Discovered Works by Ukrainian Canonical Composers of the 18th Century: Music, Language, and History

 

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On September 14, the central event of the Berezovsky/Rachynsky: New Soundscapes project took place at the Uspenskyi sobor of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra [the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves]. The Partes Ensemble from Kyiv, conducted by Natalia Khmilevska, and the A Cappella Leopolis from Lviv, led by choirmaster Liudmyla Kapustina, performed six two-choir concertos by Andriy Rachynsky and Maksym Berezovsky. A presentation of the new music publication Rachynsky/Berezovsky: Two-Choir Concertos, compiled by the project’s research consultant, Professor Olha Shumilina, was also held on the same day.

Listen to the audio release “Listen, People: Rachynsky/Berezovsky” on Spotify, Apple Music andYouTube Music.

On the eve of the event, we spoke with choirmasters Liudmyla Kapustina and Natalia Khmilevska about the roadmap of “new soundscapes” and the peculiarities of working with newly discovered works of the second half of the 18th century. We also touched upon the specifics of historically informed performance in Ukraine, ways to popularize early Ukrainian music, and how cooperation among experts in the fields of music, linguistics, and history is important nowadays.

Yulia Bentia: Prof. Shumilina talks about the stylistic break in the works of Berezovsky and Rachynsky, in particularly about the transition from the partesny tradition to classicism. Do you share the same view regarding music of Berezovsky and Rachynsky? 

Natalia Khmilevska: For me, Rachynsky’s works logically continue the partesny tradition. My opinion was confirmed when I found out that most of his works were recorded in partesnynotation [Kyivan square notation, which is characterized by specific markings of temporal durations, the absence of bar marks, and the notation of each part separately – Y.B.].

Rachynsky and Berezovsky are very different in style. Andriy Rachynsky (1724 – not before 1796) was an earlier composer, although he died later than Maksym Berezovsky (1745-1777). He composed music mainly in his younger years in Hlukhiv, and then he was engaged to search for singers for the Court ChoralCapella in St. Petersburg. For me, as a performer, Rachynsky is a composer of the partesny style since his concertos are not written for two choirs. In his works the whole choir starts singing and then divides into two parts. Rachynsky’s music mostly alternates between solo episodes and choral tutti episodes.

Yulia Bentia: Can we say that in the middle of the 18th century, the partesny tradition already had a taste of retro style? What were the social, political, or aesthetic factors that caused Rachynskyto hold on to this tradition, even though the music world around him was already changing?

Natalia Khmilevska: It is known that Razumovsky asked Rachynsky tocompose in a new style. Perhaps Rachynsky tried to do so butcouldn’t. I think that the partesny style was still in daily church use at that time. It was a living, relevant tradition, and people were taught singing using this music. Hence, it’s logical that Rachynsky continued to compose in the partesny style, adding something new from himself. For example, in the concerto Vozlyublyu Tya, Hospody [I Will Love You, Lord] we see ornamentations, appoggiaturas, and large music intervals that do not exist in partesny music.

Liudmyla Kapustina: I was surprised that in that concerto of Rachinsky’s, the tempo of each part is indicated. There is no such thing in partesny music – neither in Mykola Dyletsky’sResurrection Canon, nor in the twelve-voice anonymous concertos of the early 18th century, nor in Symeon Pekalitsky’smusic. Here it is clearly written: Adagio, Allegro, Adagio, and then comes a somewhat strange instruction: “skoryai” [faster].These are the elements that we later see in a classical concert. For me, Rachynsky is a composer, that conveys many emotions, especially in the concerto Vozlyublyu Tya, Hospody [I Will Love You, Lord]. He is a partesny baroque composer, although Prof. Shumilina, on the contrary, claims that this concerto has mostly classical features.

Natalia Khmilevska: Rachynsky has a very developed system of rhetorical figures, which is a baroque tradition: affections, emotional embodiment of meaning through certain words, and the graphics of musical movement. That’s why we, the performers, use our previous experiences with the Baroque music while interpreting his music.

Yulia Bentia: We are all experiencing a turn to early music in Ukraine right now, thanks in part to the work of your groups. There is a thirst for “other” music, in the professional environment and among the average public, thanks to the educational activities of those dedicated to historically informed performance. Do you notice any other factors in Ukrainian society that influence the popularity of early music and inspire your work?

Liudmyla Kapustina: Speaking about the Lviv environment, we have the International Lviv Early Music Festival, which was held for the twentieth time last year. Our audience has been coming to this festival for years. In times of war, it is a vital necessity for musicians to restore and perform early Ukrainian music, because it makes you realize who you are and what you are proud of.

Yulia Bentia: It is easy to follow how the cultural situation on the Ukrainian lands during the 19th century, divided between the two empires, was radically changing. Discussing the 18th century, we find ourselves in the context of the Russian Empire and must search for some other ways to talk about Ukrainian cultural identity.

Natalia Khmilevska: For me, there is a very simple key to this issue. It is known that Old Church Slavonic texts were pronounced quite differently than, for example, in St. Petersburg in the territories of modern Ukraine in the 18th century. When Ukrainian singers or clergymen came to Russia, they were told that they spoke with an accent, and this was a sign of a certain identity.

