Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912) composer, pianist, teacher, choral conductor, founder of Ukrainian classical music. Lysenko Nikolay Vitalievich

The village of Grinki, Kremenchug district, Poltava province (now Globinsky district, Poltava region) - October 24 (November 6), Kyiv) - Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, collector of folklore songs and public figure.

Biography

Nikolai Lysenko was from the old Cossack elder family of Lysenko. Nicholas's father, Vitaly Romanovich, was a colonel of the Order Cuirassier Regiment. Mother, Olga Eremeevna, came from the Poltava landowner family of Lutsenko. Nikolai's mother and the famous poet A. A. Fet were homeschoolers. The mother taught her son French, refined manners and dancing, Afanasy Fet - Russian. At the age of five, noticing the boy’s musical talent, they invited a music teacher for him. From early childhood, Nikolai was fond of the poetry of Taras Shevchenko and Ukrainian folk songs, a love for which was instilled in him by his great-uncle and grandmother, Nikolai and Maria Bulubashi. After completing his home education, in preparation for the gymnasium, Nikolai moved to Kyiv, where he studied first at the Weil boarding school, then at the Geduin boarding school. In 1855, Nikolai was sent to the second Kharkov gymnasium, from which he graduated with a silver medal in the spring of 1859. While studying at the gymnasium, Lysenko studied music privately (teacher N.D. Dmitriev), gradually becoming a famous pianist in Kharkov. He was invited to evenings and balls, where Nikolai performed plays by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, played dances and improvised on themes of Little Russian folk melodies. After graduating from high school, Nikolai Vitalievich entered the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Kharkov University. However, a year later his parents moved to Kyiv, and Nikolai Vitalievich transferred to the Department of Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University. Having graduated from the university on June 1, 1864, Nikolai Vitalievich received a candidate of natural sciences degree in May 1865.

After graduating from Kyiv University and a short service, N.V. Lysenko decides to receive a higher musical education. In September 1867, he entered the Leipzig Conservatory, considered one of the best in Europe. His piano teachers were K. Reinecke, I. Moscheles and E. Wenzel, in composition - E. F. Richter, in theory - Paperitz. It was there that Nikolai Vitalievich realized that it was more important to collect, develop and create Russian music than to copy Western classics.

N.V. Lysenko was buried in Kyiv at the Baikovo cemetery.

Kyiv addresses

• st. Reitarskaya, No. 19 (lived during 1888-1894).
• st. Saksagansky, No. 95 (lived during 1898-1912), now here is the House-Museum of Nikolai Lysenko.

Memory

Already on September 14, a celebration of the memory of N.V. Lysenko took place in Poltava on the occasion of the first anniversary of his death. By this date, the Poltava community published a biography of the composer (V. Budynets “The Glorious Music of Nikolai Vitalievich Lysenko” (published by the Poltava Ukrainian Bookstore,).

• Streets in Kyiv and Lviv, the Lviv National Academy of Music, the Kharkov State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater (since 1944) and the Kiev Secondary Specialized Boarding School are named after N.V. Lysenko.

• In 1962, the string quartet of the Kyiv State Philharmonic was named after N.V. Lysenko. In the same year, a music competition named after Nikolai Lysenko was organized, which had national status until 1992, and since 1992 it has become international.
• On December 29, 1965, a monument to N.V. Lysenko was unveiled next to the National Opera of Ukraine on Theater Square. Sculptor A. A. Kovalev, architect V. G. Gnezdilov.
• The monument was erected in the composer’s homeland, in the village of Grinki.
• In 1968, a television film-play was released "Introduction" , dedicated to the life and work of N.V. Lysenko. The role of Lysenko was performed by the artist P. S. Morozenko.
• In 1983, the Znamenskaya Music School was named after Nikolai Lysenko.
• In 1986, at the film studio named after A. Dovzhenko, director T. Levchuk shot a historical and biographical film “And the memory will respond in sounds...” , showing pages from the life of Nikolai Vitalievich Lysenko. The role of the composer in the film was played by the artist F. N. Strigun.
• A memorial museum has been opened in the Kyiv apartment of N.V. Lysenko at 95 Saksaganskogo Street.
• In 1992, the Ukrainian Post issued a postage stamp and an artistic marked envelope with an original stamp, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of N.V. Lysenko.
• In 2002, on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the composer's birth, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin with a face value of 2 hryvnia. The obverse of the coin depicts a musical excerpt from the composition “Prayer for Ukraine” (1885), and the reverse shows a portrait of N. Lysenko.
• Ukrainian musicians are annually awarded the Nikolai Lysenko Prize.

Creation

While studying at Kiev University, trying to acquire as much musical knowledge as possible, Nikolai Lysenko studied the operas of A. Dargomyzhsky, M. Glinka, A. Serov, and became acquainted with the music of Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann. It was from this time that he began collecting and processing Little Russian folk songs, for example, he recorded a wedding ceremony (with text and music) in Pereyaslavsky district. In addition, he was the organizer and leader of student choirs, with which he performed publicly.

While studying at the Leipzig Conservatory in October 1868, Lysenko published “A Collection of Ukrainian Songs for Voice and Piano” - the first release of his arrangements of forty Ukrainian folk songs, which, in addition to their practical purpose, have great scientific and ethnographic value. In the same 1868, he wrote his first significant work - “Testament” to the words of a poem by T. G. Shevchenko, on the anniversary of the poet’s death. This work opened the “Music for the Kobzar” cycle, which included more than 80 vocal and instrumental works of various genres, published in seven series, the last of which was published in 1901.

N.V. Lysenko was at the center of the musical and national-cultural life of Kyiv. Being a member of the directorate of the Russian Musical Society in 1872-1873, he took part in its concerts held throughout Little Russia; led a choir of 50 singers, organized in 1872 at the Philharmonic Society of Lovers of Music and Singing; worked in the “Circle of Music and Singing Lovers”, “Circle of Music Lovers” of Y. Spiglazov. In 1872, a circle led by N. Lysenko and M. Staritsky obtained permission to publicly stage plays in the Little Russian dialect. In the same year, Lysenko wrote the operettas “Chernomortsy” and “Christmas Night” (later transformed into an opera), which were included in the theatrical repertoire, becoming the basis of the Ukrainian national opera art. In 1873, his first musicological work on Ukrainian musical folklore was published - “Characteristics of the musical features of Little Russian thoughts and songs performed by kobzar Ostap Veresay.” During the same period, Nikolai Vitalievich wrote many piano works, as well as a symphonic fantasy on Ukrainian folk themes “Cossack-Shumka”.

During the St. Petersburg period, Lysenko took part in concerts of the Russian Geographical Society and led choral courses. Together with V. N. Paskhalov, he organized concerts of choral music in the “Salt Town”, the program of which included Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Serbian songs and works by Lysenko himself. He develops friendly relations with the composers of the “Mighty Handful”. In St. Petersburg he wrote the first rhapsody on Ukrainian themes, the first and second concert polonaises, and a piano sonata. There, Lysenko began work on the opera “Marusya Boguslavka” (unfinished) and made the second edition of the opera “Christmas Night”. His collection of girls’ and children’s songs and dances “Molodoshi” (“Young Years”) was published in St. Petersburg.

In 1880, he began work on his most significant work - the opera “Taras Bulba” based on the story of the same name by N. V. Gogol with a libretto by M. Staritsky, which he completed only ten years later. In the 1880s, Lysenko wrote such works as “The Drowned Woman” - a lyric-fantastic opera based on N. Gogol’s “May Night” with a libretto by M. Staritsky; “Rejoice, unwatered field” - cantata to poems by T. Shevchenko; third edition of “Christmas Night” (1883). In 1889, Nikolai Vitalievich improved and orchestrated the music for the operetta “Natalka Poltavka” based on the work of I. Kotlyarevsky, in 1894 he wrote the music for the extravaganza “The Magic Dream” based on the text by M. Staritsky, and in 1896 - the opera “Sappho”.

Among N. Lysenko's authorial achievements, it is also necessary to note the creation of a new genre - national children's opera. From 1888 to 1893, he wrote three children's operas based on folk tales with a libretto by the Dnieper-Chaika: “Goat-Dereza”, “Pan Kotsky (Kotsky)”, “Winter and Spring, or the Snow Queen”. “Koza-Dereza” became a kind of gift from Nikolai Lysenko to his children.

From 1892 to 1902, Nikolai Lysenko organized tours around Ukraine four times, the so-called “choral travels,” in which mainly his own choral works based on Shevchenko’s texts and arrangements of Ukrainian songs were performed. In 1892, Lysenko’s art historical research “On the torban and the music of Vidort’s songs” was published, and in 1894, “Folk musical instruments in Ukraine.”

