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Ukrainian music and culture

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On the basis that this is a site on the fringes of culture, one way to uphold the people of Ukraine may be to explore and celebrate the music and culture of the country. Here’s the Eurovision Song Contest winner from 2016 with a song that just seems poignant, yet defiant. I’m sure there are far more examples from a country with a long history, if anyone wants to post.

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  1. Possibly the first time I came across Ukraine was when a member of The Wedding Present started a separate band

    I hope for other contributions – that’s about all I know on the subject
    #IstartedsomethingIcouldn’tfinish

  2. The Eurovision 2021 Ukraine entry was based on a traditional folk song and came 5th with 364 points; which was 364 more points than the UK managed.

    It came second in the public vote and also got the all-important thumbs up from the Massive thread at the time.

  5. Valentin Silvestrov is, according to Arvo Part, the world’s greatest living composer. Now 84, his work spans symphonies, choral work, string quartets and intricately beautiful solo piano pieces in a “modern classical” style.

    You can hear echoes of his dark but strangely uplifting orchestral work in modern film soundtracks, while the “feel” of his solo pieces underpin any number of plangent piano performers – probably most notably Ludovico Einuadi, the multi-million selling Classic FM favourite.

    There’s much to explore – 10 symphonies! – but my starting point were the Bagatelles for solo piano via his work on ECM. French pianist Helene Grimaud is a fan and her wonderful 2020 release “The Messenger” devoted half the album to Silvestrov’s work.

    This piece forms part of Silvestrov’s stirringly beautiful orchestral “Requiem for Larissa” – as the “Agnus Dei” – part of a homage to his wife who passed away early in their marriage. Here it’s performed by the Odessa Philharmonic and Ukrainian national choir.

    A long-time critic of Russia, he’s been politically active for decades – I hope he’s safe and well.

    • Thanks, Morrison. Good to have my ears opened.
      From a quick search, an Spabish music magazine article (Scherzo) reads

      “On February 24, once the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russian troops began, and when the first bombardments reached the capital, Valentín Silvéstrov, the greatest living composer in the country, sent peace and consolation from the piano of his house in Kyiv. The musician, who will turn 85 this year, recorded himself playing a short piece of his own and sent it with a note to his friend, the professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of Kiev, Constantin Sigov. The work was the Serenade op. 153 no. 3 (2009), and in the note it indicated the following: “It is not protest music, nor indignant music, but the music of a peaceful sunset. Here is a piece with some consolation…”

  6. This weekend, I was fascinated to discover that one of the most renowned Brazilian writers of the 20th century, Clarice Lispector, was born in the Ukraine.

    A new name for me but I became very interested when I read her evocative description of Brazilia, the soulless, new Brazilian capital.It’s from 1974,

    “—The construction of Brasília: that of a totalitarian State. —This great visual silence that I love. My insomnia too would have created this peace of the never. I too, like those two who are monks, would meditate in this desert. Where there’s no place for temptation. But I see in the distance vultures hovering. What could be dying, my God? —I didn’t cry once in Brasília. There was no place for it. —It is a beach without the sea. —In Brasília there is no way in, and no way out. —Mama, it’s lovely to see you standing there in that fluttering white cape. (It’s because I died, my son). —An open-air prison.”

    http://rereadinglives.blogspot.com/2016/04/by-clarice-lispector-1974.html

    Thanks for mentioning that list @Salwarpe. They are quite right: the excellent DahkaBrakha are well worth a listen.

    .

  9. Folknery have an extraordinary range of songs. This live recording impresses me by the contrast between the range of sounds from instruments and voices and the stripped down equipment in the room.

  10. I’m not sure if anyone else is interested apart from KFD valiantly finding non-musical cultural references, but just in case, and as a bookmark for later, here is ODYN V KANOE (The one in a canoe) – an indie band making tranquil, clear-voiced songs sung in a light Bjorkish register.

  12. You all know the Polish. speaking, Heart of Darkness Hitmaker, Joseph Conrad. He was born in the town of Berdichev.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berdychiv

    It was a town which had long had a very large Jewish population. In October 1941 the Nazis liquidated the ghetto murdering perhaps as many as 30,000 people.

