Bravo, virtuosos!

On October 26 students of schools appeared on the stage of the National Philharmonic Society, while the hall was filled with people of all ages. Even the four-year-old music lovers held their breath while devouring the music, and grown-ups did not spare their palms and thanked young musicians with thunderous applause. The concert “Welcome to Mykola Lysenko School” was dedicated to the creative work of legendary Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, brilliant conductor and teacher Ferenc Liszt (1811–86). Maestro was an outstanding representative of music romanticism, founder of Hungarian composer school. In 1847 Liszt performed in Kyiv. Music expert Olena Zinkevych searched through the archives and found unique documents, the evidence of the pianist’s triumph. “Concerts by Liszt in Ukraine were taken as an extraordinary event. This is proven not only by the epithets and simili, generously given by reviewers to the ‘European celebrity’ (The Napoleon of pianists, the padishah of keys), but by the unseen before activeness of the press and witnesses’ memories. I was struck by the unusual mechanism of Liszt’s way of playing. The strength, sonority, and distinctness made the piano under his hands an absolutely different instrument, wrote Seletsky, the first head of Kyiv Department of Russian Music Society.

In 1847, the 36-year-old virtuoso pianist already was a super star. Europe adored him. The newspaper Kievskie Gubernskie Vedomosti wrote with passion “Liszt is in Kyiv. This one word is enough for our public to make a fuss and rush to hear and see this wonder that ended up in our city in some inexplicable way. Liszt is the first word you meet your friends with. The first concert by the maestro took place in the Contracts House in Podil. The audience occupied not just all the seats, but the balconies and aisles as well. People went crazy. Fervent students carried the virtuoso around with a chair he sat in. As a result, Liszt had to give six times more concerts in Kyiv that he was supposed to according to the contract!” And another fact, Ferenc Liszt’s biographers state that Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (born Ivanovska, she is from Potocki family on mother’s side) is the primary reason why Liszt stopped endless tours and devoted himself earnestly to the composition of music. He became a great composer thanks to his Ukrainian love. Carolyne and him jointly wrote a book about Chopin, and when she was asked which parts were written by Liszt and which ones by her, she answered “If two people are connected so tightly that they become a whole, it is impossible to determine clearly what exactly was done by each of them separately.”

Only virtuoso musicians can handle performing Liszt’s compositions. This was proven by the young pianists, prizewinners of numerous Ukrainian and international contests, the participants of the concert at the National Philharmonic Society. The night was opened by Alisa Zaiika, Mykola Lysenko School fourth-grader, student of Iryna Barynova. The girl confidently performed Tse – vin (Schumann-Liszt) and Gulianka (Chopin-Liszt). When the girls vocal ensemble under the direction of Iryna Tykhonova sang O filii et filie from Christus oratorio (Liszt’s church music) accompanied by the organ, it felt like angels came down from heaven. Illia Fialko and Anna Pashkovska (5 grade), Mykola Pushkariov (8 grade), Veronika Hvaramadze (9 grade), Oleksandra Narodytska (10 grade) executed music excellently as well. A storm of applause followed the performances of Anastasia Kozlova and Dmytro Biliak (11 grade). But when at the end of the night Mykola Lysenko School Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serhii Solonko and Roman Lopatynsky (Mykola Lysenko School graduate, now freshman at the National Music Academy of Ukraine, Serhii Riabov’s class) behind the grand piano took stage and Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 sounded, it seemed like a new star was lit in the sky. Probably, young Vladimir Horowitz, who had become the most prominent pianist of the past century soon after his graduation from Kyiv Conservatoire, performed in the same breathtaking manner at the beginning of the 1920s. Or maybe, the spirit of Liszt, who created miracles by touching the keys, came upon the stage of Philharmonic Society that night to help the young virtuosi. And the execution of a piano etude Mazeppa by Lopatynsky encore became an international bridge. This composition was written by Liszt in Paris in 1847 and dedicated to Victor Hugo. In five years a new edition of Mazeppa was included into the famous Transcendental Etudes. The program of the etude was accented by the final lines of Hugo’s poem which was located under the last time: “...He rushes, he flies, he falls, // And rises as a king!”

