scholarship dealing with authentic Ukrainian folk instrumental music traditions is ascribed to the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko and his publications starting in 1874 was dealing with the bandura and other Ukrainian folk instruments.

Further scholarship was undertaken in the early 20th century by enthno-musicologist Filaret Kolessa and Klyment Kvitka. Publications in the new science of organology were undertaken by Hnat Khotkevych with his 1930 monograph "Musical instruments of the Ukrainian people". It was banned by the Soviet authorities in 1934 because it studied the phenomena of folk instruments from a national perspective.

After WWII scholarship was continued by Andriy Humeniuk who began the trend of mixing Soviet innovations in instrument construction and training with authentic instrumental music. This tendency was avoided by Sofia Hrytsa but became a feature of the publications of Victor Hutsal, Victor Mishalow and the bulk of Soviet and post-Soviet scholarship.

In recent times this trend has taken an about-face with the publications by the ethnomusicologist Mykhailo Khai of the early 21st century which has clearly separated Ukrainian instrumental music into so called authentic and so called fakeloric instrumental music traditions.

Significant contributions to the study of Ukrainian organology and performance have been done by both Russian and Polish ethno-musicologists such as Alexander Famintsyn and Stanislaw Mzrekowski.

Instruments

Idiophones (percussion)

Membranophones

String instruments

  • Balalaika – a three-stringed triangular-shaped soundboard played with the fingers.
  • Bandura – a multi stringed zither played with the fingers.
  • Kobza – four-stringed lute with a round soundboard, plucked or strummed with or without a plectrum.
  • Lira – a Ukrainian hurdy-gurdy with an oval or cello shaped body and an attached triangular pegbox.
  • Hudok – a three-stringed, pear-shaped Ukrainian bowed instrument which is usually held vertically, a relative of rebec.
  • Husli – one of the oldest known Ukrainian musical instruments, described by the Greeks as early as the 6th century CE. Many different versions of this plucked string instrument exist.
  • Torban – a relative of the theorbo with its own unique tuning.
  • Tsymbaly – a relative of the cymbalom with its own unique tuning.
  • Skrypka – a relative of the violin.
  • Basolia – a 3-string cello with its own unique tuning.
  • Tsytra – Ukrainian cittern.
  • Kozobas -.a Western Ukrainian bowed and percussive instrument.

Wind instruments

Recent instruments

Influence and legacy

Regional

Ukrainian folk music has made a significant influence in the music of neighbouring peoples. Many Ukrainian melodies have become popular in Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Russia, Romania and Moldova. Through the interaction with the Eastern European Jewish community, Ukrainian folk songs such as "Oi ne khody Hrytsiu" composed by songstress Marusia Churai have been introduced into North American culture as "Yes my darling daughter" (sung by Dinah Shore).

The traditional music of the kobzari inspired the Dumky composed by various Slavic composers such as Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Dvořák.

The use of folk melodies is especially encouraged in ballet and opera. Among the Ukrainian composers who often included Ukrainian folk themes in their music were Lysenko, Lev Revutsky, Mykola Dremliuha, Yevhen Stankovych, Aleksandr Shymko, Myroslav Skoryk (who adapted e.g. the folk song Verbovaya Doschechka).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ukrainian folk songs and folk song elements began to be included in pop and rock music in the rock-oriented Kobza ensemble, Smerichka, Opryshky Medikus and many other ensembles. This was driven by the lack of Ukrainian pop songs of the time. In time the genre of folk inspired pop music became significant, particularly inspired by the popularity of the Belarusian group known as Piesnari.

Of the Ukrainian groups the longest surviving and most significant was the group known as Kobza.

Western music

"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" is a folk song of the 1960s written by Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson. Seeger found inspiration for the song while on his way to a concert. Leafing through his notebook he saw the passage, "Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they've all taken husbands. Where are the men, they're all in the army." These lines were from a Ukrainian and Cossack folk song referenced in a novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don. Seeger adapted it to a tune, a lumberjack version of "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill". With only three verses, he recorded it once in a medley on a Rainbow Quest album and forgot about it. Hickerson later added verses four and five.