In 1905, N. Lysenko, together with A. Koshits, organized the Boyan choral society, with which he organized choral concerts of Ukrainian, Slavic and Western European music. The conductors of the concerts were himself and A. Koshits. However, due to unfavorable political conditions and lack of material resources, the society disintegrated, having existed for little more than a year. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lysenko wrote music for the dramatic performances “The Last Night” (1903) and “Hetman Doroshenko”; in 1905 he wrote the work “Hey, for our native land.” In 1908, he wrote the chorus “The Silent Evening” to the words of V. Samoilenko, in 1912 - the opera “Nocturne”, and created lyrical romances based on texts by Lesya Ukrainka, Dniprova-Chaika, and A. Oles. In the last years of his life, Nikolai Vitalievich wrote a number of works of sacred music, which continued the “Cherubic” cycle he founded at the end of the 19th century: “The Most Pure Virgin, Mother of the Russian Land” (1909), “I will go from Thy presence, Lord” (1909), “The Virgin is giving birth today to the Most Essential”, “By the Tree of the Cross”; in 1910, “David’s Psalm” was written based on the text by T. Shevchenko.

In 1880, already a mature composer, Nikolai Lysenko performed in Elisavetgrad (now Kropyvnytskyi) with a large concert, which was a stunning success, as reported by the press of that time. During the concert, the overture to “Christmas Night”, the Ukrainian rhapsody “Dumka-Shumka”, and romances were played.

Major works

Operas

• "Christmas Night" (1872, 2nd edition 1874, 3rd edition 1883)
• "Sappho" (1896)
• "Nocturne" (1912)

Children's operas

• "Goat-Dereza" (1888)
• "Pan Kotsky" (1891)
• "Winter and Spring, or the Snow Queen" (1892)

Operettas

• "Chernomortsy" (1872)

Works based on words by T. Shevchenko

• cycle “Music for the Kobzar” (1868-1901), including more than 80 different vocal genres from songs to detailed musical and dramatic scenes.

Musicological works

• “Characteristics of the musical features of Little Russian dumas and songs performed by kobzar Ostap Veresay” (1873)
• "On the torban and the music of Vidort's songs" (1892)
• "Folk musical instruments in Ukraine" (1894)

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An excerpt characterizing Lysenko, Nikolai Vitalievich

Pierre woke up late on September 3rd. His head ached, the dress in which he slept without undressing weighed down his body, and in his soul there was a vague consciousness of something shameful that had been committed the day before; This was a shameful conversation yesterday with Captain Rambal.
The clock showed eleven, but it seemed especially cloudy outside. Pierre stood up, rubbed his eyes and, seeing the pistol with a cut-out stock, which Gerasim had put back on the desk, Pierre remembered where he was and what lay ahead of him that very day.
“Am I too late? - thought Pierre. “No, he will probably make his entry into Moscow no earlier than twelve.” Pierre did not allow himself to think about what lay ahead of him, but was in a hurry to act as quickly as possible.
Having straightened his dress, Pierre took the pistol in his hands and was about to leave. But then for the first time the thought came to him about how, not in his hand, he could carry this weapon down the street. Even under a wide caftan it was difficult to hide a large pistol. It could not be placed inconspicuously either behind a belt or under an armpit. In addition, the pistol was unloaded, and Pierre did not have time to load it. “It’s all the same, it’s a dagger,” Pierre said to himself, although more than once, while discussing the fulfillment of his intention, he decided with himself that the student’s main mistake in 1809 was that he wanted to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But, as if Pierre’s main goal was not to carry out his intended task, but to show himself that he was not renouncing his intention and was doing everything to fulfill it, Pierre hastily took the one he had bought from the Sukharev Tower along with the pistol a blunt, jagged dagger in a green sheath and hid it under his vest.
Having belted his caftan and pulled down his hat, Pierre, trying not to make noise and not meet the captain, walked along the corridor and went out into the street.
The fire that he had looked at so indifferently the night before had grown significantly overnight. Moscow was already burning from different sides. Karetny Ryad, Zamoskvorechye, Gostiny Dvor, Povarskaya, barges on the Moscow River and the wood market near the Dorogomilovsky Bridge were burning at the same time.
Pierre's path lay through the alleys to Povarskaya and from there to the Arbat, to St. Nicholas the Apparition, with whom he had long ago determined in his imagination the place where his deed should be carried out. Most of the houses had locked gates and shutters. The streets and alleys were deserted. The air smelled of burning and smoke. Occasionally we encountered Russians with anxiously timid faces and Frenchmen with a non-urban, camp look, walking along the middle of the streets. Both of them looked at Pierre in surprise. In addition to his great height and thickness, in addition to the strange, gloomily concentrated and suffering expression on his face and entire figure, the Russians looked closely at Pierre because they did not understand what class this man could belong to. The French followed him with their eyes in surprise, especially because Pierre, disgusted by all the other Russians who looked at the French in fear or curiosity, did not pay any attention to them. At the gate of one house, three Frenchmen, who were explaining something to Russian people who did not understand them, stopped Pierre, asking if he knew French?
Pierre shook his head negatively and moved on. In another alley, a sentry standing by a green box shouted at him, and only at the repeated menacing scream and the sound of a gun taken by the sentry on his hand did Pierre realize that he had to go around to the other side of the street. He heard and saw nothing around him. He, like something terrible and alien to him, carried his intention with haste and horror, afraid - taught by the experience of the previous night - to somehow lose it. But Pierre was not destined to convey his mood intact to the place where he was heading. In addition, even if he had not been delayed by anything on the way, his intention could not have been fulfilled simply because Napoleon had traveled more than four hours earlier from the Dorogomilovsky suburb through the Arbat to the Kremlin and was now sitting in the most gloomy mood in the Tsar’s office the Kremlin Palace and gave detailed, detailed orders about the measures that immediately had to be taken to extinguish the fire, prevent looting and calm the residents. But Pierre did not know this; He, completely absorbed in what was to come, suffered, as people suffer who stubbornly undertake an impossible task - not because of the difficulties, but because the task is unusual for their nature; he was tormented by the fear that he would weaken at the decisive moment and, as a result, lose self-respect.
Although he did not see or hear anything around him, he instinctively knew the way and did not make the mistake of taking the side streets that led him to Povarskaya.
As Pierre approached Povarskaya, the smoke became stronger and stronger, and there was even heat from the fire. Occasionally tongues of fire rose from behind the roofs of houses. There were more people on the streets, and these people were more anxious. But Pierre, although he felt that something extraordinary was happening around him, was not aware that he was approaching a fire. Walking along a path that ran through a large undeveloped place, adjacent on one side to Povarskaya, on the other to the gardens of Prince Gruzinsky’s house, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate cry of a woman next to him. He stopped, as if awakening from sleep, and raised his head.
To the side of the path, on the dry, dusty grass, household belongings were piled up: feather beds, a samovar, icons and chests. On the ground next to the chests sat an elderly, thin woman, with long protruding upper teeth, dressed in a black cloak and cap. This woman, rocking and saying something, cried sorely. Two girls, from ten to twelve years old, dressed in dirty short dresses and cloaks, looked at their mother with an expression of bewilderment on their pale, frightened faces. A smaller boy, about seven years old, wearing a suit and someone else’s huge cap, was crying in the arms of an old woman nanny. A barefoot, dirty girl sat on a chest and, having loosened her whitish braid, pulled back her singed hair, sniffing it. The husband, a short, stooped man in a uniform, with wheel-shaped sideburns and smooth temples visible from under a straight-on cap, with a motionless face, pushed apart the chests, placed one on top of the other, and pulled out some clothes from under them.
The woman almost threw herself at Pierre's feet when she saw him.
“Dear fathers, Orthodox Christians, save, help, my dear!.. someone help,” she said through sobs. - A girl!.. A daughter!.. They left my youngest daughter!.. She burned down! Oh oh oh! That's why I cherish you... Oh oh oh!
“That’s enough, Marya Nikolaevna,” the husband addressed his wife in a quiet voice, obviously only to justify himself to a stranger. - My sister must have taken it away, otherwise where else would I be? - he added.
- Idol! The villain! – the woman screamed angrily, suddenly stopping crying. “You have no heart, you don’t feel sorry for your brainchild.” Someone else would have pulled it out of the fire. And this is an idol, not a man, not a father. “You are a noble man,” the woman quickly turned to Pierre, sobbing. “It caught fire nearby,” he said to us. The girl screamed: it’s burning! They rushed to collect. They jumped out in what they were wearing... That's what they captured... God's blessing and a dowry bed, otherwise everything was lost. Grab the children, Katechka is gone. Oh my God! Ooo! – and again she began to sob. - My dear child, it burned! burned!
- Where, where did she stay? - said Pierre. From the expression on his animated face, his woman realized that this man could help her.
- Father! Father! – she screamed, grabbing his legs. “Benefactor, at least calm my heart... Aniska, go, you vile one, see her off,” she shouted at the girl, angrily opening her mouth and with this movement showing off her long teeth even more.
“Show me off, show me off, I’ll... I’ll... I’ll do it,” Pierre said hastily in a breathless voice.
The dirty girl came out from behind the chest, tidied up her braid and, sighing, walked forward along the path with her blunt bare feet. Pierre seemed to suddenly come to life after a severe faint. He raised his head higher, his eyes lit up with the sparkle of life, and he quickly followed the girl, overtook her and went out onto Povarskaya. The entire street was covered in a cloud of black smoke. Tongues of flame burst out here and there from this cloud. A large crowd of people crowded in front of the fire. A French general stood in the middle of the street and said something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the girl, approached the place where the general stood; but French soldiers stopped him.
“On ne passe pas, [They don’t pass here,”] a voice shouted to him.
- Here, uncle! - said the girl. - We'll go through the Nikulins along the alley.
Pierre turned back and walked, occasionally jumping up to keep up with her. The girl ran across the street, turned left into an alley and, after passing three houses, turned right into the gate.
“Right here now,” said the girl, and, running through the yard, she opened the gate in the plank fence and, stopping, pointed to Pierre a small wooden outbuilding that burned brightly and hotly. One side of it collapsed, the other was burning, and the flames were shining brightly from under the window openings and from under the roof.
When Pierre entered the gate, he was overcome with heat, and he involuntarily stopped.
– Which, which is your house? - he asked.
- Oh oh oh! - the girl howled, pointing to the outbuilding. “He’s the one, she’s the one who was our Vatera.” You burned, my treasure, Katechka, my beloved young lady, oh, oh! - Aniska howled at the sight of the fire, feeling the need to express her feelings.
Pierre leaned towards the outbuilding, but the heat was so strong that he involuntarily described an arc around the outbuilding and found himself next to a large house, which was still burning only on one side of the roof and around which a crowd of French were swarming. Pierre at first did not understand what these French were doing, carrying something; but, seeing in front of him a Frenchman who was beating a peasant with a blunt cleaver, taking away his fox fur coat, Pierre vaguely understood that they were robbing here, but he had no time to dwell on this thought.
The sound of the crackling and roar of collapsing walls and ceilings, the whistle and hiss of flames and the animated cries of the people, the sight of wavering, now scowling thick black, now soaring lightening clouds of smoke with sparkles and sometimes solid, sheaf-shaped, red, sometimes scaly golden flame moving along the walls , the sensation of heat and smoke and the speed of movement produced on Pierre their usual stimulating effect of fires. This effect was especially strong on Pierre, because Pierre suddenly, at the sight of this fire, felt freed from the thoughts that were weighing him down. He felt young, cheerful, agile and determined. He ran around the outbuilding from the side of the house and was about to run to the part of it that was still standing, when a cry of several voices was heard above his head, followed by the cracking and ringing of something heavy that fell next to him.
Pierre looked around and saw the French in the windows of the house, who had thrown out a chest of drawers filled with some kind of metal things. Other French soldiers below approached the box.
“Eh bien, qu"est ce qu"il veut celui la, [This one still needs something," one of the French shouted at Pierre.
- Un enfant dans cette maison. N"avez vous pas vu un enfant? [A child in this house. Have you seen the child?] - said Pierre.
– Tiens, qu"est ce qu"il chante celui la? Va te promener, [What else is this interpreting? “Get to hell,” voices were heard, and one of the soldiers, apparently afraid that Pierre would take it into his head to take away the silver and bronze that were in the box, advanced threateningly towards him.
- Un enfant? - the Frenchman shouted from above. - J"ai entendu piailler quelque chose au jardin. Peut etre c"est sou moutard au bonhomme. Faut etre humain, voyez vous... [Child? I heard something squeaking in the garden. Maybe it's his child. Well, it is necessary according to humanity. We all people…]
– Ou est il? Ou est il? [Where is he? Where is he?] asked Pierre.
- Par ici! Par ici! [Here, here!] - the Frenchman shouted to him from the window, pointing to the garden that was behind the house. – Attendez, je vais descendre. [Wait, I'll get off now.]
And indeed, a minute later a Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with some kind of spot on his cheek, in only his shirt, jumped out of the window of the lower floor and, slapping Pierre on the shoulder, ran with him into the garden.
“Depechez vous, vous autres,” he shouted to his comrades, “commence a faire chaud.” [Hey, you're more lively, it's starting to get hot.]
Running out behind the house onto a sand-strewn path, the Frenchman pulled Pierre's hand and pointed him towards the circle. Under the bench lay a three-year-old girl in a pink dress.
– Voila votre moutard. “Ah, une petite, tant mieux,” said the Frenchman. - Au revoir, mon gros. Faut être humaine. Nous sommes tous mortels, voyez vous, [Here is your child. Ah, girl, so much the better. Goodbye, fat man. Well, it is necessary according to humanity. All people,] - and the Frenchman with a spot on his cheek ran back to his comrades.
Pierre, gasping for joy, ran up to the girl and wanted to take her in his arms. But, seeing a stranger, the scrofulous, unpleasant-looking, scrofulous, mother-like girl screamed and ran away. Pierre, however, grabbed her and lifted her into his arms; she screamed in a desperately angry voice and with her small hands began to tear Pierre’s hands away from her and bite them with her snotty mouth. Pierre was overcome by a feeling of horror and disgust, similar to the one he experienced when touching some small animal. But he made an effort over himself so as not to abandon the child, and ran with him back to the big house. But it was no longer possible to go back the same way; the girl Aniska was no longer there, and Pierre, with a feeling of pity and disgust, hugging the painfully sobbing and wet girl as tenderly as possible, ran through the garden to look for another way out.

