Ukrainian folk music

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ukrainian folk music" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions. (March 2013)

Ukrainian folk music includes a number of varieties of traditional,

In the 20th century numerous

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

Vocal music

Authentic folk singing

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

Singing ensembles

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

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

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

Folkloric ensembles

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

The most prominent professional groups are:

• State Academic Merited Ukrainian Folk Choir named after Hryhoriy Veryovka (established 1943)

Regional groups include:

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

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

Art singing

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

Choral art singing

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

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

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

Accompanied singing

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

In the 20th century the vocal-instrumental tradition has grown into a movement where ensembles and whole choirs sing to their own accompaniment on these instruments. Notable examples include the

Traditional instrumental music

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

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

Scholarship

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

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

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

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

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

Instruments

Idiophones (percussion)

• Batih - a percussive stick
• Briazalnytsia
• Bubon (Buben)
• Bubentsi
• Bubonchyk
• Buhay
• Bukhalo
• Bylo
• Derkach
• Vargan
  )
• Dzvin – bell
• Dzvinok – bells
• Kalatalo
• Klepalo
• Korobochka [ru]
• Lozhky – decorated wooden spoons.
• Tarilky – cymbals
• Pidkova – horseshoe
• Rapach
• Rubel
• Skrynka
• Trishchotky – set of wooden boards on a string that are clapped together as a group.
• Trykutnyk – triangle
• Vertushka
• Zatula
• Zvonchalka

Membranophones

• Lytavry, Tulumbas – kettle drum
• Baraban – side drum
• Bubon – large tambourine
• Buhay, Berbenytsia
• Hrebinetz – comb
• Ocheretianka

String instruments

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

Wind instruments

• Dentsivka – a hollow pipe with no additional air holes, used for whistling sounds.
• Dudka-vykrutka – a shepherd's instrument in Rivne Polesia.
• Dvodentsivka – double fipple flute
• Floyara – a non fipple flute
• Frilka – a smaller version of the floyara
• Kosa dudka
• panpipes
• Okaryna – Ukrainian ocarina
• Rebro – variant of the
  panpipes
• hornpipe
  .
• Rizhok – small horn
• Pivtoradentsivka
• Sopilka – simple fipple flute in various sizes
• Surma – a folk oboe or shawm.
• Sviril – Ukrainian
  panpipe
  .
• Svystunetz – folk whistle
• Telenka – an overtone flute
• Trembita, Lihava – Alpine horn
• Truba – a wooden trumpet.
• bagpipe
  .
• Zholomiha – a double fipple flute
• Zubivka – similar to Telenka

Recent instruments

• Bayan – a chromatic button accordion
• Ukrainian balalaika – a 6-string regional variant of the Russian balalaika
• 4-string domra – a regional variant of the 3-string Russian domra
• Mandolin
• Seven-string guitar

Influence and legacy

Regional

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

The traditional music of the kobzari inspired the

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

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

Western music

"

• Music of Ukraine
• List of Ukrainian Koliadkas and Shchedrivkas [uk]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Folk music of Ukraine.

• Polyphony Project – Ukraine's largest online archive of musical folklore
• Samples and Pictures of Ukrainian Instruments Archived 2010-12-02 at the Wayback Machine