"Summertime" is an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based. It has since become a jazz standard. While it is primarily a spiritual in the style of the African American folk music of late nineteenth century,[1][2] the Ukrainian-Canadian composer and singer Alexis Kochan has suggested that some part of Gershwin's inspiration may have come from having heard the Ukrainian lullaby, Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon (A Dream Passes By The Windows) at a New York City performance by Oleksander Koshetz's Ukrainian National Chorus in 1929 (or 1926).[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Howard Pollack, George Gershwin: his life and work, University of California Press, 2006, p.589
  2. ^ William Hyland, George Gershwin: a new biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, p.171
  3. ^ Helen Smindak DATELINE NEW YORK: Kochan and Kytasty delve deeply into musical past, The Ukrainian Weekly, 24 May 1998

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Folk music of Ukraine.
  • Polyphony Project – Ukraine's largest online archive of musical folklore
  • Samples and Pictures of Ukrainian Instruments 2010-12-02 at the Wayback Machine

February 24, 2023
ukrainian, folk, music, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, mar. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Ukrainian folk music news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2013 Learn how and when to remove this template message This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia s quality standards You can help The talk page may contain suggestions March 2013 Ukrainian folk music includes a number of varieties of traditional folkloric folk inspired popular music and folk inspired European classical music traditions Ukrainian folk choir In the 20th century numerous ethnographic and folkloric musical ensembles were established in Ukraine and gained popularity During the Soviet era music was a controlled commodity and was used as a tool for the indoctrination of the population As a result the repertoire of Ukrainian folk music performers and ensembles was controlled and restricted Contents 1 Vocal music 1 1 Authentic folk singing 1 1 1 Singing ensembles 1 1 2 Folkloric ensembles 1 2 Art singing 1 2 1 Choral art singing 1 3 Accompanied singing 2 Traditional instrumental music 2 1 Scholarship 2 2 Instruments 2 2 1 Idiophones percussion 2 2 2 Membranophones 2 2 3 String instruments 2 2 4 Wind instruments 2 2 5 Recent instruments 3 Influence and legacy 3 1 Regional 3 2 Western music 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksVocal music EditAuthentic folk singing Edit Ukrainians particularly in Eastern Ukraine have fostered a peculiar style of singing The White voice Ukrainian Bilij golos This type of singing primarily exploits the chest register and is akin to controlled yelling or shouting The vocal range is restrictive and in a lower tessitura In recent times vocal courses have been established to study this particular form of singing Among the most popular exponents of traditional Ukrainian folk singing in the modern era are Nina Matviyenko and Raissa Kyrychenko Singing ensembles Edit Ensemble singing in 3 and occasionally 4 part harmony was one of the features of traditional village music in Ukraine The multi part singing used in Central Ukraine was thought to have been unique at the turn of the 19th century Numerous folk choirs were established Okhmatinsky choir and studies published of the style of choral singing It was supported in the Soviet period in opposition to church music as village song was viewed by the authorities as being more proletarian In recent times post 1980s there is a movement toward authentic ensemble singing particularly in eastern Ukraine with the establishment of various ensembles and festivals there focusing on this style of music Notable groups who perform in this tradition are Dyke Pole and Bozhychi Folkloric ensembles Edit The first such ensemble in Ukraine was the Okhmatynsky Village Folk Choir organized by Dr Mykola Demutsky in 1889 Ethnographic ensembles became popular in the 20th century These were usually choirs often with orchestral accompaniment and sometimes a group of dancers They originally performed works based on the ethnic folk music of the area however over the past 40 years they have become more academic regarding their performance style and material The most prominent professional groups are State Academic Merited Ukrainian Folk Choir named after Hryhory Veriovka established 1943 Regional groups include Veselka now known as Poltava est 1987 Poltava Donbas merited miners ensemble of song and dance est 1937 Donetsk Podolianka ensemble of song and dance est 1938 Khmelnytsk Bukovina merited ensemble of song and dance est 1944 Chernivtsi Transcarpathian merited folk choir est 1945 Uzhhorod Verkhovyna merited Carpathian ensemble of song and dance est 1946 Drohobych Lionok Polissia ensemble of song and dance est 1970 Zhytomyr