Ukrainian musician, bandura player, kobzar.
Biography.
He was born in Poltava region in the village of Hlynski, Opishnia parish, Zinkiv district.
At the age of 14, he became blind. Khvedir studied for quite a long time - 8 years with blind priests Vasyl Nazarenko and Dmytro Kocherha, from the latter he learned the dumas "Widow and Three Sons", "About a Sister and a Brother", and later three years in the orchestras of the Twardowski, Kochubei, and Abaz.
He learned a lot from the Sloboda torbanist Semen Chapla and bandura player Ivan Odnoroh. According to P. Martynovych, Khvedir Kholodnyi received the blessing of Havrylo Zelinsky (Vovk) himself and "sowed his bandura" (inherited it). The performance style of Hrytsenko-Kholodnyi combined the best aspects of kobza and bandura art of the nineteenth century. Kholodnyi's playing was admired by the most demanding noblemen, while blind singers were convinced that Khvedir was playing a "wicked man." Khvedor Kholodnyi's students were: Semen Skoryk (from Izium, Kharkiv oblast), Vasyl Parasochka (Kostiantynohrad), and Ivan Horodnytskyi (Kostiantynohrad). According to P. Martynovych, Khvedir Hrytsenko-Kholodnyi knew 8 dumas, 72 psalms, and several hundred songs.
There are very few written references to Fedir Kholodnyi (Hrytsenko), a kobzar who "had no equal and probably will not be equal" (V. Mishalov). It is known that he amazed the "listening heads" not only with his extremely expressive manner of singing, but also with his amazing playing technique (his contemporaries admired the "violin-like sound" of his forty-five-string bandura). "He is a good bandura player without number," kobzars used to say about him, "and it's a game, it's a game! He is a game with his spirit, and that's all. Fedir Hrytsenko received the pseudonym Kholodnyi because, outraged by people's indifference to the fate of the singers, he preferred "to shiver and freeze in the cold, to get wet in the rain, rather than to ask for help." (O. Slastion) Kholodnyi, unlike other less talented kobzars, was so poor that he could neither hire a guide nor find a shelter.
The kobzar Opanas Bar, enthusiastically telling Slastion about Hrytsenko-Kholodny's performance, assured him that he had never heard anything like it: "It was when he would sit down, when he would get tired, when he would cry, and everyone would follow him, and the coppers were like peas, they would just tr... tr... tr...". Bar said that Hrytsenko-Kholodnyi could play any Cossack's bandura with his bare feet.
"Kholodnyi was a very strange kobzar," Porfirii Martynovych wrote in a letter of August 3, 1932, to Hnat Khotkevych, "Sometimes when he played the bandura, the sounds merged into his, and his playing was like playing the violin, so that you could not hear the strumming! And he played the kobza as if his kobza was speaking, uttering words. It took my breath away when I first heard him! And when he asked me what I thought of his playing, I was silent for a long time because of the delight of the spirit, because of the great miracle, I could not say a word at once." Hrytsenko-Kholodnyi's playing made such a great impression on P. Martynovych, who had met many kobzars before him and was well versed in their art.
Despite his great talent, Hrytsenko-Kholodnyi did not like his art. "If I came across a quiet place," he said, "I would not play at all. It would be a disaster."
Only three dumas from Hrytsenko-Kholodny's repertoire were published: "About Ivas Konovchenko," "Poor Widow and Three Sons," and "Sister and Brother." Numerous recordings, such as the duma "Escape of Three Brothers from the City of Azov from Turkish Captivity," psalms, and songs, are kept in the archives of the Rylsky Institute of Art History, Folklore, and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Repertoire
He knew 8 dumas:
"About a Widow and Three Sons",
"About a Sister and a Brother",
"Escape of Three Brothers from Azov",
"Marusya Bohuslavka",
"The Samara Brothers",
"Oleksiy Popovych,
"Fesko Hanzha-Andyber.
Ivas Konovchenko.
He knew 72 psalms.
Pupils
The later famous kobzar Mykhailo Kravchenko studied with F. Hrytsenko-Kholodny.
