Mykola Leontovych

Mykola Leontovych was born on December 13 [O.S. 1 December] 1877 in the Monastyrok community, near the village of Selevyntsi, in the Podolia province of Ukraine (then a part of the Russian Empire).[1] His father, grandfather, and great grandfather were village priests.[2] His father, Dmytro Feofanovych Leontovych, was skilled at singing and playing cello, double bass, harmonium, violin, and guitar, in addition to directing a school choir. Leontovych received his first musical lessons from him. His mother, Mariya Yosypivna Leontovych, was also a singer.[3][4]

Other members of Leontovych's family also grew up to have careers in music. His younger brother became a professional singer, his sister Mariya studied singing in Odesa, his sister Olena studied fortepiano at the Kyiv Conservatory, and his sister Victoriya also knew how to play several musical instruments.[3]

In the summer of 1879, Mykola Leontovych was moved to a new parish located in the village of Shershni in suburbs of Bar, Ukraine in Bar's district, where he would spend his childhood.[4] Then, in 1887, Leontovych was admitted to Nemyriv gymnasium. Due to financial problems a year later, however, his father transferred him to the Sharhorod Spiritual Beginners School, whose pupils received full financial support.[5] At the school, Leontovych mastered singing, and was able to freely read difficult passages from religious choral texts.[4]

The Podolia Theological Seminary in 1865

In 1892, Leontovych began his studies at the theological seminary in Kamianets-Podilskyi, which both his father and grandfather had attended. His younger brother Oleksandr was enrolled as well, graduating two years after Mykola.[4]

During his studies there, Leontovych continued to advance his skills on the violin and learnt to play a variety of other instruments.[2] He also participated in the seminary's choir, and when an orchestra was formed during his third year of study, Leontovych joined, playing the violin until his graduation. Leontovych studied music theory and started writing choral arrangements as a student at the seminary.[4]

When the seminary's choir director died, the school administration requested that Leontovych take over this position. As the conductor of the choir, Leontovych added secular music to the repertoire of traditional church music. This included Ukrainian folk songs arranged by Mykola Lysenko, Porfyriy Demutskiy, and himself.[4] Leontovych graduated from the Kamianets-Podilskiy Theological Seminary in 1899 and broke the family tradition by becoming a music teacher instead of a priest.[3][4]

Mykola Leontovych with his wife and daughter

At the time, a career in music in Ukraine meant having an unstable income, causing Leontovych to seek employment wherever he could find it.[6] Leontovych worked in Kyiv, Yekaterinoslav, and Podolia guberniyas over the next few years in order to remain gainfully employed.[4][7] His first position after graduating was in a secondary school in the village of Chukiv (present-day Vinnytsia Oblast) as a vocal and maths teacher.[4] During this time, Leontovych continued to transcribe and arrange folk songs. He completed his First Compilation of Songs from Podolia and began working on his second compilation.[4] He also inspired the children at the school to sing in the choir and play in the orchestra. He would later write a book about this as a professor at the Kyiv Conservatory, titled Як я організував оркестр у сільській школі (How I Organised an Orchestra in a Village School).[8]

After several conflicts with the school's administration, Leontovych got a new job as a teacher of church music and calligraphy at the Theological College in Tyvriv.[4] Besides working with the college choir, Leontovych organised an amateur orchestra that often performed at college events. As he did earlier with choirs, Leontovych included arrangements of folk songs among the usual religious works sung in theological schools. These included arrangements by Mykola Lysenko, his own choral arrangements of folk songs, and entirely original works. One such work was based on a poem by Taras Shevchenko titled Зоре моя вечірняя (Oh My Evening Star).[4]

During this period, Leontovych met a Volynhian girl named Claudia Feropontivna Zhovtevych, whom he married on 22 March 1902. The young couple's first daughter, Halyna, was born in 1903.[4] They later had a second daughter named Yevheniya.[2]

The concert hall of the St. Petersburg Court Capella, which Leontovych attended in 1903 and 1904

Financial hardships prompted Leontovych to accept an offer to move to the city of Vinnytsia to instruct at the Church-Educators' College. Again, he organised a choir and, later, a concert band, with which he performed both secular and spiritual music. In 1903, he published his Second Compilation of Songs from Podolia which he dedicated to Mykola Lysenko.[4]

In 1903 and 1904, during his vacation from the Church-Educators' College, Leontovych travelled to St. Petersburg. There, he attended lectures held at the St. Petersburg Court Capella, which was associated with composers Maksym Berezovsky, Dmytro Bortniansky, and Mikhail Glinka. He studied music theory, harmony, and polyphony with Semen Barmotin, and choral performance with Puzarevskiy, both of whom were well known at the time.[4][8] On 22 April 1904, he earnt his credentials as a choirmaster of church choruses.[1][8]