Tavria Women s vocal choreographic ensemble est 1971 Simferopol Slavutych ensemble of song and dance est 1972 Dnipropetrovsk Volyn Folk Choir est 1978 Lutsk Zoria ensemble est 1987 Rivne Characteristics of these choirs was the use of chest register singing particularly in Eastern Ukraine and the use of Ukrainian folk instruments in the accompanying orchestras Art singing Edit In the 20th century popular operatic singers like Modest Mencinsky and Solomea Krushelnycki included Ukrainian folk songs in their concert performances Other prominent Ukrainian singers include Ivan Kozlovsky Borys Hmyria Anatoliy Solovianenko have also propagated the singing of Ukrainian folk songs and romances In the United States Kvitka Cisyk also promoted art song Choral art singing Edit Choral singing has a rich tradition in Ukraine While the Catholic West developing sophisticated vocal instrumental works the Orthodox church frowned on the use musical instruments in sacred music and a cappella choral music was the only genre that was actively supported In the 20th century notable Ukrainian a cappella choirs have included the Ukrainian National Choir Dumka choir Kiev frescoes and Boyan which is the touring choir of the L Revutsky Capella of Ukraine Notable choral conductors include Olexander Koshetz Wolodymyr Kolesnyk Nestor Horodovenko Dmytro Kotko Accompanied singing Edit In Ukraine there existed a class of professional musicians who sang to their own instrumental accompaniment These professional musicians were often known as kobzari or lirnyky This category also includes players of the torban and bandura The repertoire of these itinerant musicians differed considerably from that sung by the folk including the performance of dumy sung epic poems In the 20th century the vocal instrumental tradition has grown into a movement where ensembles and whole choirs sing to their own accompaniment on these instruments Notable examples include the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus The Canadian Bandurist Capella and the Kiev Bandurist Capella Traditional instrumental music EditUkrainians have a wealth of folk instruments and a well developed tradition of instrumental music This is particularly because the Soviet government strongly discouraged the population away from religious music and encouraged proletarian forms of musical performance The bulk of the ethnic Ukrainian population lived in a village setting and did not share the urban culture of the city based elite that controlled the country As a result traditional village music was encouraged and fostered Scholarship Edit The first significant scholarship dealing with authentic Ukrainian folk instrumental music traditions is ascribed to the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko and his publications starting in 1874 was dealing with the bandura and other Ukrainian folk instruments Further scholarship was undertaken in the early 20th century by enthno musicologist Filaret Kolessa and Klyment Kvitka Publications in the new science of organology were undertaken by Hnat Khotkevych with his 1930 monograph Musical instruments of the Ukrainian people It was banned by the Soviet authorities in 1934 because it studied the phenomena of folk instruments from a national perspective After WWII scholarship was continued by Andriy Humeniuk who began the trend of mixing Soviet innovations in instrument construction and training with authentic instrumental music This tendency was avoided by Sofia Hrytsa but became a feature of the publications of Victor Hutsal Victor Mishalow and the bulk of Soviet and post Soviet scholarship In recent times this trend has taken an about face with the publications by the ethnomusicologist Mykhailo Khai of the early 21st century which has clearly separated Ukrainian instrumental music into so called authentic and so called fakeloric instrumental music traditions Significant contributions to the study of Ukrainian organology and performance have been done by both Russian and Polish ethno musicologists such as Alexander Famintsyn and Stanislaw Mzrekowski Instruments Edit Idiophones percussion Edit Batih a percussive stick Briazalnytsia Bubon Buben Bubentsy Bubonchyk Buhay Bukhalo Bylo Derkach Drymba Vargan Dzvin Bell Dzvinok bells Kalatalo Klepalo Korobochka Lozhky decorated wooden spoons Torokhkatalo Tarilky cymbals Pidkova horseshoe Rapach Rubel Skrynka Trishchotky set of wooden boards on a string that are clapped together as a group Trykutnyk triangle Vertushka Zatula ZvonchalkaMembranophones Edit Lytavry Tulumbas kettle drum Baraban side drum Bubon large tambourine Buhay Berbenytsia Hrebinetz comb OcheretiankaString instruments Edit Balalaika a three stringed triangular shaped soundboard played with the fingers Bandura a multi stringed zither played with the fingers Kobza four stringed lute with a round soundboard plucked or strummed with or without a plectrum Lira a Ukrainian hurdy gurdy with an oval or cello shaped body and an attached