When Pierre, having run around courtyards and alleys, came back with his burden to Gruzinsky’s garden, on the corner of Povarskaya, at first he did not recognize the place from which he had gone to fetch the child: it was so cluttered with people and belongings pulled out of houses. In addition to Russian families with their goods, fleeing here from the fire, there were also several French soldiers in various attire. Pierre did not pay attention to them. He was in a hurry to find the official’s family in order to give his daughter to his mother and go again to save someone else. It seemed to Pierre that he had a lot more to do and quickly. Inflamed from the heat and running around, Pierre at that moment felt even more strongly than before that feeling of youth, revival and determination that overwhelmed him as he ran to save the child. The girl now became quiet and, holding Pierre’s caftan with her hands, sat on his hand and, like a wild animal, looked around her. Pierre occasionally glanced at her and smiled slightly. It seemed to him that he saw something touchingly innocent and angelic in this frightened and painful face.
Neither the official nor his wife were in their former place. Pierre walked quickly among the people, looking at the different faces that came his way. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family, consisting of a handsome, very old man with an oriental face, dressed in a new covered sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of the same type and a young woman. This very young woman seemed to Pierre the perfection of oriental beauty, with her sharp, arched black eyebrows and a long, unusually tenderly ruddy and beautiful face without any expression. Among the scattered belongings, in the crowd in the square, she, in her rich satin cloak and a bright purple scarf covering her head, resembled a delicate greenhouse plant thrown out into the snow. She sat on a bundle somewhat behind the old woman and motionlessly looked at the ground with her large black elongated eyes with long eyelashes. Apparently, she knew her beauty and was afraid for it. This face struck Pierre, and in his haste, walking along the fence, he looked back at her several times. Having reached the fence and still not finding those he needed, Pierre stopped, looking around.
The figure of Pierre with a child in his arms was now even more remarkable than before, and several Russian men and women gathered around him.
– Or lost someone, dear man? Are you one of the nobles yourself, or what? Whose child is it? - they asked him.
Pierre answered that the child belonged to a woman in a black cloak, who was sitting with the children in this place, and asked if anyone knew her and where she had gone.
“It must be the Anferovs,” said the old deacon, turning to the pockmarked woman. “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy,” he added in his usual bass voice.
- Where are the Anferovs! - said the woman. - The Anferovs left in the morning. And these are either the Marya Nikolaevnas or the Ivanovs.
“He says she’s a woman, but Marya Nikolaevna is a lady,” said the yard man.
“Yes, you know her, long teeth, thin,” said Pierre.
- And there is Marya Nikolaevna. “They went into the garden, when these wolves swooped in,” the woman said, pointing at the French soldiers.

Nikolai Vitalievich Lysenko was born in 1842 in the village of Grinki in the territory of modern Poltava region, died of a heart attack on November 6, 1912 in Kyiv. A great Ukrainian composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, active public figure and collector of folklore songs.

