Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921) – Ukrainian composer

[Christopher]

Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych (sometimes spelled Leontovich) was a Ukrainian composer and priest. His name is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, but one of his pieces is extraordinarily famous as a Christmas choral work - "The Carol of the Bells" (by way of reminder - http://youtu.be/mhzsPtAAd4c , sung here in the original Ukrainian).   In Ukrainian the song is called "Shchedryk", which comes from the Ukrainian Shchedry Vechir, meaning Bountiful Evening. It is a New Year's carol and tells a story of a swallow flying into a household to sing of wealth that will come with the following spring. "Shchedryk" was originally sung on the night of January 13, New Year's Eve in the Julian Calendar (December 31 Old Style), which is the evening in question. The English-language Carol of the Bells was adapted by Peter J. Wilhousky (1902-1978), a Ukrainian-American.

Most of Leontovych's other output consists of a capella choral works, many of which are available of youtube.  One for which he is particularly well-known in Ukraine is "Dudaryk" (which means the player of a duda, a traditional instrument similar to a bagpipe).

However, he also wrote an opera (unfinished) - "Na rusalchyn velykden" which means "At the Water-Nymph's Easter".  And I have just found that this is available on youtube - http://youtu.be/KwNhJ9QDaNQ.  According to the note on that page, was Mykola Leontovych's first attempt at writing a major orchestral piece. It is based on a fairy tale by Boris Hrinchenko and a libretto by Nadia Tanashevych. Leontovych intended to write it in three acts, but was barely finished with the first before his death. The version recorded here was completed by Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk (b.1938) and the poet Diodor Bobyr and only consists of one act.  (There's another recording here - http://youtu.be/j5roCvKU4ng but it sounds more folksy)


               "The Feast of the Water Nymphs" is a folk-fantasy opera that weaves the intonations and rhythms of Ukrainian spring, kupalo and "rusalka" songs and elements of dance. The main theme of the opera is the conflict between the real world and the world of fantasy. Leontovych's fantasy world can be playful and frolicking but also full of secrets, mystery and danger. He makes the water nymphs real, suffering and angry beings with characteristics given to individual "rusalky."

Leontovych was murdered by an agent of the Soviet Cheka (the precursor agency of the NKVD/KGB) in 1921.  According to wikipedia:  "During the conquest of Kiev on August 31, 1919, the Denikin Army persecuted the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Because of this, Leontovych returned to Tulchyn with his family. There he started the city's first music school, since the college where he worked previously was closed down by the bolsheviks. He also began to work on his first major symphonic work, the opera Na Rusalchyn Velykden' (On the water nymph's Easter). During the night of January 22–23, 1921, Mykola Leontovych was murdered by Chekist (Soviet state security) agent Afanasy Grishchenko. Leontovych was staying at the home of his parents, whom he was visiting for Christmas (which is celebrated in January in Eastern Orthodoxy). The undercover Chekist had also asked to stay the night at the house and shared a room with Mykola. At dawn he shot the composer (who died of blood loss a few hours later) after robbing his family. Several facts point to a political motive behind the assassination. His participation in the independence movement, such as commissioning Ukrainian Republic Capella, aimed at promoting Ukraine as an independent state, earned him many enemies. Leontovych's older daughter Halyna later recalled her father saying, shortly before his death, that he had documents to leave the country to Romania, and that he had these documents with him among his sheet music during a concert. However, after returning from tea following the concert, Leontovych noticed that someone had gone through his papers. His plans to leave the country, along with the fact that he was killed by a Soviet agent, also indicate political reasons for his death."