Mykola Kolessa

Mykola Filaretowytsch Kolessa ( Ukrainian Микола Філаретович Колесса ; born December 6, 1903 in Sambir near Lemberg ; † June 8, 2006 in Lemberg) was a Ukrainian composer , conductor and educator .

Life

Kolessa came from a very musical family: his father Filaret Kolessa was himself a well-known folklorist and composer. The famous concert pianist Lubka Kolessa was his cousin. Until 1923 Kolessa studied music at the Lviv Lysenko Institute. He then went to Prague, where he continued his studies at the university and the conservatory. His teachers were u. a. Vítězslav Novák (composition) and Otakar Ostrčil (conducting). He completed his studies in 1931 and began teaching himself that same year: until 1939 at the Lviv Lysenko Institute, from 1939 at the Lviv Conservatory, which he headed for several years as rector. Kolessa took up his professorship for conducting when she was over 100 years old. He died in Lviv at the age of 102 and was buried there in the Lychakiv Cemetery.

In addition to his teaching activities, he was also active as a conductor. For 40 years, from 1939 to 1979 , he directed the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra . He also conducted at the Lviv Theater and directed various choirs. The composer Myroslaw Skoryk is one of his most famous students . Kolessa has received awards such as People's Artist of Ukraine (1972) and the Taras Shevchenko State Prize (1983). He was considered the great old man of the Ukrainian music scene and had an enormous reputation.

style

Kolessa always relied on Ukrainian folklore, which he wanted to reproduce as originally and unadulterated as possible, following the example of Béla Bartók . That is why he also used folk instruments in some of his orchestral works. The influence of Impressionism can also be seen in his works. Overall, however, Kolessa was undoubtedly above all in the tradition of national Russian music. His tonal language was very conservative and always remains tonal . His most famous work in the West, the First Symphony, barely goes stylistically beyond Glasunov . The demands of socialist realism were also important for his work . Both as a composer and as a conductor, Kolessa was one of the leading Ukrainian personalities of his generation.

Works

Grave of Mykolas Kolessa

• Orchestral works
  • Symphony No.1 in G major (1950)
  • Symphony No. 2 in A minor (1966)
  • "Ukrainian Suite" (1928)
  • "In the Mountains", suite for string orchestra (1972)
  • Symphonic Variations (1931)
  • Stage and film music
• Vocal music
  • "Lemkische Hochzeit", folk song arrangements for choir and string quartet (1937)
  • "In the land of the blossoming cherry trees", song cycle (1971)
  • several folk song arrangements
• Chamber music
  • Piano quartet (1930)
  • Sonatina for piano (1939)
  • "Little things" for piano (1928)
  • Passacaglia, Scherzo and Fugue for piano (1929)
  • "Drei Kolomyki" for piano (1958)
  • "Two miniatures" for piano (1987)

Web links

• Catalog of works ( Memento of May 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Mykola Kolessa's organ works