8 services of Nikolai Lysenko to the Ukrainian people.

1. - founder and at the same time legend and pinnacle of Ukrainian classical music, the same as for Ukrainian literature,

The name of Mykola Lysenko in the history of Ukrainian culture is closely connected with the era during which the formation of Ukrainian music took place as a professional activity of creative people. In most cases, Lysenko is perceived as a composer, but his contribution to the development of Ukrainian theater and cultural education is truly enormous. Among the main merits of this iconic creative person are the following:

As a composer, Lysenko is the founder of the national school of composition in, he is called the author of the national musical language;

At a time when the Ukrainian language was not even studied in schools, and patriotic movements were strictly prohibited by the imperial government, Lysenko devoted his life to the development of Ukrainian culture;

Lysenko used art as a weapon to fight for the awakening of the national consciousness of his native people. He devoted his entire life to achieving this goal, his talent as a brilliant virtuoso pianist and choral conductor, an outstanding teacher and an uncompromising public figure.

2. The most virtuoso pianist in Ukraine of his time. The skill that Lysenko possessed amazed his contemporaries not only among his compatriots. Foreign critics gave the maestro's performance the highest rating. A clear proof of his high mastery of the keys is the complexity of the piano works written by the composer. Amazingly melodic, meticulously thought out works enjoy consistently high popularity not only on Ukrainian territory;

3. Nikolai Lysenko is the greatest teacher of Ukrainian classical music. In 1904, he opened the doors of his Music and Drama School in Kyiv. In addition to music education itself, this educational institution had departments of Ukrainian and Russian drama. Also in this school there was the first class of playing a folk instrument throughout the entire territory of the Russian Empire. At Lysenko's educational institution, teachers taught the basics of playing the bandura (the first graduation of students, despite difficulties in organization, took place in 1911).

The school opened by the composer then grew into the Music and Drama Institute, which was named after Lysenko. During the period from 1918 to 1934, this educational institution was the leading one among others, where the basic principles of creativity were taught. Graduates of the Music and Drama Institute became the founders of Ukrainian art and the authors of the main cultural achievements of the 20th century.

4. A "musical revolutionary" ahead of his time. Other luminaries of European music began to use it only 10-20 years after their appearance in Lysenko’s works.

Art critics argue that Nikolai Lysenko, as a virtuoso pianist, not only formed the foundations of professional musical performance with his creativity, but tried in every possible way to bring his own listeners “from the farm environment into the widest European world.” The “Ukrainian Suite” written by the master created a real sensation. Until this time, no composer had combined folk art and canonical dance forms.

The basis for this work is elements of folk art, Ukrainian folk songs. But after cutting by the jeweler-composer, every facet, every single musical intonation shone with a unique light. Then the musicians, evaluating the work, argued that the suite could not be called an adaptation of folk art, since it was a full-fledged original musical creation.

5. Lysenko glorified Ukrainian national music throughout the world. His works are still performed on opera and theater stages all over the world. Operas, symphonies, rhapsodies and other works of his remain relevant many years after the composer's life.

6. Lysenko - one of the first leaders of the “Ukrainian Club”, who defended Ukrainian independence (of course, within the framework of Tsarist Russia, the club’s program requirement was the autonomy of Ukraine) and the democratization of political life. He laid down his own life on the altar of the struggle for the revival of the Ukrainian national spirit and consciousness. One of his strongest desires was the unification of the nation with its subsequent struggle for the right to be oneself, speak freely in one’s native language and cherish one’s own traditions.

7. Lysenko made a huge contribution to the ethnographic heritage of Ukraine, having collected hundreds of samples of folk art (folk songs, rituals), which he actively used in his musical works. Working with choirs made it possible to collect data on folk art in different Ukrainian regions. In 1874, he published a book with an analysis of Cossack dumas from the repertoire of the famous bandura player Ostap Veresai.

8. Lysenko - one of the founders of the Ukrainian National Opera Theater in Kyiv. A significant event in the life of not only the composer, but also the entire Ukrainian art world was the joint work of Lysenko and his second cousin, playwright Mikhail Staritsky, on the operetta “The Night Before Christmas” based on Gogol’s work. This work was first performed on the stage of the Kyiv City Theater by an amateur theater group in 1874. This day is inscribed in the history of Ukrainian art as the date of birth of the opera theater in Ukraine.

The organizing committee that staged the operetta includes significant personalities for Ukraine - Mikhail Drahomanov, Pavel Chubinsky, Fyodor Vovk, Lindforsov and other persons. In Kyiv, which was under imperial rule, they openly declared their own clear pro-Ukrainian position.

The scenery created for the production replicated the interior of a Ukrainian rural hut. Before the eyes of the spectators, on one of the beams supporting the roof, the date of the destruction of the Zaporozhye Sich by the tsarist troops was carved. It is equally important that the premiere itself took place exactly 200 years after the tragic event for Ukraine. After this production and until the end of his days, Nikolai Vitalievich was closely watched by the watchful eye of the Tsar’s policemen.

It is safe to say that one of the most convincing evidence of the recognition of Nikolai Vitalievich as a genius and hero is not only the memory of him in the hearts of grateful descendants, but also the performance of his works as national anthems.

Lysenko is the author of the music of 2 works, without which it is impossible to imagine the Ukrainian nation; these songs affirm the spiritual greatness of the individual and the entire people. The composer created music on which the words of his most famous work, “The Eternal Revolutionary,” are based. For quite a long time after it was written, this creation was absolutely groundlessly used for propaganda purposes by the Soviet government, although it actually glorifies the spiritual revolution and has nothing to do with the communist takeover.

Another famous creation of the composer is the music for the poem by Alexander Konisky “For Ukraine,” better known as the spiritual anthem of Ukraine “God, Great, One.” In 1992, this work officially received the status of the anthem of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. At the end of the 20th century, the song was perceived as the second national anthem of independent Ukraine.

Lysenko’s life path is not limited to just writing musical works. He paid great attention to the development of vocal art. It is Nikolai Vitalievich who is the founder of professional creative education in Ukraine.

Lysenko’s creative path is often called a continuation of the feat of Taras Shevchenko. Starting from his student years, one of the main directions of his activity was preserving Shevchenko’s cultural heritage for descendants. Lysenko dedicated a number of his works to the unforgettable Kobzar; some of the poet’s work, set to music by the composer, then took its rightful place in the cultural heritage of the Ukrainian nation.

It is known that he was directly involved in organizing the reburial of Taras Shevchenko; this fact received documentary confirmation only in the 21st century. But this is not the only trace of Lysenko’s participation in the fate of the most famous Ukrainian poet; Lysenko continued and developed the cultural and educational work that Shevchenko was engaged in during his lifetime.

Paying tribute to the memory of Taras Shevchenko, Lysenko became the founder of a new concert form - a mixed concert. As part of these events, which were organized annually since 1862, the composer performed as a pianist and choral conductor. The concert program included not only his adaptations of folklore and his own works, but also the work of other authors dedicated to Shevchenko, poems by the great poet and fragments of theatrical productions based on his works. After many years, such concerts can no longer surprise the viewer, but this form originates from the Shevchenkiade, which was organized by Lysenko.

The work of Nikolai Lysenko as an integral part of Ukrainian culture.

Researchers of the composer’s work state that he turned to Shevchenko’s works about 100 times. In Lysenko's works there is an interpretation of them both in the form of solo performance and in more monumental forms - vocal scenes or even cantatas, choirs with musical accompaniment or a cappella vocal ensembles. It is noteworthy that some works from Lysenko’s “Music for the Kobzar” received eternal life and became folk songs a short time after their creation.

Shevchenko's work became Alpha and Omega for the composer. Lysenko called the music for “Zapovit” written at the request of the Lvov association “Prosvita” his first work. Literally on the eve of the day of his death, the composer wrote the choir “God, with our ears we hear your glory” to the text of Shevchenko’s 43 “Psalm of David”.

In addition to 3 cantatas and 18 choirs based on poems by Shevchenko, the vocal and choral part of Lysenko’s creative heritage also includes 12 original choral works based on texts by Ukrainian poets. It should be noted that among the 12 choirs there are 2 works also dedicated to Shevchenko - “March of Pity” to the words of Lesya Ukrainka and the cantata “Until the 50s of the death of T. Shevchenko”, dedicated to the anniversary of the death of the brilliant poet.

Over the 70 years of his life, Lysenko wrote 11 operas; in addition, in collaboration with theater groups, the pioneers of Ukrainian theatrical art, he created musical scores for another 10 productions. The stories of the creation of the composer’s operas are very different, some of them, according to music critics, cannot be considered elements of Lysenko’s work. For example, “Andrisciada” is a combination of popular melodies from other classical operas, a kind of “cabbage”. Critics doubt that the composer created “Natalka-Poltavka”, since the handwritten score with Lysenko’s autograph has not been found.