This is a key detail for performing music of that time. We know that this is how such music works were performed at the Hlukhiv school, and it makes them belong to our Ukrainian tradition. Perhaps this is an overly simplistic explanation, but there was a living language that determined the way music works were performed. Even if the music was composed in St. Petersburg, it came from a Ukrainian context, had a Ukrainian background, and was a part and continuation of our culture, with its core being on the Ukrainian territories.

Another bridge can be made to the West. Berezovsky studied in Italy and returned to Russia travelling through Ukrainian lands. Similarly, the performing tradition went from West to East, not vice versa. Western music traditions came to Russia through Ukrainian musicians.

We may not be able to consider many of our 18th-century composers as purely Ukrainian composers, but we can certainly interpret their creative heritage and their figures as part of the Ukrainian culture that we are now developing and continuing.

As to the wave of interest in historically informed performance, particularly in Ukraine, we have a deep crisis in the system of music education in Ukraine. The old Soviet standards no longer work in the modern world. Having had close contacts with Western Europe over the past twenty years, we realized that we were very limited in many ways. We needed a breath of fresh air to free ourselves from the dogmas and stereotypes we had learned during our studies.

Historically informed performance provides this since it brings the individual to the fore. The musician does not look at the transcribed scores that we have been using for many years, but at the original texts that have finally become available. The IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project) website has appeared, which has a lot of facsimile scores. Transcriptions of partesny works without forte, diminuendo, crescendo, etc. markings have appeared. This takes interpretation of such music to a different level, encourages creativity, and not just the retranslation of how someone else has interpreted this music.

Yulia Bentia: So, you refuse to use music editions that impose one particular “party line” on a performer, and you don’t expect someone to explain to you how to interpret it?   

Natalia Khmilevska: In the music that we perform, everything follows a different logic. This music is full of meanings in every sound. If this is not understood and conveyed in performance, the work will not sound good, and it will not exist.  Performers must find this logic and take responsibility for it to convey what is in the score.  

Liudmyla Kapustina: Musicians are used to composers’ suggestions about tempos, agogics, and accents. I remember my shock when I saw Baroque scores without any markings. At that time, it was my last year of study at a music academy. Suddenly I was shocked: stop, what’s next? Who is going to teach me how to perform this music? I am talking about Bach’s Magnificat. Or, for example, we performed Guillaume de Machaut’s Mass, where there were no performing hints in the score. A huge amount of music written before the 19th century was dropped from the performance programs of music schools in Ukraine or studied using approaches not consistent with historical informed performance.

This, in fact, was the impetus for the founding of the Early Music Festival in Lviv. At the first festival, we invited musicians who are foreign experts on historically informed performance and subsequently tried to collaborate with foreigners every year. This opened many new ways to interpret early music for us.

Yulia Bentia: Your project includes three concertos by Rachynsky and Berezovsky. Is this enough music to get an idea of the style of choral works of each of these composers?

Natalia Khmilevska: Liudmyla’s and my idea was to divide the concertos between us: I would conduct some of them, and she would conduct others. However, at first, we had to delve into the scores as much as possible, do some proofreading, and edit the deciphered texts according to the way we hear them. There was an interesting case when we added a rest on our own, and then it turned out that one of the scores had this rest!

Rachynsky’s concerto Ne Otverzhy [Do Not Reject Me] was performed by the Partes ensemble and the concerto Vozlyublyu Tya, Hospody [I Will Love You, O Lord] was performed by the A cappella Leopolis ensemble. The concerto Skazhy My, Hospody [Tell Me, O Lord] will be on the disc in two versions. This (two versions)has already happened in the Open Opera Ukraine project with Dyletsky’s Voskresenskyi Kanon [Resurrection Canon], which we performed with different parts of the second discant. In contrast, Berezovsky’s concertos Vsi Yazytsy [All Tongues], Tebe Boha Chvalym [Praise God], and Vnemlyty, Liudiye [Hearken, O People] are typical two-choir works, so all three of his concertos are sung by both ensembles together.

Since for us Rachynsky and Berezovsky are very different composers, we recorded them in two different churches of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra: Rachynsky’s in the All-Saints Church, and Berezovsky’s in the Uspenskyi sobor [the Dormition Cathedral], which is better suited for a large group of singers. Usually, releases are recorded in one acoustic, but we have two acoustics, which was a part of our research.

Yulia Bentia: Did you feel any difference between the training of the members of the Lviv and Kyiv ensembles? Was it easy for you to collaborate?

Natalia Khmilevska: Lviv has its own peculiarities, and we have ours. We are a little different but have a common approach to interpretation. We immediately understood each other and were on the same page all the time.

Yulia Bentia: While preparing to perform the concertos, did you consultwith linguists and clergymen? What was the most valuable thing you learned from them?

