Concert at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra “Pay Attention People”

On September 14, the Assumption Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra announced a concert-presentation of the release “Pay attention to people”: Rachinsky/Berezovsky. By the symbolic name of one of the composer’s choral concerts Maxim Berezovsky the hidden thorough work of several cultural formations investigating the Ukrainian sacred polyphony of the XVII-XVIII centuries.

Ukrainian musical culture of those years was tried to be made as inaccessible as possible, it was studied by individual specialists for a long time. The names of talented artists of the same time, in particular, Maxim Berezovsky, were appropriated by the Russian Empire. Despite the fact that Berezovsky’s name has recently been heard by many, his biography has many “white spots” and inaccuracies (and here it was not without a Russian trace). WITH Andriy Rachynskyi even sadder: most musicologists are hardly familiar with his life’s work.

However, it was he who could inspire the young Berezovsky with his music! It is known that Rachynskyi’s activities took place exclusively on the territory of Ukraine. Berezovsky received a thorough education: the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, perhaps the best in Europe at that time. Berezovsky’s choral work traces the traditions of Ukrainian polyphony, and his operatic or instrumental work organically fits into the European musical heritage.

That is why it is so important to emphasize again and again that Berezovsky is a Ukrainian composer, and Ukraine is Europe. The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is working on the cultural reconstruction of Ukrainian spiritual singing, shedding the brand of Russian markers and encouraging Ukrainians to participate in the comprehensive study of their history.

The behind-the-scenes of the historical reconstructions were shared by musicologists – scientific consultants of the project Olga Shumilina and program manager of the project Anna Hadeckaas well as the director of the National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” Maxim Ostapenko.

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The concert-presentation “Pay attention people” is part of the project “Berezovsky/Rachynsky: new sound landscapes”. The project assembled a powerful team: the Leopolis Academy of Ancient Music and the Open Opera Ukraine formation were involved in the research of the material, the scientific consultant was Doctor of Art History Olga Shumilina.

Basic research reveals a new layer of music to us, this music is connected with the place in which it could sound. The idea of ​​duality is traced: two composers, one of whom (Andriy Rachynskyi) could theoretically influence the work of the other. Two-choral (or double) concerts, which will be performed by (logically) two choral ensembles: A cappella Leopolis (Lviv) and Partes (Kyiv).

Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra met such an idea and opened several temples for “casting”. And even here two locations were chosen for recording discs! The chamber space of the Church of All Saints, built by Hetman Mazepa, was chosen for concerts by Andriy Rachinsky, the Dormition Cathedral attracted the sound of two-choir concerts by Maksym Berezovsky.

“Actually, we know very little about how this music was performed: what compositions, how many singers there should be. Here we relied on the information provided by the scientific consultant, as well as on our own experience.”, – says Anna Hadecka.

Works performed will be published for the first time. These are six concerts, three by each composer. They are deciphered according to the original sources, analyzed, correctly compiled, edited. It will be published in two languages: Ukrainian and English, and a transliteration of Church Slavonic according to the rules of the Ukrainian language has also been made. It is also planned to publish works on the streaming platforms YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify.

On Facebook, on the Open Opera Ukraine page, under the posts highlighting the project, you can read the comments of “well-wishers”, who say that there are not enough concert venues for you, why did you come with concerts to the Lavra, these are holy places, and you “desecrate” them with secular music . Maksym Ostapenko is convinced that these are all the consequences of Russian influence. After all, the Lavra and those objects that were born in later times, the times of the Cossack Baroque, were precisely the heart of music: here music was formed, written and performed. And it was here that the population of Ukraine got acquainted with the high art of church singing.

“The chamber space of the Church of All Saints, built by Hetman Mazepa, was chosen for the performance of Andriy Rachinsky’s concerts, the Dormition Cathedral attracted the sound of Maksym Berezovsky’s choral concerts”

OPEN OPERA UKRAINE

“Our task as a reserve is to study cultural monuments. Monuments of musical culture are no less important than architectural monuments, because any monuments work in a complex. You have to see the tradition of worship, see icons, hear the language, and, of course , to hear music. To say that music should not be played in the church is simply ignorance and misunderstanding of Ukrainian culture,” Maksym Ostapenko is convinced.

Anna Hadecka confirms that not only the leadership of the Lavra, but also the priests contribute to the work on the project. Several meetings took place: father Georgy Kovalenko, an expert in church science, discussed with the musicians the texts of the psalms, which became the verbal basis of Berezovsky’s and Rachinsky’s concerts. And the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Vladyka Avraamiy, spoke about the 18th century – the time of the Lavra’s powerful flourishing. The time that gathered talented and charismatic people around the Lavra. And this is evidenced by the music of this time.

“According to our conviction, this music is not devoid of emotions, it is very rhetorical, full of life. The church is not about the enjoyment of life, but about providing a person with all the tools to see and perceive the beauty of life. This music is elegant and virtuosic, it captures the operatic style, it was written for trained professional singers, and it requires great skill. However, this does not mean that it can be sung only in the way we offer,” explains Anna Gadecka.

Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra met such an idea and opened several temples for “casting”.

Ruslan Syngaevskyi

Maksym Ostapenko dreams of everyone being able to hear the sound of the Lavra over the centuries, at least in the form of reconstructions. – How did ancient Russian chants sound? – How did they sound in the following centuries and what changed under the influence of the Lithuanian state? What changed when Ukraine became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? And finally, how did music change in Cossack times, when the Lavra was already formed as an architectural monument?

They tried to replace this culture with a united imperial church culture, which was emasculated and clamped into rigid frameworks at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries. So what did we get as a result at the beginning of the XXI century? What has been preserved, what has been changed, which of these processes can be reconstructed and made available – these are the relevant questions facing researchers.

Sound producer Oleksiy Hrytsyshyn is working on recording the concert.

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“The musical tradition ended when the church life in the Lavra was actually destroyed and the Lavra turned into a museum. The museum workers studied various monuments, and the musical theme was taken care of only by musicologists and they were, as a rule, not connected with the activity of the reserve.

Now there is a change in the interaction between the state and the Ukrainian church, we are getting out of the influence of Moscow, we are trying to return all these forms that were inherent in the Lavra in the natural sense for almost a thousand years. This will make the Lavra a living national shrine, not under the dictation of the so-called Patriarch Kirill, but based on the research of specialists. All this will complement the spiritual revival of the Lavra as a national shrine,” says Maksym Ostapenko.

One of the ideas of this project is to return Berezovsky’s identity to Ukrainian culture. We consider him a Ukrainian composer, but the rest of the world has a different opinion, mainly due to the systematic work of the Russian Empire in its various manifestations, which fully attributes him as a Russian author.

The project “Berezovsky/Rachynsky: new soundscapes” presents the music of these two composers. At the same time, many “white spots” remain in the study of their biographies and creative heritage. This is explained by the scientific consultant of the project, musicologist Olga Shumilina, who systematically studies the legacy of Maksym Berezovsky, as well as other Ukrainian and Western European composers, mainly from the second half of the 18th century.

The recording of the performances and the concert will take place under the leadership of conductors Natalia Khmilevska and Halyna Kapustina

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To date, Berezovsky’s creative work has been studied much more than Rachinsky’s. But it is somewhat easier to establish the details of Rachinsky’s biography, since the documents are available in one file, while Berezovsky does not have such a file, information must be sought from various documentary sources.

Almost all of them are located outside of Ukraine, for example, some important details of Berezovsky’s life in St. Petersburg could be established from the metric books and documents of the management of the Court Theater, and manuscripts of Berezovsky’s secular works can be found in the theater library of St. Petersburg.

It is desirable to find a record of Berezovsky’s birth and to establish not only the exact date, but also the place of birth, because posthumous documents deny that his paternal family lived in Glukhiv. Well, and most importantly, you need to find the score of the opera “Demofont”, which was staged in the Italian city of Livorno in 1773, at the end of Berezovsky’s Italian internship. The problem is that false information is spread about Berezovsky, which is a “product” of Russian historiography of the 19th century.

“Research opens up a new layer of music to us, this music is connected to the place in which it could have sounded”

OPEN OPERA UKRAINE

The figure of Rachinsky is interesting for its influence on the formation of the compositional talent of the young Berezovsky, because both artists crossed paths in Glukhov in the 1750s. As for Rachinsky, the place of his education before being appointed to the position of Kapellmeister at St. George’s Cathedral in Lviv has not been established, no details of his activities as Kapellmeister of the Hetman’s Chapel in Hlukhiv have been found, and the exact year of death is unknown.

It is also desirable to learn about the repertoire of the St. George’s and Hetman instrumental bands led by Rachinsky, as this sheds light on the emergence of a new style in his spiritual works written during the 1750s in Glukhov.

Olga Shumilina visited Bologna twice and St. Petersburg twice, all at her own expense, without state support, in order to find documents related to Berezovsky’s life.

a concert of works by the classics of Ukrainian music Maksym Berezovskyi and Andriy Rachinskyi and the presentation of the publication “Rachinskyi / Berezovskyi: two-choral concerts” will take place on September 14.

OPEN OPERA UKRAINE

Ms. Olga outlines the plans for 2025, as it will be the jubilee for Maksym Berezovsky (280 years since his birth), as well as for Dmytro Bortnyansky (200 years since his death) – another representative of Ukrainian classicism, a younger contemporary of Rachynsky and Berezovsky:

“It is desirable to plan a complex of events regarding Bortnyanskyi and Berezovskyi, combining both scientific studios and the performance of concert programs. The importance of scientific discussions cannot be neglected, because it is scientists who give the material to the performers. I plan to organize and hold a conference in Lviv.

I hope for the concerts of the “Kyiv” chamber choir, dedicated to the works of both anniversaries, and these should be largely unexpected programs, with initial author’s versions of well-known works. We would like concert performances with the works of Rachinsky and Berezovsky by the participants of the current project – the vocal ensembles “Partes” and the choir “A cappella Leopolis”.