triangular pegbox Hudok a three stringed pear shaped Ukrainian bowed instrument which is usually held vertically a relative of rebec Husli one of the oldest known Ukrainian musical instruments described by the Greeks as early as the 6th century CE Many different versions of this plucked string instrument exist Torban a relative of the theorbo with its own unique tuning Tsymbaly a relative of the cymbalom with its own unique tuning Skrypka a relative of the violin Basolia a 3 string cello with its own unique tuning Tsytra Ukrainian cittern Kozobas a Western Ukrainian bowed and percussive instrument Wind instruments Edit Dentsivka a hollow pipe with no additional air holes used for whistling sounds Dvodentsivka double fipple flute Floyara a non fipple flute Frilka a smaller version of the floyara Kosa dudka Kuvytsi variant of panpipes Okaryna Ukrainian ocarina Rebro variant of the panpipes Rih Ukrainian folk clarinet hornpipe Rizhok small horn Pivtoradentsivka Sopilka simple fipple flute in various sizes Surma a folk oboe or shawm Sviril Ukrainian panpipe Svystunetz folk whistle Telenka an overtone flute Trembita Lihava Alpine horn Truba a wooden trumpet Volynka Duda Koza traditional Slavic bagpipe Zholomiha a double fipple flute Zubivka similar to TelenkaRecent instruments Edit Bayan a chromatic button accordion Ukrainian balalaika a 6 string regional variant of the Russian balalaika 4 string domra a regional variant of the 3 string Russian domra Mandolin Seven string guitarInfluence and legacy EditRegional Edit Ukrainian folk music has made a significant influence in the music of neighbouring peoples Many Ukrainian melodies have become popular in Poland Slovakia Austria Russia Romania and Moldova Through the interaction with the Eastern European Jewish community Ukrainian folk songs such as Oi ne khody Hrytsiu composed by songstress Marusia Churai have been introduced into North American culture as Yes my darling daughter sung by Dinah Shore The traditional music of the kobzari inspired the Dumky composed by various Slavic composers such as Tchaikovsky Mussorgsky and Dvorak The use of folk melodies is especially encouraged in ballet and opera Among the Ukrainian composers who often included Ukrainian folk themes in their music were Lysenko Lev Revutsky Mykola Dremliuha Yevhen Stankovych Aleksandr Shymko Myroslav Skoryk who adapted e g the folk song Verbovaya Doschechka In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ukrainian folk songs and folk song elements began to be included in pop and rock music in the rock oriented Kobza ensemble Smerichka Opryshky Medikus and many other ensembles This was driven by the lack of Ukrainian pop songs of the time In time the genre of folk inspired pop music became significant particularly inspired by the popularity of the Belarusian group known as Piesnari Of the Ukrainian groups the longest surviving and most significant was the group known as Kobza Western music Edit Where Have All the Flowers Gone is a folk song of the 1960s written by Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson Seeger found inspiration for the song while on his way to a concert Leafing through his notebook he saw the passage Where are the flowers the girls have plucked them Where are the girls they ve all taken husbands Where are the men they re all in the army These lines were from a Ukrainian and Cossack folk song referenced in a novel by Mikhail Sholokhov And Quiet Flows the Don Seeger adapted it to a tune a lumberjack version of Drill Ye Tarriers Drill With only three verses he recorded it once in a medley on a Rainbow Quest album and forgot about it Hickerson later added verses four and five Summertime is an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based It has since become a jazz standard While it is primarily a spiritual in the style of the African American folk music of late nineteenth century 1 2 the Ukrainian Canadian composer and singer Alexis Kochan has suggested that some part of Gershwin s inspiration may have come from having heard the Ukrainian lullaby Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon A Dream Passes By The Windows at a New York City performance by Oleksander Koshetz s Ukrainian National Chorus in 1929 or 1926 3 See also EditMusic of Ukraine List of Ukrainian Koliadkas and Shchedrivkas uk References Edit Howard Pollack George Gershwin his life and work University of California Press 2006 p 589 William Hyland George Gershwin a new biography Greenwood Publishing Group 2003 p 171 Helen Smindak DATELINE NEW YORK Kochan and Kytasty delve deeply into musical past The Ukrainian Weekly 24 May 1998External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Folk music of Ukraine Polyphony Project Ukraine s largest online archive of musical folklore Samples and Pictures of Ukrainian Instruments Archived 2010 12 02 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Ukrainian folk music amp oldid 1141275200, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.