Lysenko did not like to write works on spiritual themes. Music critics argue that the reason for the composer’s reluctance to create in this genre is explained by the desire to avoid the need to write music for words in Russian, which the composer did not do on principle. Despite the small number of works created by Lysenko in the spiritual genre, the works on the list are truly masterpieces. For example, a popular religious song is his choral concert “Where will I go before your face, Lord?”, which is performed not only in Ukraine, but also by members of the diaspora abroad.

In choral works and the work of a conductor, according to experts, Lysenko reached heights of mastery unprecedented for his time. Even after many decades of writing, his work “The Fog Lies with Hwils” (a fragment of the opera “Drowned”) is considered a pearl of choral creativity. The composer's students, Alexander Koshits, Kirill Stetsenko and Yakov Yatsinevich, also became famous choral conductors.

Lysenko never saw the opera Taras Bulba, which he created over the course of 35 years, staged, although Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky offered to use his connections and get the work staged on the Moscow stage. Mikhail Staritsky then assumed that the reason for the refusal was that the composer did not want to present his brainchild to the public in a non-native language.

It should be noted that Lysenko moved away from the classic Gogol plot in his opera. He presented the person of Taras primarily as a patriotic Cossack, strong and persistent. One of the main plot lines of the work is tied around the conflict between the sons of the Cossack Ostap and Andrey, the problem of their national self-identification.

The composer’s son recalled that Nikolai Vitalievich considered himself an impractical person, with a complete lack of administrative spirit. But this did not stop Lysenko from gathering around him the best teachers of his time in a school where mainly children of poor and middle-income people studied. There were no subsidies for training; sometimes the composer was forced to go into debt to pay teachers' salaries. After a fairly short time, the school brought together talented students from all over Ukraine who continued the maestro’s life’s work.

In the last years of his life, the composer headed the first legal Ukrainian socio-political organization, the Kiev Ukrainian Club. In 1906, he created the “Joint Committee for the Construction of the Monument to Taras Shevchenko,” which received charitable donations from Canada and European countries. The last public event in Lysenko’s activities was the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Shevchenko’s death.

Due to oppression by the tsarist regime, the events were forced to move from Kyiv to Moscow. As a result, the police filed a case regarding the closure of the Kyiv Ukrainian club and “bringing the council of elders, headed by music teacher Nikolai Lysenko, to responsibility for anti-government activities.” 4 days after the initiation of a criminal case, the composer dies of a heart attack.

The main point of Lysenko’s musical and educational activities was that working with choirs made it possible to travel all over the country and gather people who were special in many respects into the choir. Beginning with the choir of Kyiv University students created by the composer in 1862, all his life he collected in choirs “not just basses or tenors, but primarily conscientious ones.”

In police reports, spies reported that Lysenko did not lead a choir, but “a circle that is the most harmful politically.” It was precisely this absurd accusation that at one time caused the cessation of the activities of the Choral Association, founded by the composer in 1871-1872. But only in his own choir did he gather people in whom he saw potential for the subsequent revival of the Ukrainian nation.

He actively united creative youth around the national idea wherever there was an opportunity to do so. The place for such a gathering of patriotic intellectuals was the Kiev Literary and Artistic Association, created in 1895 as a kind of outpost of Russian culture. Over time, the members of the association changed the original character at their own discretion, turning the organization into a center for promoting the Ukrainian idea and national culture, which was the reason for its closure in 1905.

With the light hand of the maestro, the “Young Literature” circle also arose, better known to the Ukrainian public as the “Pleiad of Young Ukrainian Writers.” From this “nest” Lesya Ukrainka, Lyudmila Staritskaya-Chernyakhovskaya, Maxim Slavinsky, Vladimir Samoilenko, Sergei Efremov and many other writers and public figures of the early 20th century flew into the big world.

The composer belongs to the famous Cossack elder family. His ancestor is known to history as an ally of Maxim Krivonos Vovgur Lis. The leader of the uprising received noble and property rights from Hetman Demyan Mnogohreshny. It was said about the composer's ancestor that he, with a small detachment of Cossacks, could resist the raid of the Turkish horde, had the strength of a wolf and the cunning of a fox;

The future educator and musician grew up like an ordinary child of the nobility - surrounded by velvet and lace fabrics. He received his first music lessons from his mother, who had previously studied at the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens of St. Petersburg. From childhood, the boy studied 7 languages, primarily French;

His mother recognized his son’s talent at an early age; at the age of 5, he was already learning to play the piano, and at the age of 9, little Nikolai’s father published his first composer’s work, a stylized polka;

After the abolition of serfdom, the composer’s parents went bankrupt; Lysenko earned money for his studies on his own, working as a peace mediator in court;

The musician has not accumulated much capital throughout his life. His work as a composer did not bring any profit; Lysenko earned money by teaching, which, combined with social work, occupied all his time. The composer wrote mainly at night;

The future composer became acquainted with Shevchenko’s work at the age of 14. In the summer, he and his second cousin Mikhail Staritsky visited his grandfather, where the young people found a forbidden collection of Kobzar’s poems. The works they read made an indelible impression on the brothers. Art critics are sure that it was this event that helped Lysenko determine his own purpose in life;

The composer lived all his life in rented apartments. The funds raised by friends in 1903 to buy housing during the celebration of the 35th anniversary of his creative activity were spent on opening a school;

Historians call Lysenko’s funeral the first demonstration of Ukrainian self-awareness. People from all over Ukraine came to attend the burial ceremony. According to historical data, from 30 to 100 thousand people came to Kyiv for the maestro’s funeral. The current Shevchenko Boulevard was completely packed with people, even on the roofs and trees there were people sitting who wanted to say goodbye to the Ukrainian genius. After the funeral, the tsarist police massively destroyed the photo and video materials taken at the ceremony.

The descendants of Nikolai Lysenko are well known to Ukrainian society. Now the State Academic Variety Symphony Orchestra is led by the composer’s great-grandson, protodeacon and namesake of the famous ancestor, Nikolai Lysenko.

Biography of Nikolai Lysenko.

1855 - beginning of studies at a privileged educational institution - 2 gymnasiums in Kharkov, taking up playing the piano, gaining fame as a pianist. He graduated from high school in 1859 with a silver medal;

1864 - graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics "in the category of natural sciences", in 1865 - received a candidate's degree in natural science;

In 1867 he went to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. There he became acquainted with the European traditions of music pedagogy, which he then wanted to recreate in Kyiv;

October 1868 - publication of the first issue of arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs, adapted for voice with piano accompaniment;

1869-1874 - engaged in creativity, teaching and social activities in Kyiv;

1874-1876 - to improve his skills in symphonic instrumentation, he studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the class of Rimsky-Korsakov;

Upon returning to Kyiv, he was engaged in active concert activities; after the publication of the Ensky Decree, Ukrainian songs were performed by his choirs in foreign languages;

In 1878, he took up the position of piano teacher at the Institute of Noble Maidens. In 1880, a period of particularly high activity in creative activity began;

In 1905, Lysenko founded the Boyan choir, in 1908 he headed the Ukrainian Club, and did not stop active social activities even despite oppression from the tsarist regime;

In 1912, it became clear that many years of intense work rhythm had an understandable negative impact on the composer’s health. 4 days after a criminal case was opened against him for “anti-government activities,” Lysenko dies of an unexpected heart attack.

Perpetuating the memory of Nikolai Lysenko.

Well-known art and educational institutions in Ukraine bear the name of Nikolai Lysenko - the National Academy of Music in, the Academic Opera House in, the Columned Hall of the National Philharmonic, a specialized music school in Kyiv, the State College of Music in Poltava;

A leading Ukrainian chamber group - a string quartet, streets in Kyiv and Lvov - is named in Lysenko's honor;

On December 29, 1965, a monument to the composer was unveiled near the National Opera of Ukraine on Theater Square;

There is also a monument to Lysenko in the village of Grinki;

In 1986, the historical and biographical “And in the sounds the memory will be heard...”, dedicated to pages from the composer’s life, was filmed at the Alexander Dovzhenko film studio;

In 1992, in honor of Lysenko’s 150th anniversary, Ukrposhta issued a stamp and envelope with his image;

In 2002, the National issued a commemorative coin of 2 hryvnia in honor of Lysenko. The reverse depicts a portrait of the composer, the obverse shows a fragment of the musical text “Prayer for Ukraine”;

Every year, Ukrainian musicians are awarded the Lysenko Prize, and the International Competition named after the great maestro is periodically held in the Ukrainian capital;

At the address Saksagansky 95 in Kyiv, where the composer lived in 1898-1912, the Nikolai Lysenko House Museum was created.