    In earlier, happier times, it was the scene of French novelist, Balzac’s wedding!

    This long article is an entertaining, informative read.

    http://www.berdichev.org/joseph_conrad_and_berdichev.html

    On now to the Street of Crocodiles Hitmaker, Bruno Schulz. You may know of him due to Theatre de Complicité’s very successful production, based on his work.

    He was born in Drohobych, in Western Ukraine, famed for its oil refineries. Schulz was Jewish and wrote in Polish. He was shot dead on the street by a Gestapo officer in 1942.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drohobych

    What is very apparent is that there were many carve ups of territory after the different European wars. and a town could find itself in several different countries during its history.

  13. A year or so back, our film club showed an excellent, poignant, low-key documentary set in Eastern Ukraine, The Distant Barking of Dogs. It’s about 10 year old Oleg and how upsetting and traumatic it can be to live with war on your doorstep.

    Little did the director, Simon Lereng Wilmot, suspect the horrors that awaited in 2022..

    I confess I know little about Ukrainian cinema. And that is perhaps just the way the Kremlin wants it.

    This morning I was reminded about the great Ukrainian/Albanian director, Sergei Parajanov. by my polymath cinephile pals.

    He worked in Kiev for several years.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Parajanov
    Here’s a little more about his life and films.

    https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/12437/where-to-start-with-sergei-parajanov

    I might not have heard of him, but Lady Gaga has! One of her videos is a hommage to him.

    https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12164/lady-gaga-911-sergei-parajanov-color-of-pomegranates

    I certainly wasn’t expecting Gaga to pop up on this thread!.

  14. The Doox manage to do quiet and loud with harmonised vocals and a mix of traditional and modern instruments – firstly with bandura:

    Then rocking out with Teen Spirit’ ish guitar and drums, plus added tin whistle and bagpipes…

  15. Nice work, Sal. I suspect this was the bandura’s maiden appearance on the Afterword.

    Here’s the same bandurist on a TV talent show.

    And now a slightly older player who is a dead ringer for Santa Claus, delivering a soulful folk song.(Fast forward to 2.00)

    Finally, here is an epic version of an Ukrainian classic: The enamoured bandura player.. I don’t know the Ukrainian word for “kitchen sink” but it is certainly features here. An arrangement which gives the full Cossack Monty

    I’m reminded of the zither or the Finnish kantele.

    A quick look at wiki reveals that the bandura has a long and sometimes bloody history. It was associate with the kobzars, travelling musicians, who often suffered persecution.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandura

    Meanwhile back at the cinema, my delving into Ukrainian culture continues.

    I just discovered this lit of 5 Must See Ukrainian films.

    In one of the films, The Guide, which is set in the 1930s, the central character is a kobzar, (a bandura player) and the article comments “kobzars were targeted by the Soviet state for embodying what they considered to be a dangerous romantic ethnonationalism.”

    Most surprising is Feathered Dreams from 2012 which is a coproduction between Nigeria and Ukraine.
    “Director Andrew Rozhen was inspired to make the film during trips to Nigeria, when he met a surprising amount of locals who spoke Russian or Ukrainian, having studied in Ukraine.
    Ukraine is a popular destination for African university students, due to its relatively low cost and solid standard of education. Feathered Dreams explores the lives of this community of African students in Ukraine.”

    The stuff that one discovers in cyberspace!

    https://emerging-europe.com/after-hours/five-of-ukraines-finest-movies/

  16. Another author is the great German-language poet Paul Celan: born in Chernivsti, then part of Romania and now Ukraine. Ukraine is associated in his poetry with his mother, killed by the Nazis. This is translated by Pierre Joris:

    Aspen tree, your leaves gaze white into the dark.
    My mother’s hair ne’er turned white.

    Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine.
    My fair-haired mother did not come home.

    Rain cloud, do you dally by the well?
    My quiet mother weeps for all.

    Round star, you coil the golden loop.
    My mother’s heart was seared by lead.

    Oaken door, who ripped you off your hinges?
    My gentle mother cannot return.

    • Thanks @Pessoa. A new name for me. What an interesting man,

      He spoke French, Rumanian and Russian and chose to write his poems in German.