Photograph of Mykola Leontovych

Again, disputes with the administration of the college resulted in Leontovych's seeking new employment.[4] In the spring of 1904, he left Podolia and moved to the Donbas province in eastern Ukraine, where he became a teacher of vocal and instrumental music in a school for railroad workers' children.[8] During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Leontovych organised a choir of workers that performed in meetings. These works included arrangements of Ukrainian, Jewish, Armenian, Russian, and Polish folk songs.[4] Leontovych's activity caught the attention of local authorities, and in the spring of 1908, he was forced to move back to his native Podolia province to the city of Tulchyn.[8]

Leontovych's move to Tulchyn marked the beginning of a period of compositional maturity and major artistic achievements in the life of the composer.[4] In Tulchyn, Leontovych taught vocal and instrumental music at the Tulchyn Eparchy Women's College to the daughters of village priests.[8] There, he met composer Kyrylo Stetsenko who was a student of Mykola Lysenko and also specialised in choral music. Stetsenko lived in a nearby village at the time where he was working as a priest, and their acquaintance developed into a lasting friendship that influenced Leontovych's music.[4] Stetsenko was the first critic of Leontovych's music, saying, "Leontovych is a famous music expert from Podolia. He recorded many folk songs... These songs are harmonised for mixed choir. These harmonisations have revealed the author to be a great expert of both choral singing and theoretical studies".[2] Leontovych also transitioned to more renowned music during his choir performances, such as Russian composers Mikhail Glinka, Alexey Verstovsky, and Peter Tchaikovsky in addition to Ukrainian composers Mykola Lysenko, Kyrylo Stetsenko, and Petro Nishchynskyi.[8]

From 1909, he studied under musical theoretic Boleslav Yavorsky,[5][8] whom he periodically visited in Moscow and Kyiv over the next twelve years. Leontovych also became involved with theatrical music in Tulchyn and its community life by taking charge of a local organisation called Prosvita, meaning "enlightenment".[4][8]

This period in his career was among the most productive, as he created numerous choral arrangements. These included his famous Shchedryk, as well as Піють півні (The Roosters are Singing), Мала мати одну дочку (A Mother had One Daughter), Дударик (Little Dudka Player), Ой зійшла зоря (Oh, the Star has Risen), amongst others. In 1914, Stetsenko convinced Leontovych to have his music performed by the student choir of the Kyiv University under the leadership of Alexander Koshetz. On 26 December 1916, the performance of his arrangement of Shchedryk brought Leontovych great success from the public in Kyiv and raised the interest of intellectuals.[8]

During the October Revolution and the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918, Leontovych relocated without his family to Ukraine's capital Kyiv, where he was active as both a conductor and composer. Several of his pieces gained popularity among professional and amateurs groups alike, who added them to their repertoire. In the beginning of 1919, the rest of his family also relocated to Kyiv. During this period, Leontovych also began teaching choir conducting alongside Hryhoriy Veryovka at the Kyiv Conservatory, and also taught at the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama.[8] Leontovych was one of the organisers of the first Ukrainian State Orchestra. He participated in the founding of the Ukrainian Republic Capella of which he was the commissioner.[4]

A memorial to Mykola Leontovych in the town of Tulchyn

During the conquest of Kyiv on 31 August 1919, the Denikin Army persecuted the Ukrainian intelligentsia.[9] Fleeing persecution, Leontovych returned to Tulchyn with his family. There, he started the city's first music school, since the college where he had worked was closed down by the Bolsheviks. He also began to work on his first major symphonic work, the opera Na Rusalchyn Velykden' (On the water nymph's Great Day).[8]

During the night of 22–23 January 1921, Mykola Leontovych was murdered by Chekist (Soviet state security) agent Afanasy Grishchenko. Leontovych was staying at the home of his parents, whom he was visiting for the Orthodox Feast of the Nativity (25 December in the Julian calendar, which, in the Gregorian calendar, adopted by the USSR only in 1918, falls in January). The undercover Chekist had also asked to stay the night at the house and shared a room with Mykola. At dawn he shot the composer (who died of blood loss a few hours later) after robbing his family.[4][8][10][11]

Several facts point to a political motive behind the assassination.[11][12] Leontovych's participation in the independence movement, such as commissioning Ukrainian Republic Capella, aimed at promoting Ukraine as an independent state, earned him many enemies. His older daughter Halyna later recalled her father saying, shortly before his death, that he had documents to leave the country for Romania, and that he had these documents with him among his sheet music during a concert. However, after returning from tea following the concert, Leontovych noticed that someone had gone through his papers.[12] His plans to leave the country, along with the fact that he was killed by a Soviet agent, also indicate political reasons for his death.[11][12]

Mykola Leontovych grew up in a highly religious environment. He was a member of the Orthodox Church, descended from a line of village priests. He was also a graduate of the Podollia Theological Seminary in Kamianets-Podilskyi, which, for the most part, trained Orthodox Christian clergy.[3]

As a person with a professional theological education, Leontovych kept up with the movement of the establishment and recognition of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which was reestablished in 1918. The composer's output during this period became rich in new sacred music, following the examples of Kyrylo Stetsenko (a close friend of Leontovych's, also an orthodox priest and composer[14]) and Alexander Koshetz. Leontovych's works form this time included На воскресіння Христа (On the Resurrection of Christ), Хваліте ім’я Господнє (Praise ye the Name of the Lord), and Світе тихий (Oh Quiet Light), among others. A milestone in the development of Ukrainian spiritual music was the composition of his liturgy, which was first performed in the Mykolaiv Cathedral at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra on 22 May 1919.[8]