As can be seen from the photo, search engine users were interested in the query “Mikola Lisenko” 24 times in November 2015.

And according to this, you can trace how the interest of Yandex users in the request “Mikola Lisenko” has changed over the past two years:

The highest interest for this request was recorded in September 2014 (6120 requests);

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Nikolai Lysenko came from the old Cossack elder family of Lysenko. Nikolai's father, Vitaly Romanovich, was a colonel of the Order Cuirassier Regiment. Mother, Olga Eremeevna, came from the Poltava landowner family of Lutsenko. Nikolai's mother and the famous poet A. A. Fet were homeschoolers. The mother taught her son French, refined manners and dancing, Afanasy Fet - Russian. At the age of five, noticing the boy’s musical talent, they invited a music teacher for him. From early childhood, Nikolai was fond of the poetry of Taras Shevchenko and Ukrainian folk songs, a love for which was instilled in him by his great-uncle and grandmother, Nikolai and Maria Bulubashi. After finishing his home education, in preparation for the gymnasium, Nikolai moved to Kyiv, where he studied first at the Weil boarding school, then at the Geduin boarding school.

In 1855, Nikolai was sent to the second Kharkov gymnasium, from which he graduated with a silver medal in the spring of 1859. While studying at the gymnasium, Lysenko studied music privately (teacher N.D. Dmitriev), gradually becoming a famous pianist in Kharkov. He was invited to evenings and balls, where Nikolai performed plays by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, played dances and improvised on themes of Ukrainian folk melodies. After graduating from high school, Nikolai Vitalievich entered the natural science faculty of Kharkov University. However, a year later his parents moved to Kyiv, and Nikolai Vitalievich transferred to the Department of Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University. Having graduated from the university on June 1, 1864, Nikolai Vitalievich received the degree of Candidate of Natural Sciences in May 1865.

After graduating from Kyiv University and a short service, N.V. Lysenko decides to receive a higher musical education. In September 1867, he entered the Leipzig Conservatory, considered one of the best in Europe. His piano teachers were K. Reinecke, I. Moscheles and E. Wenzel, in composition - E. F. Richter, in theory - Paperitz. It was there that Nikolai Vitalievich realized that it was more important to collect, develop and create Ukrainian music than to copy Western classics.

In the summer of 1868, N. Lysenko married Olga Alexandrovna O’Connor, who was his second cousin and was 8 years younger. However, after 12 years of marriage, Nikolai and Olga, without officially filing for divorce, separated due to the lack of children.

Having completed his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory with great success in 1869, Nikolai Vitalievich returned to Kiev, where he lived, with a short break (from 1874 to 1876, Lysenko improved his skills in the field of symphonic instrumentation at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the class of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov) , just over forty years, engaged in creative, teaching and social activities. He took part in the organization of a Sunday school for peasant children, and later in the preparation of the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language”, in the census of the population of Kyiv, and in the work of the Southwestern branch of the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1878, Nikolai Lysenko took the position of piano teacher at the Institute of Noble Maidens. In the same year, he entered into a civil marriage with Olga Antonovna Lipskaya, who was a pianist and his student. The composer met her during concerts in Chernigov. From this marriage N. Lysenko had five children (Ekaterina, Maryana, Galina, Taras, Ostap). Olga Lipskaya died in 1900 after giving birth to a child.

100 Great Ukrainians Team of Authors

Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912) composer, pianist, teacher, choral conductor, founder of Ukrainian classical music

Nikolay Lysenko

composer, pianist, teacher, choral conductor, founder of Ukrainian classical music

Nikolai Vitalievich Lysenko was born on March 22, 1842 in the village of Grinki (now Globinsky district, Poltava region). The era of the formation of Ukrainian professional music, theater and musical theater education in Ukraine is associated with the name of N.V. Lysenko.

The Lysenko family came from a Cossack elder from the time of Bohdan Khmelnitsky; the founder of the family is considered to be the legendary Cossack Haidamak leader Vovgura Lys, an associate of Maxim Krivonos. From the hands of Ivan Mazepa, the nobility was received by Ivan Yakovlevich Lysenko, colonel of Chernigov and Pereyaslavl, appointed hetman of Ukraine in 1674. His son Fyodor Ivanovich was general esaul in 1728–1741, and judge general of the Zaporozhye Army in 1741–1751. Among his sons and sons-in-law were 12 Cossack centurions, as well as representatives of other Cossack ranks. In further generations of the family, the military again predominates. N. Lysenko’s father, Vitaly Romanovich, served in the Cuirassier Regiment of the Military Order, retired with the rank of “colonel in uniform,” and was elected district marshal (leader of the nobility) of Tarashchansky and Skvirsky districts. At the end of his days, he was engaged in ethnographic research, sang Ukrainian songs beautifully, easily selecting accompaniment on the piano.

A descendant of an ancient noble family, N. Lysenko combined in himself the devotion to the national idea bequeathed by his ancestors and a penchant for state and educational activities with extraordinary musical talent, becoming in Ukraine one of the leaders of the national-cultural movement of the mid-19th - early 20th centuries. In the words of our contemporary, the great-great-grandson of Lysenko, also Nikolai Vitalievich and also a musician, “Lysenko replaced the Cossack saber with a conductor’s baton and made a folk song a weapon in the fight for the independence of Ukraine.”

From an early age, the worldview of the future composer was formed under the influence of two musical elements. On the one hand, this is the salon music-making of mother Olga Eremeevna (from the Lutsenko family) - an excellent pianist, a student of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, that is, a supporter of European and, to some extent, Russian classics. For little Nikolai, this sphere opens up through classical sonatas, paraphrases and medleys on themes from popular operas, fashionable salon plays like “The Sleeping Lion” by A. Kontsky. The main thing is that in a family where the serf orchestra of my mother’s grandfather Pyotr Bulyubash was well remembered, musical talent and the need to study music aroused attention and understanding. The mother, noticing her son's musical abilities, began to teach him to play the piano herself at the age of 5. At six years old, the boy amazed everyone with his musical memory, purity and fluency of playing. And also “the amazing ease with which he assimilated motives and selected them with harmonization on the piano.” At the age of 9, he wrote his first piece of music - the graceful “Polka”, published by his father as a gift for his son’s birthday.

Another musical element exists behind the walls of the manor house, and at times, like with grandmother Maria Vasilievna Bulyubash, right in the living room - this is Ukrainian folk song and the entire fabric of folk life, permeated with music, with its theatrical rituals, holidays, laments. The folklore hobbies of young Lysenko found a sincere response and support from his uncles - Andrei Romanovich and Alexander Zakharovich. Alexander Zakharovich played the bandura beautifully and was fond of Cossack antiquity and Ukrainian history.

N. Lysenko’s final awareness of national self-determination took place at the age of 14, when, while visiting his uncle Andrei Romanovich with his second cousin Mikhail Staritsky, they spent the whole night reading the forbidden poems of Taras Shevchenko, copied into a notebook, carried away by “the form, the word, and the boldness of the content”... “Lysenko, accustomed to Russian or French speech, was especially amazed and fascinated by the sonority and power of a simple folk word,” recalled M. Staritsky.

N.V. Lysenko’s main contribution to national culture is collecting treasures of folk music, researching and processing them, returning them to the people “in an exquisite artistic frame” and developing a national musical professional language based on folk melodies.

N. Lysenko took his first steps in music as a pianist - first in the Kyiv boarding houses of Geduin and Weil, where he studied with the Czechs K. Neinkivch and the extremely popular Kyiv teacher and performer Panoccini (Aloysius Ponotsny). Further - in the Kharkov 2nd gymnasium - J. Wilczek and the famous Russian pianist and composer Nikolai Dmitriev became his teachers. In Kharkov, young Lysenko even begins to give concerts in chamber meetings (both as a soloist and in an ensemble with teachers and fellow students) in the house of the trustee of the Kharkov educational district, Fyodor Golitsyn. Thus, N. V. Lysenko will conduct concert activities as a pianist from the age of 14–15 until the end of his life: about 55 years.

In 1860, N. Lysenko entered the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Kharkov University, where M. Staritsky had already studied. Starting from the next academic year, in order to avoid reprisals after student unrest in Kharkov, they are forced to transfer to Kiev University. Here the young men find themselves in the circle of progressive students, who made up the so-called Kyiv “Old Community”. N. Lysenko meets Tadei Rylsky, Boris Poznansky, Peter Kosach, Mikhail Drahomanov and his sister Olga, Vladimir Antonovich, Pavel Zhitetsky and many others, whose selfless service to the national idea determined the political and cultural development of Ukraine in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries .

In Kyiv, Lysenko continues to intensively study music. Under the influence of the program outlined by the “Old Community”, he begins to collect and process folk songs, works on the “Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language” and translations of public textbooks, creates a student choir of the Kiev University (exists from 1864 to this day), which begins to perform folk songs. songs in his arrangements; takes part in student performances, creating, in particular, in 1864 the musical accompaniment for V. Gogol’s (father’s) vaudeville “The Simpleton.”

Together with Staritsky, in 1863 they made their first attempt to write an opera - the folk musical drama “Garkusha” based on the story by Oleksa Storozhenko.

At the same time, Lysenko performed as a pianist in concerts in favor of the Kiev branch of the Russian Musical Society that was being created at that time, performing with great success not only extremely complex solo works, but also F. Chopin’s 2nd concerto and other works for piano and orchestra; participates in the RMO choir during the first production in Kyiv of fragments of M. Glinka’s opera “Ivan Susanin”.

Therefore, it is not surprising that, having brilliantly graduated from the university and defended his Ph.D. thesis in 1865, Nikolai Lysenko still chose music and went to the Leipzig Conservatory in 1867. Having entered there as a pianist, he simultaneously listened to lectures on theoretical disciplines and composition from leading German professors. Limited financial opportunities (after the abolition of serfdom, the Lysenkos found themselves in a difficult situation, and Nikolai was even expelled from the university due to non-payment of tuition in the second year) forces him to complete the conservatory course in two years. N. Lysenko becomes the first in Ukraine and one of the few composers of the Russian Empire among his generation who had a European professional education.

In Leipzig, Lysenko published his first works - the piano “Suite on the themes of folk songs in the form of ancient dances”, the first two “Collections of arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for voice and piano accompaniment”. During his life, he will publish 7 such collections of 40 songs, 12 “Choral Tens” (arrangements for choir); ritual collections: “Kolomyyki”, “Carols, Shchedrivki”, two “Wreaths of Spring Flowers”, “Wedding”, “Kupalska on the Right”, in total over 500 arrangements for voice and choirs; two special collections for young people - “Molodoshchi” and “Collection of Ukrainian folk songs in a choral arrangement, adapted for younger and older students in folk schools.”

At the same time, the composer published the first edition of “Music by Nikolai Lysenko for Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar” in Leipzig. This is one of the peaks of his creativity. Ivan Franko wrote: “Between Lysenko’s own compositions, among his operas and operettas, his best and most talented compositions for many of Shevchenko’s poetry, in which he felt the musicality of the verse more deeply, and managed to reflect it better than all the other numerous composers who were attracted to the muse Shevchenko." And the outstanding Western Ukrainian composer of the 20th century. Stanislav Lyudkevich called these works “true pearls of thoroughly original Lysenko creativity.”

The composer turned to Kobzar’s poems more than 90 times, interpreting them either as vocal miniatures (sometimes entire extended vocal scenes, such as “Pray, brothers, pray” from the poem “Haydamaky”), or as expanded cantatas like “The Thresholds Are Beating”, or “In eternal memory of Kotlyarevsky,” either as a capella choirs, either accompanied by a piano or orchestra, like “Ivan Hus,” or as vocal ensembles. Some works of Lysenko’s “Music for “Kobzar”” almost from their very creation became truly folk songs, like, say, “Oh, I’m alone, alone like a blade of grass in a field” or “Cherry garden near the house.”

The poetry of T. Shevchenko, like a wreath, frames the composer’s work. Having already had quite significant works, like Opus No. 1, he designated “Testament”, written in Leipzig (1868) at the request of the Lviv partnership “Prosvita” (“Enlightenment”), and the composer’s last work, created literally on the eve of his death, was the chorus “ God, with our ears...” (“Psalm of David”).

Vocal works were written by N. Lysenko and based on texts by other poets, one of them is in Russian - “Confession” with 4 lines from a poem by S. Nadson. This miniature was a gift on the last birthday of the seriously ill poet, who lived in a dacha in Boyarka next to the Lysenko family.

Particularly noteworthy in Lysenko’s legacy is the first vocal cycle in Ukrainian music (13 romances and 2 duets) based on the poems of G. Heine in Ukrainian covers by Lesya Ukrainka, Maxim Slavinsky, Lyudmila Staritskaya-Chernyakhovskaya and N.V. Lysenko himself. It is this cycle that includes one of his most famous works in the world - the duet “When two people part.” The vocal and choral heritage of N. V. Lysenko, in addition to three cantatas and 18 choirs based on Shevchenko’s texts, also includes 12 original choral works based on texts by Ukrainian poets. Moreover, two of them - “Funeral March” to the text of Lesya Ukrainka and the cantata “On the 50th anniversary of the death of T. Shevchenko” - are also dedicated to Kobzar.

In general, the work to perpetuate the memory of T. Shevchenko from his student years until his last breath was the basis of Lysenko’s social and educational activities. Recently, it has been documented that the composer did not take part in the reburial of Kobzar. But his contribution to the continuation of Shevchenko’s work is much more important: following the poet, Lysenko gave his entire creative life to “enlighten the dumb slaves” in order to raise a single nation from the Ukrainian people torn apart by two empires, worthy of its heroic past and capable of creating its own future.

Since 1862, N. Lysenko annually organizes concerts in memory of T. Shevchenko, which, by the way, creates a new concert form - a mixed concert. Lysenko himself performs in these concerts as a pianist and choral conductor. His adaptations and original works, compositions by other authors based on texts by Shevchenko and other poets, poems by T. Shevchenko and fragments from performances based on his works will be performed. Nowadays this concert form is common for us. But in Ukraine it originates precisely from Lysenko’s concerts.

At the end of his life, in 1908, N.V. Lysenko headed the first legal Ukrainian socio-political organization “Kiev Ukrainian Club”, as well as the first all-Ukrainian organization founded in 1906 - “The Joint Committee for the Construction of the Monument to T. G. Shevchenko in Kiev", which received funds from concerts and charitable contributions from Australia, America, Canada, not to mention all of Europe. The last action in this Lysenko work was a program dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the death of T. Shevchenko. Due to oppression by the tsarist administration led by the Kyiv Governor-General V. Trepov and the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire P. Stolypin, the event was moved from Kyiv to Moscow. The consequence of this was the opening of the police “Case of closing the Kyiv Ukrainian Club” and “bringing members of the Council of Elders, led by music teacher Nikolai Vitalievich Lysenko, to criminal liability for anti-government activities.” Four days after the announcement of this resolution, N.V. Lysenko died of a heart attack.

One of the charges brought against N.V. Lysenko was his extensive educational activities, including choral activities.

Sergei Efremov in his obituary “Intimate Power” (newspaper “Rada”, October 29, 1912) writes that “art, with the light hand of the deceased, was [...] as if that vanguard, the vanguard of Ukraine, which prepared the way for other national forms and aspirations "

This is the main meaning of all of Lysenko’s musical and social activities, including his work with choirs, and his four “choral travels” around Ukraine (1893, 1897, 1899, 1902). Throughout his life, Lysenko gathered in his choirs “not just tenors and basses, but above all conscious Ukrainians.” It is not surprising that the police reports say: “Rather, this is not a choir, but a circle, the most harmful in relation to the political.” On this charge, the Kyiv administration closed the Choral Society, founded by Lysenko in 1871–1872.

In general, N.V. Lysenko, wherever he could, tried to rally people, especially artistic youth, around the national idea. This was the case with the Kyiv Literary and Artistic Society. Opened in 1895 as an outpost of Russian culture, it gradually turned into a center for promoting the Ukrainian idea and national culture, for which it was closed in 1905.

For the same purpose, with the light hand of Lysenko, the “Young Literature” circle arose, better known as the “Pleiad of Young Ukrainian Writers”, which gave a start in life to Lesya Ukrainka, Lyudmila Staritskaya-Chernyakhovskaya, Maxim Slavinsky, Sergei Efremov, Vladimir Samylenko and many other talented writers and public figures of the early 20th century.

An equally important contribution to the development of Ukrainian culture was the theatrical activity of N. V. Lysenko. He is one of the founders of the Ukrainian professional theater, including opera.

Having begun in 1863 with an unfinished attempt to write a folk heroic opera "Garkusha", Lysenko, returning from Leipzig, wrote (again with M. Staritsky) the operetta "Chernomorets", which they successfully staged in the premises of the Lindfors sisters on Fundukleevsky (now B Street . Khmelnitsky) by the amateur circle of M. Staritsky - N. Lysenko in 1872.

An outstanding event in Ukrainian culture was their next joint work - the operetta “Christmas Night” (later revised into a 4-act opera). The premiere of “Christmas Night” performed by an amateur group on the stage of the Kyiv City Theater on January 24, 1874 became the birthday of the Ukrainian opera theater. The leading roles were sung by Olga Aleksandrovna Lysenko-O’Connor, who, having married N.V. Lysenko, studied with him in Leipzig (Oksana), Alexander Rusov (Vakula), Stanislav Gabel (Patsyuk).