      “As Shoshana Olidort notes in her Chicago Tribune review of Breathturn Into Timestead: Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan (trans. by Pierre Joris and published by FSG, 2014), Celan was “a Holocaust survivor, [who] wrote in German, his mother tongue and also the language of his mother’s murderers … As a German-speaking Jewish survivor living in France, Celan harbored feelings of intense estrangement from the language and thus set about creating his own language through what Joris eloquently describes as a “dismantling and rewelding” of German. The result, Olidort writes, “is arguably even darker than his earlier poems with their direct references to the Shoah. For Celan, darkness is not willed obscurity, rather, the poem comes out of lived experience and is “born dark.””

      https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-celan

  17. I can’t believe we’ve come so far …without mentioning the Carol of the Bells, which must be one of the best-known pieces of Ukrainian music. A traditional folk song,Shchedryk ,was arranged by composer Mykola Leontovych.

    Here with the original lyrics translated into English. They are very different to the rather bland English lyrics.

  18. THanks, KFD and Pessoa – plenty to explore there – bringing the culture to this music and culture thread. I loved the unadorned polyphony of the Carol of the Bells. And the Celan poem movingly tethers nature and mourning.

    My interest is mainly musical and this article seems comprehensive in its overview of contemporary Ukrainian music
    https://theatticmag.com/reports/2390/a-look-at-contemporary-ukrainian-music.html
    The page headed with this absorbing and swirling piece by Heinali, a music composer and sound artist from Kyiv.

  19. As I remeber from our visit to Columbia, you are a bit of a whiz at finding these overview sites. Sal.

    I look forward to browsing through that.

    You introduced us to the bandura, one of the national instruments of Ukraine.

    Charming, tranwuil, kantele-like, zithery instrument that it is, it never crossed my mind that it could be suitable for a military band.

    I got that wrong!

    These guys are currently all fighting for their country, I suspect.

    The other national instrument is the kobza which definitely resembles the zither or Finnish kantele.

    It is popular under different names in several neighbouring countries. In Hungary it is known as the Koboz.

  22. That article by Ivan Shelekhov from The Attic that Salwarpe posted is well worth a browse.

    Lots to discover! Like modern folksinger, Svitlana Nianio, who with her wonderfully pure soprano sounds like Ukraine’s answer to Vashti Bunyan.

    This song (with a film clip from Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood) is fairly traditional

    Like Vashti, Svitlana seems to be something of a recluse and does few interviews. Here’s is an article and interview with her.

    https://theatticmag.com/features/2141/svitlana-nianio-_-a-mystery-of-the-world.html

    Koło Lasu / Bila Lasu from the album Kytytsi

    And now something a little more experimental. That sounds odd like an electronic gamelan orchestra in the background!

    Svitlana Nianio And Oleksandr Yurchenko from Untitled 1 (from Znayesh Yak? Rozkhazy)

    Getting interested yet? Here’s a concert from 2020 where laptops and electronica have replaced the folk instruments. Ignore the comment about the video being age.restricted. Just go to YTube!

    To my surprise, Svitlana is on Facebook.

    https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063458743744

    • If you dig Alina give the album New Focus on song a listen. It’s an album from the young jazzers Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Stevenson on which Alina appears alongside the two aforementioned and The Glasgow String Quartet.

  27. Gulliver Returns! Now here’s a film that won’t be showing at the Kremlin Multiplex at any time in the near future….

    It’s one of the movies featured in the Stockholm Filmfestival Junior which takes place 28 March – 2 April. This Ukraine/Cyprus animated feature film will make Vlad the Bad even madder: it’s co-written by Volodomyr Zelensky, who you may perhaps have heard of ….

    The plot? Lilliput is threatened by its aggressive neighbour Blefuscu and calls in Gulliver to help out…

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11238518/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

  28. Something for the weekend.

    “At the invitation of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Evgeny Kissin will give a concert expressing their solidarity with Ukraine. In the common belief in the values of freedom and self-determination, musicians from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Germany, among others, will perform pieces by Ukrainian, Russian and Polish composers.”

    https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/54336

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