Natalia Khmilevska: All project participants had a long meeting with Archpriest Heorhii Kovalenko. He talked about the context of the era and what was happening to the Church in the 18th century. He also spoke about the meanings of the texts to which Rachynsky and Berezovsky’s music was written. In fact, he helped us to build the concept of the CD: from the first psalm, “Vnemlyte, Liudiye” [“Hearken, O People,”] to the final song by Ambrose of Mediolanum, “Tebe Boha Chvalymo” [“We Praise God”].

The Archpriest also talked about the meaning of each word, many of which we may have not understood. We had all the Ukrainian translations, but it was important to know the exact translation and to comprehend the deeper meaning of these words, what people of past centuries put into them, and their theological aspect.

Liudmyla Kapustina: I am very happy that this project was implemented in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. The history of the Lavra dates to the times of Kyivan Rus, and now Ukrainian music, Ukrainian church pronunciation, and Ukrainian choirs are returning there. We met with the hegumen [abbot] of the Lavra, Avraamiy. I was very pleased to hear that cooperation with Ukrainian musicians is also very important to him and that he wants to bring Ukrainian music back to the Lavra.

Yulia Bentia: Tell us also about your collaboration with linguists. I think that all performers would like to be well versed in the nuances of texts in different languages, especially early ones. Did this project aim to give singers this kind of training as well?

Natalia Khmilevska: In Ukraine, we are still at the beginning of developing a system for working with texts of early music. Abroad, philologists have been collaborating with music performers for ahundred years, and they have a whole system of practices. For example, the German language in the 17th and 18th centuries had completely different pronunciations in different regions. In western Europe, it’s a part of the music education system.  If you sing music from different countries, different times, and different composers, you must understand the principles of pronunciation.

This was not an official part of our project, but we turned to philologists (graduates of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Tetiana Vydaychuk and Anna Pochtarenko), who study the pronunciation of Old Church Slavonic texts of the 18th century. (I know both through the B.A.C.H amateur choir.) They noted that Ukrainian illuminated manuscripts or printed books of the 16th and 18th centuries clearly show that Old Church Slavonic texts were read with Ukrainian pronunciation. Old Church Slavonic texts published in Russia by the “obsherusskiy izvod” [Russian version of the Old Church Slavonic] often contain distortions that reflect Russian pronunciation.

The same Old Church Slavonic texts were read differently in different Slavic territories. Everywhere this reading reflected local phonetic peculiarities.

So, this time we did something very simple: we asked Tetiana and Anna to give us a transcription of each word. They not only transliterated the five psalms and the prayer of Ambrose of Mediolanum for us, but also read these texts as they would have been pronounced by Berezovsky and Rachynsky’s contemporaries in Kyiv.

In the future, if, for example, we want to teach 17th-century partesny music at the conservatory, we will need to know all this and include it in the curriculum. Now we have worked on the pronunciation (on the «і», «и», «ѣ» sounds, the word beginnings, word connections, and symbols) to unify it between the two ensembles. It was very scrupulous, a lot of work that no one usually does, and we tried to embody it in this project. Otherwise, it would be simply impossible to get the sound that is inherent in this music. It consists of tiny details and turns into something big.

Yulia Bentia: If we draw a parallel between 18th-century Ukrainian music and Western European music, it is worth noting that in the Western tradition of that time, open democratic forms of artistic life were formed: societies, clubs, and amateur groups. Instead, we seem to habitually interpret Ukrainian music of the 18th century as an elitist tradition. Has this changed in the contemporary perceptions of the works of Berezovsky and Rachynsky, and what role does this music play in contemporary Ukrainian society?

Liudmyla Kapustina: This question is very painful for me, because it concerns not only early music, but also Ukrainian music in general. Perhaps I am reacting so painfully because I teach Ukrainian choral music at college. This music exists, but there are no recordings of it, because it was not recorded by choirs. We are not talking about something rare but, for example, about choral poems by Lysenko or cantatas by Stetsenko, which can be foundon YouTube in only one interpretation. This is at best, because usually they are not available at all. I would like the pieces from our current project, and Ukrainian music in general, to be perceived not as something elitist, but as something that goes with us through life and helps us understand ourselves.

Natalia Khmilevska: The music of Berezovsky and Rachynsky is quite difficult to perform. I’m trying to imagine how it could be interpreted by an amateur choir and see that it’s problematic. After all, their music’s technical challenges are so huge that it requires a certain musical and performance experience. However, involvement in this music can be not only through its performance but can also occur in other aspects. You can listen to this music, analyze it, work with texts, and popularize it as part of your history.

I think that this is what our project is about – it aims to expand knowledge about Ukrainian music of the 18th century and show how it can be interpreted in one of many ways. After all, it is not at all typical to perform such works by two ensembles, each with only eight singers, not by one choir, but why not? In the same Court Capella, Berezovsky’s or Bortnyansky’s works could well have been performed by twenty people instead of a hundred. This is a practice typical of the 18th century. In Italy, too, not all choirs had a hundred singers. They could well have been small ensembles.

Hence, we are also trying to break down certain stereotypes and offer a new vision. As for me, both Berezovsky and Rachynsky sound more interesting when performed by a small ensemble, because then you can make a clearer interpretation and emphasize the individuality of each voice.