The organizers of the performance, among whom were M. Drahomanov, P. Chubinsky, F. Vovk, the Lindfors family, O. Rusov and other members of the “Old Community”, openly declared their political sympathies: right in front of the audience in the center of the scenery, which represented the interior of a Ukrainian of the hut, in the center of the matitsa that supported the roof, the date of the defeat of the Zaporozhye Sich by the tsarist troops was “carved out”. In fact, the premiere itself took place 200 years after that tragic event for Ukraine. It is not surprising that until the end of his days N. Lysenko will be under constant police surveillance.

Lysenko wrote 11 operas, and collaborating with troupes of leading Ukrainian theater troupes, he created music for another 10 dramatic performances.

The history of the creation and production of operas by N. V. Lysenko is extremely diverse. Thus, without sufficient grounds, it is considered an opera “Andriyashiada” - actually a compilation of popular melodies from classical operas and operettas, a kind of “cabbage” created on the libretto of M. Staritsky and M. Drahomanov on the occasion of the publication by the director of the 1st Kyiv gymnasium Andriyashev of the notorious “People's Calendar” "

The composer never saw his main brainchild - the opera Taras Bulba - on stage, despite P. I. Tchaikovsky’s offer to assist in staging it on the Moscow stage. At the same time, Lysenko’s “Natalka Poltavka”, which he actually did not write, is still extremely popular. The composer notes in the preface to the first edition (1886) that he only “organized the clavier” from the most popular melodies that were used in the “folk play”, beloved since the time of I. Kotlyarevsky. That is, N.V. Lysenko wrote only an extensive piano accompaniment and introduction to “Natalka Poltavka”. The question of whether Lysenko himself orchestrated this opera still remains open; in any case, there are no memories of the existence of Lysenko’s autograph of the score.

The composer orchestrated the remaining major operas: the comic-lyrical and folklore “Christmas Night,” the extravaganza “The Drowned Woman,” the folk musical drama “Taras Bulba,” and the opera-satire “The Aeneid.” In the clavier we have received the first three Ukrainian children's operas “Koza-Dereza”, “Pan Kotsky”, “Winter and Spring”, the extravaganza “The Magic Dream”, the opera in 2 acts “Sappho” and the last minute opera “Nocturne” . “Garkusha”, “Marusya Boguslavka”, “The Witch”, “On a Summer Night” remained unfinished. From the composer's last letters we learn that he began working on a ballet...

The stage life of N. V. Lysenko’s operas continues today in different editions, the need for which is determined primarily by the fact that, with all his talent, Lysenko was still not a “symphonist”, which even two years of study (1874–1876) in St. Petersburg did not change from N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov. Perhaps the reason was that N. Lysenko had to work very little with the orchestra.

At the same time, Lysenko reached heights unsurpassed in his time in choral works and choral conducting. It is enough to recall such a pearl of choral polyphony as “The fog lies in waves” from the opera “The Drowned Woman”. His best students - Alexander Koshits, Kirill Stetsenko, Yakov Yatsinevich - also became choral conductors and composers.

There are almost no symphonic works in the legacy of N.V. Lysenko: an unfinished “youthful” symphony - a student work during his studies in Leipzig, an overture on the theme of the song “Oh, the Cossack got drunk”, which was later included in the operetta “Chernomortsy”, “Russian pizzicato” and an orchestral version piano fantasy “Cossack Shumka”. The composer also has a few chamber instrumental ensembles: Quartet and Trio of the Leipzig period and several pieces for violin, cello, flute accompanied by piano, written at the request of his musician friends M. Sicard, O. Shevchik, V. Khimichenko, who gave many concerts with Lysenko.

One of the best virtuoso pianists of his time, Lysenko created more than 50 piano works. At Christmas 1867, a student of the Leipzig Conservatory N. Lysenko with great success presented his own piano arrangements of 10 Ukrainian folk songs in Prague in the “Skillful Conversation” hall. Unfortunately, only one of them has reached us - “Oh, don’t be surprised, good people, what happened in Ukraine.” He ended the Leipzig Conservatoire with a brilliant performance of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto with his own cadenza, which was respectfully written about in German magazines. N.V. Lysenko wrote the first piano rhapsodies in Ukrainian music: “Golden Keys” (1875) and “Dumka-Shumka” (1877). His heritage also includes preludes, waltzes, nocturnes, mazurkas, marches and polonaises, songs without words. These works sounded especially expressive when performed by the author. L. Staritskaya-Chernyakhovskaya wrote that with Lysenko’s death, his piano works “half died.” “It was impossible to compare his playing with anyone else... For example, I have never heard a better performance of Schumann’s “Aufschwung” (“Rush”). If he performed his own and Ukrainian songs in general, it was something extraordinary - some kind of Evshan potion... Millennia came to life in his playing... And one could hear the deep, hoary, Slavic antiquity. Inspired, ardent, with the force of a lion's paw, with a proud look, he was completely transformed. In life, meek, affectionate, at the piano - Prophetic Boyan.”

Kyiv at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries.

Lysenko the pianist, as well as chamber ensembles with his participation, soloists and choirs under his leadership, performed not only his own and other Ukrainian works, but also world-famous masterpieces of Western European and Russian composers. The huge pianistic and choral repertoire that sounded in N. Lysenko’s concerts gives reason to assert that he not only laid the foundations of Ukrainian professional performance, but tried by all means to take listeners “out of the farm environment into the wider European world.”

N. Lysenko almost did not write sacred music (because, perhaps, he should have written to Russian texts, which he basically avoided all his life). But among the six now famous religious works of Lysenko, extremely beautiful and imbued with high spirituality, there is such a masterpiece as the choral concert “Where will I go from your presence, Lord?”, Cherubic song, cant “The Most Pure Virgin, Mother of the Russian Land”, which is performed in our time, almost all choral groups of Ukraine and the diaspora.

Lysenko's life achievements are not limited to writing musical works. The development of performance was also important for him, and not only in his time: it was N.V. Lysenko who laid the foundations of professional creative education in Ukraine, opening his Music and Drama School in Kiev in 1904, which, in addition to music, had departments Ukrainian and Russian drama, and the first class in the Russian Empire for playing folk instruments - the bandura class, which, despite all the complexity of its organization, gave its first graduates in April 1911. From the Lysenko School, the Music and Drama Institute named after N.V. Lysenko grew over time - leading creative university in Ukraine in 1918–1934. Graduates of Muzdramin named after. M. V. Lysenko laid the foundations for the achievements of Ukrainian culture of the 20th century.

It is no coincidence, as we see, that in 1903 the celebration of the 35th anniversary of N.V. Lysenko’s creative activity turned into a demonstration of the greatness of all Ukrainian culture and united the nation from peasants to the creative intelligentsia, from Russified officials to political emigrants.

The funeral of the Father of Ukrainian music also became an open political demonstration. According to A. Koshits, about 1,200 choir members alone sang. Young people dressed in student overcoats stood up for the first time to guard the national shrine, surrounding the participants in the funeral procession with a chain and preventing the police from making arrests.

The most profound definition of the role of N.V. Lysenko in the history of Ukraine belongs to S. Efremov, who emerged as a writer and public figure in Lysenko’s circle. He wrote in his obituary: “Music connoisseurs and specialists will undoubtedly give us a detailed assessment of Lysenko as a composer and creator, and will find out what he was like among musicians. But for us, a wide circle of his followers, this image of an eternally young soul, which was the Intimate Power of the Ukrainian movement, its fire and living connection, which gathered the scattered into a single circle, and from here, from the center, will be more natural, closer and much more understandable revived everyone with a single mind’s eye.”

However, the main reward of N.V. Lysenko is still not just a tribute to the memory and worship of descendants, but the fact that it was he who was destined to become the author of two national anthems that affirm the spiritual greatness of Man and the People.

The first of them is “The Eternal Revolutionary” (1905) based on the poems of I. Franko (for a long time exploited by the Soviet regime without proper grounds, although the Anthem glorifies the spiritual revolution, and not the communist revolution).

The second is “Children’s Hymn” based on the verses of A. Konissky (1885): the now world-famous “Prayer for Ukraine” - “Great God, One!”, which since 1992 has been the official anthem of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate) and has actually become the second national anthem of independent Ukraine.

OSCAR LEVANT (1906–1972) American pianist and composer There are two points of view on every question: the wrong one and mine. * * * As soon as I decide on something, I am overcome by indecision. * * * Marriage is the triumph of habit over hatred. * * * I keep in my soul how