The Ukrainian Art Song Project sends you this gift of song…♪

We invite you to listen to a beautiful interpretation of

Floating Cloud ~
За сонцем хмаронька пливе

Mykola Lysenko: composer
Taras Shevchenko: poet

Monica Whicher: soprano
Krisztina Szabó: mezzo soprano
Benjamin Butterfield: tenor
Robert Gleadow: bass
Albert Krywolt: piano

Taras Shevchenko
Translation: Watson Kirkconnell

A cloud is floating, following the sun;
It spreads its scarlet coat-flaps in the sky
And calls upon the sun to settle down
On the blue sea and there be covered up
As, with red quilts, a mother might her child.
One’s eyes rejoice to see it... One brief hour,
One’s heart relaxes and communes with God...

Meanwhile the fogbank, like an enemy,
Covers the sea and all the rosy cloud–
The thick grey mist spreads darkness in its wake,
And in that darkness it enshrouds one’s soul
So that one cannot know where one should go.
One awaits dawn as children do their mother.

Many of Shevchenko’s poems written in exile contem-plate the beauty of the Ukrainian landscape. Lysenko shared the poet’s sentiment and often mentioned Ukraine’s picturesque countryside in his letters fromabroad. In this vocal quartet, Lysenko’s mastery and inventiveness in combining contrasting timbres of human voices demonstrate his thorough knowledge of the rich tradition of the Ukrainian Baroque church singing style

Тарас Шевченко

За сонцем хмаронька пливе,
Червоні поли розстилає
І сонце спатоньки зове
У синє море: покриває
Рожевою пеленою,
Мов мати дитину.
Очам любо. Годиночку,
Малую годину
Ніби серце одпочине,
З Богом заговорить...
А туман, неначе ворог,
Закриває море
І хмароньку рожевую,
І тьму за собою
Розстилає туман сивий.
І тьмою німою
Оповиє тобі душу,
Й не знаєш де дітись,
І ждеш його, того світу,
Мов матері діти.

Чимало поезій Шевченка, написаних на засланні, оспівують красу української природи. Лисенко поділяв поетове захоплення українським краєвидом, про що промовисто свідчать його листи з-за кордону.
У цьому вокальному квартеті майстерність і винахідливість мистця у поєднанні контрастних тембрів людських голосів свідчать про йогоглибоке знання багатої традиції українського барокового партесного співу.

the score

MYKOLA LYSENKO (1842–1912)

Mykola Lysenko is the father of modern Ukrainian classical music. His prolific life’s work laid the foundation for further developing and expanding Ukrainian musical culture. He influenced many Ukrainian composers, including Stetsenko, Stepovyi, Leontovych, Koshyts, and Liudkevych. A compilation of Lysenko’s works in 22 volumes was published in Kyiv in 1950–59.

Lysenko was a composer, ethnomusicologist, pianist, and conductor. He studied at the Kharkiv and Kyiv universities and, later, at the Leipzig Conservatory under Reinicke and Richter (1867–69). From 1874 to 1876, he studied orchestration under Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg. In 1904, he founded his School of Music and Drama in Kyiv.

The list of Lysenko’s operatic compositions includes Black Sea Cossacks (1872), three operas based on the works of the Ukrainian writer Mykola Hohol – Christmas Night (1873–82),
The Drowned Maiden (1883) and Taras Bulba (1890); and the operettas Natalka from Poltava (1889) and Aeneas (1911). Himself a well-known pianist, Lysenko composed a piano sonata, two rhapsodies, a suite, a scherzo and a rondo, as well as an abundance of smaller pieces, including songs without words, nocturnes, waltzes and polonaises. He also wrote several works for strings. Of the Ukrainian composers, Lysenko was the most committed to the art song genre. Lysenko’s 133 art songs (lirychni pisni in Ukrainian) relate a wonderfully descriptive and passionate story of 19th- and early 20th-century European life.