This event was successfully organised with the help of Vlada Prokaieva’s Fund “Gifted Children Are Ukraine’s Future” within the cycle “Nights of Performance Art.” By the way, Prokaieva first received music education (she graduated from Gliere Kyiv Music School in piano and Odessa Conservatoire cum laude) and then a diplomat one (she finished the Diplomat Academy at the MFA of Ukraine). She spends a lot of effort on charity, supports young talents by giving scholarships to talented children from low-income families, finances Mykola Lysenko Music School. One of her last deeds is gifting a certificate that let the school purchase timpani for the orchestra. The event was also supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary to Ukraine (an exhibit about Liszt’s life and creative work was presented in the Philharmonic Society lobby).

COMMENTARIES

Michal BAYER, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Hungary to Ukraine:

“It was a brilliant concert, I loved it! The children were amazingly good at performing those difficult Liszt pieces. One can only rejoice at so many budding young talents in Ukraine. The children performed enthusiastically. One can see that they have been rehearsing a lot and soon they will make young artists. The audience gave a warm welcome to all performers, and I would like to congratulate both children and their teachers with the brilliant concert. Liszt is one of those composers that require great mastery of the instrument, so it was really astonishing to see the children’s technique and how they feel the music of our great classic.

“Being a father of two, I can hardly pick out one of the performers. All the pianists were doing their best. Of course, you cannot compare middle school kids with 11-graders or with the freshmen from the National Music Academy of Ukraine. We do not know what will come out of tonight’s young performers, maybe they will be future piano stars. They still have a long way to go before they become mature professionals on the international stage. But these kids do have talent and great teachers, and thus they have a springboard to become top-notch musicians.

“This year the Hungarian Embassy has held a number of events to commemorate Liszt’s bicentennial. Our last event took place on October 22 (the great maestro’s birthday) in Kyiv. It has already developed into a sort of tradition with the Hungarian community to convene in Podil together with Ukrainians on October 22. This year there was a short formal meeting, then we laid flowers to the memorial plaque that commemorates Liszt’s first performance in 1847, and in the Contracts House his music was performed, in particular, his famous Second Hungarian Rhapsody, which was first played exactly at this venue in Kyiv.

“In Hungary, Liszt is a national idol. Every year in September there is one Saturday dedicated to the Hungarian song. Liszt Year events are held annually in various countries, and we are very pleased to see that our classic’s anniversary is marked worldwide. On December 22 we are planning to hold a soiree at the National Philharmonic Society, where Liszt’s pieces will be performed for sure. On December 3, we are going to mark the 20th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with Ukraine and the inauguration of the Hungarian Embassy to Kyiv (it was the first foreign diplomatic mission in Ukraine after it gained independence). This is a more modest event, compared to the composer’s 200th birth anniversary, yet it is very important. We have invited the Bartok String Quartet, which is considered to be one of the best in the world. I’m sure that the music amateurs in Kyiv will appreciate the concert.”

Valentyn SHERSTIUK, Ph.D., head of Kyiv’s Mykola Lysenko Music School:

“Today 440 students receive education in our school. The study process is conducted in different departments: violin, piano, string, wind, percussion instruments, conducting and choir, chamber music, theory of music. All of the children are gifted, a lot of them have not only participated in prestigious contests, but received honorable awards as well. But they still are children and it is necessary to find a ‘key’ to each one, to bring them up to respect work. I have been working at Mykola Lysenko Music School for over 20 years and I have noticed that a talented child has time for everything, whereas that every day kids have to practice for five or six hours! Residents of Kyiv live at home and children from other cities (we have 120 of them) live at the school boarding house. We have created good conditions: two- or three-storied dorms, 80 study rooms, 30 rooms for individual practice, a gym, and also the boarding school itself – a four-storied building with the area of 2,500 square meters.

“Children have been getting ready for the concert thoroughly with the teachers’ help, chose the compositions, rehearsed, and then we had an audition and picked the works that are included in the program today. The evening was finished by our graduate, a freshman at the National Music Academy of Ukraine, Roman Lopatynsky (he is a winner of Ukrainian and international contests). I advise music admirers to remember his name.”