Lviv marks the Kolessa Days throughout December
The atmosphere was mesmerizing and sound elevating, when both the packed audience and those onstage sang “Mnohaya Lita” [Long life] as part of the celebration of the centennial of Mykola Kolessa, the patriarch of the Ukrainian art of composing and conducting, Hero of Ukraine, academician, professor, laureate of the State Taras Shevchenko Prize, and chevalier of the Order For Merit. His numerous friends and disciples gathered to greet him. Among his disciples is the whole teacher staff of the Lviv Conservatory and virtually all of its graduates — even those who did not attend Kolessa’s lectures, but were nonetheless influenced by his unique personality, because they had heard the music that came from his soul and walked the narrow streets to the conservatoire, treading those cobblestones that Kolessa once trod. He was the last of the Mohicans, a human epoch, an intellectual of the old school of whom there are no more today. Thus, whatever compliments you can think of will be inadequate, belittling, and banal. To write about him, one has to live up to him.
It baffles the imagination: when still a child Mykola Kolessa would stand near the door to his father’s study and eavesdrop on Ivan Franko singing. His father, Filaret Kolessa, would jot down song lyrics as he sang. Since his childhood, Mykola was friends with Sviatoslav Hordynsky, who soon became a noted painter and poet; with Ivan and Taras Krushelnytsky, who were executed in the 1930s in Kyiv; with painter and art critic Volodymyr Lasovsky. At the gymnasium he was taught history by Ivan Krypyakevych and Ukrainian literature by Stanislav Liudkevych. Later they for many years worked at the conservatory and both were blessed to live to celebrate their centennials. It was Kolessa who directed the orchestra during the celebration of Liudkevych’s centennial. Meanwhile, Kolessa’s grandson directed the orchestra at his centennial.
When his parents learned that Mykola wanted to be a musician, they were appalled. After all, they intended him for a medical career, as nobody lived off music alone in Halychyna in those days. An obedient son, Mykola went to pursue his education in Krakow, but by a whim of fate he attended a concert at the Krakow Opera. After listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony he had a change of heart: only music, he decided. Luckily, his father understood him. Their family was famous for many outstanding creative figures, to whom Ukraine owes its fame. His father, Filaret Kolessa, was a self-educated musician, connoisseur and collector of folk music; uncle Oleksandr established the Free Ukrainian University in Prague and was a close friend of first Czechoslovak President Tomas Garrigue Masaryk; cousin Liuba Kolessa was a famous pianist; his uncle once removed Modest Mentsynsky is still considered the best Ukrainian tenor.
What did Mykola Kolessa accomplish? He offered up his life on the altar of professional music, following in the footsteps of Stanislav Liudkevych and Oleksandr Barvinsky. He founded the Lviv school of the conductor’s art, served as artistic director of the Trembita Choir, directed the symphony orchestras of the Lviv Philharmonic and Lviv Opera. He is also credited with being the first Ukrainian modernist, for in his creative work he stood with both feet firmly on Ukrainian soil while espying the whole world. New melodies still keep coming to him. Unfortunately, he cannot write them down himself due to failing eyesight and the tremor in his hands. And only his memory and lucid mind never fail him. Thankfully, his granddaughter sent him a CD with his vocal pieces from 20 and 25 years before. He can listen to music or newspaper articles read aloud for him. He still likes to puff on one of the pipes from his collection once a day and perhaps drink some coffee, although not as strong as before. He liked so much to stop by at the George Hotel, a venue for the creative intelligentsia, and have a cup of coffee with one of his friends.
Longevity has its great hidden secret. It is not bestowed on the vain, the evil, the jealous, nor on those with burdened conscience who gnaw at them from within. Many consider it a gift for virtue, creative and noble impulses combined with a simple lifestyle. Perhaps this is true. In addition, one must be able to relish and preserve in memory certain heartwarming details: a Christmas at home — the smell of candles and kutia; a honeymoon with one’s young wife in the Carpathians; the prattle of three daughters; the sound of whooshing wind when he was riding his favorite French bicycle bought before World War I at a Krakow flea market for 100 z л lotys. Since he was thirty and until now he has had only one bicycle. Moreover, he would ride it almost until his ninetieth birthday.
