Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1998)

Review: Ukranian Musical Elements ain Classical Music (Yakov Soroker)

Judith Osborn

Abstract

Yakov Soroker. Ukrainian Musical Elements in Classical Music.

Translated by Olya Samilenko. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1995. 155 pp.

Soroker is pursuing a labour of love while breaking new ground in the study of Ukrainian elements in the music of other peoples. He writes: "To our knowledge no fundamental research has ever been done in Western or Eastern Europe on the ties between Ukrainian folklore and idiom and classical music."(2) The author writes this work in an attempt to demonstrate that there is, in fact, a Ukrainian musical language, folklore, idiom, and that it had both a direct and a subliminal influence on European classical music from the second half of the 18th through the beginning of the 20th century. We who live in Canada, where the Ukrainian presence has been felt for a century following waves of immigration, perhaps need to be reminded that the people of Ukraine have been, at times, in their own country, in danger of losing their very identity.

During the period under review, Ukraine was 80% under the Russian Empire and 20% in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ukrainians in the eastern part of their country were referred to as "Little Russians," while those in the western regions continued to refer to themselves as Ruthenians. During most of the 20th century, Ukraine was under the Soviet Union, while Russian became the official and almost universal language. Thus the need, felt by scholars, to reconfirm the fact of Ukrainian cultural identity.

Soroker was born in Bessarabia, studied in Russia with David Oistrakh, taught in Ukraine and now lives in Jerusalem. He writes from a Ukrainian perspective.

Soroker identifies several melodic phrases as characteristic of Ukrainian folk music. One phrase which he identifies is characterized by the movement of the leading tone, not up to the tonic, but down to the dominant. Soroker believes that, because of its "uniqueness and vivid thematicism"(5) it became a stereotypical Ukrainian melodic phrase. This theme occurs in the song "The Cossack Rode Home from the Don" as well as several other songs listed by the author. He mentions that the "leading tone down a third" is frequently found in the melodies of Boccherini, Chopin and Tchaikovsky.(7)

Another melodic stereotype is the ascending minor sixth, most frequently symbolizing an exclamation. A third type of Ukrainian melody is encountered in the "dumy," so much so that it is often referred to as the "duma mode," the D-modw with a sharpened fourth degree. A fourth characteristic of Ukrainian songs which Soroker gives is that of changing mode from major to parallel minor. He acknowledges that changing mode forms an integral part of the language of many composers, not only Slays. A fifth type of melody contains an augmented second, occurring mainly in the western regions of Ukraine among the Hutsuls and Lemkos.

There is a phrase which Soroker considers to have become a "signature" melody among Ukrainian songs. There are two versions, one of which features a descending minor sixth, from the fifth of the scale down to the seventh degree, with a direct resolution to the tonic. The other version has the descending minor sixth from the fifth degree down to the leading tone, to the second degree and then the tonic. The first of these occurs in the song "Oh, Hryts', Don't Go to Evening Parties," which is identical to a song well known many years ago in Western Canada, "Yes, My Darling Daughter." The first line of this song is "Mother, may I go out dancing," and may have been popular in the rest of the country as well.

As the "Hryts" sequence seems to be most important to Soroker in this study (he says that it occurs in six per cent of the melodies examined), I include the melody here:

Soroker gives paragraphs of the titles of folk songs from various regions which contain the "Hryts" sequence." His next chapter discusses the works of ten major and minor composers (whom he labels "Classical," but among whom he includes Liszt and Brahms, usually identified as Romantic composers) and illustrates the Ukrainian elements in their music including the "Hryts" idiom. Following this, he explores the music of Polish composers, Bela Bartok, and fourteen Russian composers.

Soroker illustrates the existence of reciprocal influence in the folk music of Europe. Cross-border living, working and travel has been a fact of life for hundreds of years. It is only natural t h at music should exhibit idioms from other cultures. He discusses Polish and Russian composers who were born in Ukraine and who began to absorb the Ukrainian idiom in their childhood surroundings. He discusses direct borrowings, in which, for example, a composer uses a Ukrainian folk song as the theme of a symphony movement.

Beethoven is found to have used Ukrainian themes and melodies in his works. The author discusses Beethoven's friendship with Count Rozumovsky, a Ukrainian who was Ambassador in Vienna and to whom Beethoven dedicated three string quartets, op. 59. Soroker mentions that a channel through which other Europeans may have learned Ukrainian melodies is that of servants,. many of whom were fine singers. That this can happen is illustrated by a Canadian example.

In Winnipeg in the early 1900s, Ukrainian (Galician or Ruthenian) girls went as servants to the home of Florence Randal Livesay. Livesay was enchanted with the songs they sang as they carried out their tasks. She transcribed the songs and learned to read and write Ukrainian. In 1916, she published Songs of Ukraina with Ruthenian Poems (London: Dent).

A number of aspects of the book's layout could have been improved. The musical examples were obviously printed from a computer program by someone who did not take the time to adjust the spacing of the notes in the bars. This detracts from the professionalism of the publication. There are one hundred examples of music in staff notation which are labeled Example 1, Example 2 etc. It would have been more helpful to have given a title or source for each: e.g., Example 1—The Cossack Rode Home from the Don. In some cases, it is not entirely clear whether an example is a Ukrainian folk song or a segment of a composition under consideration.

It is also questionable whether it is useful to illustrate a point by giving paragraphs full of song titles, when the sources of the titles are not shown. All the same, the author has indicated that a major source for his study is volumes two to eight of the Lys'ko opus, Ukrainian Folk Melodies: Ukrains'ki narodni melodii (New York, Jersey City, Toronto: 1964-86).

Laurel Osborn