Yukhym (Yefym) Holyshev (English: Golyscheff, Golyschev, Golishiff, Golishev, 8 (20) September 1897, Kherson - 25 September 1970, Paris) was a Ukrainian composer, violinist, and artist. He was one of the first well-known and recognized composers of the dodecaphonic movement.
He was born on September 8 (20), 1897 (according to some sources, 1885) in Kherson to a Ukrainian Jewish family. He studied violin at the Odesa Art School. As a violinist, he took part in the Odesa Symphony Orchestra's tour of Russia, Poland, and Romania.
In 1909, together with his parents, he fled to Berlin to escape the Jewish pogroms incited by the Russian government. There he studied violin at the Stern Conservatory. At the same time, he became acquainted with the ideas of Ferruccio Busoni and the Italian Futurists. In 1914, Yukhym Golyshev composed a string trio called Zwölftondauer-Komplexe, which became one of the first pieces of music in the world to be written in the dodecaphonic technique.
After the end of the First World War, he became close to the Dadaist community and co-founded the November Group. In 1921, the first public performance of a dodecaphonic work for a symphony orchestra, the symphonic poem "Ice Song" by Yukhym Golyshev, became an event in the cultural life of Europe.
After the Nazis came to power in Germany, he left for Portugal and later Brazil. He returned to Europe at the end of his life. Since 1966, he lived permanently in Paris, where he died on September 25, 1970.
Characteristics of his work
Music played a leading role only in the early period of his life, until about the mid-1920s, when it was replaced by a passion for the visual arts. Nevertheless, this short period of time was enough for him to realize two significant things for the history of twentieth-century music: the composition of almost the first work in the "pure" twelve-tone technique - the String Trio (1914), and the premiere of the first dodecaphonic work for symphony orchestra - The Ice Song (1920). Unfortunately, the latter score was lost, so now there is no way to truly appreciate the merits of Yuri Golyshev's dodecaphonic technique.
The same story is typical of all other works by the composer, with the exception of the String Trio, the only work by Yuri Golyshev published by Schlesinger in 1925. Such an unfavorable situation does not allow us to speak accurately enough about the composer's style of music, its characteristic features, which puts him in the stream of music history simply as "one of the first" who worked in the pre-decaphonic direction.
String Trio (1914)
The 1925 edition of the String Trio has an interesting author's subtitle: "Zwölftondauer-Komplexe" (literally "a complex of twelve tones and durations"). The attempt to organize not only one parameter - pitch - but also the rhythmic component of the musical work shows the foresight of the composer's experiment, since A. Webern came to the same method of implementing the serial technique twenty years later, without having time to complete these endeavors due to his tragic death. The composers of the "second wave" of the avant-garde in the 1950s would turn to the same path at the initial stage of their work.
Titles of the movements of the String Trio (1914):
Mezzo-forte
Fortissimo
Piano
Pianissimo
Adagio
As we can see, the titles of four of the five movements of the cycle characterize the dynamics of each of them. This decision reflects Yuri Golyshev's avant-garde position, which later fully manifested itself in his work as an artist.
The interpretation of sound complexes and their use is something in between the classical version of dodecaphony and the system of synthetic chords by M. Roslavets.
The use of all twelve tones of the chromatic system in one musical passage is accompanied by a constant change of these complexes, and, as in M. Roslavets' technique, there is no clearly defined order of use (appearance) of these twelve tones. Such a vision of twelve-tone is typical of the early perception of dodecaphony as an extended variant of tonality.
Another sign of the traditional interpretation of the new system is the numerous uses of exact imitation by different instruments in the work, which "broke" the rational nature of these constructions. It is worth noting that in parallel with this way of further developing the theory of pitch relations, there was an opposite one, embodied in the early serial works of A. Webern, where the main thing was the use of one series throughout the work, the number of sounds in the series was initially not so important and could even be three or four sounds. However, signs of serialism are still present in the String Trio.
In the second part of the work, the twelve-sound complex is conditionally divided into three tetrachords, which are alternately played in three instruments with certain changes: in crayfish movement, in inversion:
A similar combination of tradition and innovation is present in the rhythm of the String Trio. From the very beginning, Yuri Golyshev uses the same principle of organization: he chooses twelve durations that do not repeat within the same complex. However, with one significant difference. The chromatic system is still limited to only twelve sounds, which contributes to a certain sound characteristic of all twelve-tone music, regardless of the order of the sounds in the series.
As for the rhythm, even from the generally accepted "set" of durations from the whole to the thirty-second, together with the leagues, many variants of durations can be derived, so the choice of rhythmic units in each set of the String Trio is arbitrary. We offer a summary table of the first complex of pitches and durations, which is presented in his dissertation by J. Weaver[2]:
As we can see, the first rhythmic complex also has twelve values (corresponding to each of the twelve sounds). However, this ratio will not be maintained throughout the work: the second complex has only eight different rhythmic values, which is the result of imitation, as well as a sustained chord in all three instruments within the complex:
The correlation between the first and second rhythmic complexes in the V movement is interesting. Here, one can observe the identity of the duration ratios of the two complexes if they are arranged in order from longer to shorter or vice versa (this would be the only way to artificially organize them for analytical purposes, since, as mentioned above, Yuri Golyshev uses the elements of the complex in an arbitrary order).
From this finding, we can conclude that the second complex is derived from the first.
As we can see, the titles of four of the five parts of the cycle are a characterization of the dynamics of each of them. This decision reflects Yurii Holyshev's avant-garde position, which after a while fully manifested itself in his work as an artist.
Unfortunately, history has not preserved the rest of Yuri Golyshev's works, so it is difficult to determine the further direction of movement as a composer in the field of twelve-tone music. But, despite this, we can safely consider his String Trio as an important stage in the formation of dodecaphony, especially since its author anticipated some of the achievements of the masters of the Novovidenskaya school a decade ahead.
Creative achievements
Chamber and instrumental ensembles
String Trio (1914)
For symphony orchestra
"Ice Songs" (1920)