Interestingly, he stays amazingly loyal not only to people, but also to objects. An old grand piano, bought while under “the first Bolsheviks,” still stands in his room. Kolessa says all of his major works have been created at this piano, in this very room.
When I first came to interview Mykola Kolessa, I was very nervous. It was fifteen years ago, and he himself opened the door to let me in. In the corridor my purse caught in the old bicycle, and I almost turned it over. He then apologized for a long time, even though he did not have to, as I always keep hitting or forgetting things. The next day he called to say I had forgot my pencil and wondered if I might need it. In my long life as a journalist I lost countless pencils and pens, sometimes very expensive ones, but not once did anyone call to return one.
Perhaps nobody will ever greet people the way he did, bowing and tipping his hat — and walk, briskly swinging the cane to match each step “for decoration,” as he likes to say, and nobody was ever on time.
Yet once he was late. He violated a curfew in the town were he was directing a choir as a moonlighting job. It was World War II. He heard German soldiers shouting, whistling, and had to run for his life. Perhaps they would have shot him dead had they caught him. But the Lord saved him.
I heard many people say, “It is strange that he has survived so many wars and lived and worked under so many governments, but didn’t besmirch his name. Yet Kolessa himself knows what it cost him to remain true to himself. At the celebration of the maestro’s centennial at the Lviv Opera, Myroslav Skoryk confessed, “I owe him a lot, perhaps more than I owe anyone else. When in 1955 I returned from Siberian exile, he wasn’t afraid to enroll me in the conservatory. Later he himself prepared my cantata, Spring, composed for a poem by Franko as my diploma work.”
He served as the conservatory rector from 1953 through 1965 in the relatively calm years of the Khrushchev thaw. Before that he was also castigated for his non-proletarian parentage and formalism in his creative work.
“There was one important period in my life. Those on top demanded that we create music ‘that people would understand.’ Among others, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian suffered as a result. In each conservatory they would find local formalists and berate them at meetings. In our conservatory, I and Roman Symovych were upbraided. I’m not militant by nature, and don’t know how to defend myself. But then I tried. Perhaps because I was tightlipped at the previous meeting, when Vasyl Barvinsky, whom I deeply respected and loved, was censured. But the times were such that I had to sit still and keep silent while everybody was berating him. I wasn’t asked to speak, and I didn’t venture to. These were horrible times... Then Barvinsky was arrested. And soon it was our turn. At that second meeting I tried to defend myself. I couldn’t recover from the mental trauma long after that day. It had an impact on my further creative work.”
Did he avoid composing pieces that were ordered from the top and how? He would abstract his mind from the lyrics and simply compose music: “For example, I have a song about a collective farm girl. If you take away the words, the melody isn’t bad.”
When you listen to his music, you get the impression that you are in the thick of the Carpathians on a windswept mountaintop, or rafting down a mountain river. It exudes something sincere, true, and immortal. It is no accident that he received a replica of the collection of Scythian gold from the president of Ukraine and an Order of Yaroslav the Wise of the Fifth Degree (however, nobody could understand why fifth degree).
Meanwhile, the Lviv community, filled with love and respect for Mykola Kolessa, organized the Kolessa Days that will last throughout December until the St. Nicholas’ Day. They kicked off with the First International Festival of Conductor Art named for Mykola Kolessa to be followed by concerts in the Opera and Philharmonic, exhibitions, numerous meetings, and presentations of books dedicated to the maestro.
During the ceremony, the birthday boy rose to his feet and said in an unexpectedly strong and firm voice: “These are the most thrilling moments I have ever experienced in my life. I feel good. I feel happy, even though I’m a some hundred years old.”