The signature repeating four-note motif of the song by which listeners automatically recognize it. Play 

Mykola Leontovych's Shchedryk is his most well-known piece. In its English version as a Christmas carol, it is known as the holiday favourite Carol of the Bells.[1][2][4][16] It is famous for its four-note ostinato motif and has been arranged over 150 times since 2004.[1] The original Ukrainian text of Shchedryk used hemiola, a shifting of accents within each measure between 6/8 and 3/4, which is lost in the English versions. The most popular English adaptation was composed in 1936 by Peter J Wilhousky who was influenced by the culture of his Eastern European parents and the traditional Christian story of carols ringing out at the birth of Jesus, although other English adaptations of the song were also made in 1947 by M. L. Holman, 1957, and 1972.[20]

The song has been used many times in the soundtracks for films and television. For example, it was used in the box office hits The Santa Clause[21] and Home Alone,[22] Will Vinton's award-winning A Claymation Christmas Celebration,[23] and as a parody called Carol of the Meows in The O.C.'s episode The Chrismukkah That Almost Wasn't".[24] A modernised version of Carol of the Bells was played in The Office. It has also been arranged and performed by many groups, regardless of singing style or genre, ranging from classical (Vienna Boys Choir),[25] to traditional music groups (Celtic Woman),[26] to pop singers and groups (Jessica Simpson[27] and Destiny's Child[28]).

Leontovych had an original style. Many of his works have "deft use of imitative counterpoint" and impressionistic harmony."[16] He had a strong desire for his music to arouse the senses, especially sight, saying, "I'm interested in which colours you used for high tones, and which for the low ones. I myself often think about that, to combine sound and colour."[n 3][29]

His choral compositions feature rich harmony, vocal polyphony, and imitation. His earlier choral arrangements of folk songs were primarily strophic arrangements of the melody. As the composer gained more experience, the structure of his choral compositions and arrangements of folk songs became more frequently intertwined with text.[1]

Leontovych arranged many Ukrainian folk songs, creating artistically independent choral compositions based on their melodies and lyrics. He followed the traditions of improvisation of Ukrainian kobzars, who would interpret every new strophe differently. He also employed humming and the variability in timbre of singers' voices as techniques in reaching a desired emotional or sensual effect.[29]

A central topic of Leontovych's work is choral music about everyday life. His music frequently reflect actual actions and events. An example of this is his shchedrivka Ой там за горою (Oh there behind the Mountain) in which a tenor initially starts the song with a solo and the rest of the voices of the choir gradually come in, reflecting carolling when new groups of singers join in. Then, a switching of parts begins between different groups of the choir, recreating the clamorous atmosphere of the New Year's Eve.[29]

For most of his career, Leontovych kept his music to himself, only performing it during his own concerts. This was because of the composer's highly self-critical and shy personality.[13] Leontovych's first critic was his friend and fellow priest and composer Kyrylo Stetsenko, who described him to be "a great expert of both choral singing and theoretical studies".[2] He also convinced Leontovych to publish his music and have it performed by the Kyiv University.[4]

The successful debut of "Shchedryk" earnt Leontovych popularity among specialists and fans of choral music in Kyiv.[4] Leontovych's mentor-turned-coworker at the Kyiv Conservatory, Boleslav Yavorsky, also positively evaluated his newly written works.[4] During another concert, Leontovych's Lehenda, set to a poem by Mykola Voronyi, gained great popularity.[30]

After reviewing Leontovych's Second Compilation of Songs from Podolia, Lysenko wrote: "Leontovych has an original, illustrious gift. In his arrangements I found separate passages, movement of voices, which later developed in a geniously weaved musical network."[12][n 4]

The increase in popularity of Leontovych's music was aided by the head of the Ukrainian National Republic, Symon Petliura, who created and sponsored two choirs that would promote the awareness of and the culture of Ukraine.[31] One choir headed by Kyrylo Stetsenko toured across Ukraine, while the Ukrainian Republic Capella headed by Alexander Koshetz toured Europe and the Americas.[32] Performances by the Ukrainian Republic Capella made Leontovych known throughout the western world. In France, Leontovych earned the nickname, "Ukrainian Bach".[2][3][4][13] On 5 October 1921, the Capella performed Shchedryk in the Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 1936, ethnically Ukrainian Peter J. Wilhousky, who worked for Radio NBC, wrote his own lyrics for the song, which became known as the Carol of the Bells.[13]

Apart from Shchedryk, or the Carol of the Bells, Leontovych's music is currently performed mostly in Ukraine and few recordings are dedicated exclusively to him.[16] The Ukrainian diaspora remember him and perform his works. For example, the Olexander Koshetz Choir based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, performs music of Ukrainian composers including Leontovych and have made a recording of his music.[33]