In honour of the bard of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko,
Ukrainian Art Song Project invites you to listen to a beautiful interpretation of
Time Passes ~ Минають дні
Composer: Stefania Turkewich
Poet: Taras Shevchenko
Performers:
Pavlo Hunka, bass-baritone
Albert Krywolt, piano
Минають дні
Тарас Шевченко
Минають дні, минає літо,
А Україна, знай, горить;
По селах плачуть малі діти —
Батьків немає.
Шелестить пожовкле листя по діброві;
Гуляють хмари; сонце спить;
Ніде не чуть людської мови;
Звір тільки виє, йде в село,
Де чує трупи, йде в село,
Минають дні, минає літо.
Це – експресіоністична обробка кількох рядків із поеми Тараса Шевченка “Гайдамаки”. Після повстання, у спорожнілих селах залишилися діти, що плачуть… навколо трупи, вовки… Жахи війни відображаються драматичною басовою лінією фортепіяна.
Time Passes
Translation: Maria Lukianowicz
Days pass, the summer passes,
And Ukraine, hear me, is burning;
Small children weep in the villages,
There are no parents.
Yellow leaves whisper in a coppice,
The clouds are wild, the sun sleeps,
The human tongue is nowhere heard.
Only the beast howls as he goes into the village,
Where he smells the corpses -
Days pass, the summer passes.
This is an expressionistic adaptation of some poetic lines from Taras Shevchenko’s epic poem “Haidamaky”. After the rebellion, the villages are deserted save for the crying children, dead bodies, and scavenging wolves. The horrors of war are reflected in the dramatic bass line of the piano.
Ukraine’s first woman composer is Stefania Turkewich. She began her music studies with her mother, who was a pupil of Karol Mikuli, the director of the Lemberg Conservatory in Galicia. Then, at the Lysenko Institute in Lviv, she was taught by Vasyl Barvinsky. After World War I, Turkewicz studied in Lviv with Adolf Chybinski at the Lviv University, and also at the Lysenko conservatory. She then moved to Austria and studied with Guido Adler at the University of Vienna and Joseph Marx at the music academy.
In 1925, she travelled with her first husband to Berlin where she studied with Franz Schreker and the influential expressionist, Arnold Schoenberg; in Prague, she studied with Zdenek Nejedly at Charles University, with Otakar Sin at the conservatory, and with Vitezslav Novak at the music academy. She received her doctorate in musicology in 1934. From 1935 to 1939, she taught harmony and piano at the Lysenko Institute in Lviv, and, from 1940 to 1944, she lectured at the Lviv State Conservatory.
Fleeing from the Soviets, Turkewich immigrated to England with her second husband in 1946. There she spent much of her time composing, but many of her works have never been performed. Stylistically they are much more modern, but still hearken back to Ukrainian folksongs when they are not post-romantic, atonal or expressionistic in character.
The Ukrainian Art Song Project has been bringing Ukraine's musical treasures to light since 2004. With your support, we will continue to bring Ukraine's finest composers and their masterpieces to the world stage, where they belong.
Проєкт "Українськa Мистецькa Пісня" поширює найкращі зразки української музики з 2004 року. З Вашою підтримкою ми продовжимо презентувати найкращих українських композиторів та їх шедеври, які належать до світової музичної спадщини.
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