Ivan Ostapovych Khandoshko (Russian: Иван Евстафьевич Ханьошкин) - (1747-1804), Ukrainian violin virtuoso, composer and teacher. The founder of the Russian violin school. During his lifetime, he was a popular figure in wide circles of the Russian community.
Ivan Khandoshko was a Ukrainian. Ivan's father Ostap Lukianovych Khandoshko (Khandoshko is a family name) was born in the village of Pereviz, Myrhorod Regiment, and in 1730, Pavlo Ivanovych Apostol, a relative of Hetman Danylo Apostol, was brought to St. Petersburg by Pavlo Ivanovych Apostol, an ensign of the Preobrazhenskyi Regiment.
The surname "Khandoshko" or "Khandozhko" is quite common in Ukraine even today. In the seventeenth century, this was the name of the serfs and Cossacks who looked after horses in manor farms and military units, their main task was "handozhzhia", i.e. horse cleaning.
Ivan Khandoshko's phenomenal musical abilities were manifested in his early childhood. From the age of six, Ivan studied the art of playing the violin with the Italian violin virtuoso Tito Porta, and in October 1760 he was officially enrolled as a student of the orchestra of the Grand Duke, later Emperor Peter III. After the assassination of Peter III as a result of a palace coup by Catherine II, on 1 July 1762, Ivan Khandoshko was enrolled as a violinist at the court theatre, and from 15 March 1764 he was already teaching violin at the Academy of Arts.
There is no documentary evidence about the life and work of Ivan Handoshko between 1764 and 1772. However, it was during this period that his intensive performing and composing activity began and it was during these years that he created his famous violin sonatas, one of which, namely the G minor (as some musicologists believe) was written "on the death of Mirowicz". The tragic first movement of the sonata ends with a funeral march, which gives grounds to conclude that this music has a certain encrypted programming.
Khandoshko's performing skills were comprehensive and impeccable; according to researchers, he played "in Catherine's chambers, in the boyars' chambers, and in the squares". According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, his playing was marked by unsurpassed technique and at the same time "no one could refrain from tears" when he played slow lyrical or dramatic music. Khandoshko was a brilliant improviser and in concerts open to the public, competitions in which the best European violinists took part, Khandoshko always won. It was his brilliant performance skills that became the basis of Handoshko's compositional work.
In the 80s, Prince Hryhorii Potemkin (the closest person to Catherine II at that time) became the most influential admirer of Khandoshko's music and performance skills. It was at Potemkin's request that decrees were signed granting the musician the court rank of mundshenka (cupbearer), a patent for the rank of captain, and appointing him director of the newly opened Yekaterinoslav Academy of Music. Khandoshko's appointment to Yekaterinoslav was connected with both his musical authority and his Ukrainian origins.
After the death of G. Potemkin (1739-1791), Khandoshko's financial situation deteriorated sharply. Platon Zubov, a new favourite of Catherine II, treated Khandoshko with ill-will, and Giuseppe Sarti, who replaced Khandoshko as director of the Ekaterinoslav Academy of Music, considered him a dangerous competitor.
Trying to publish his compositions (and the publication of sheet music was extremely expensive), Handoshko owed a large sum of money and found himself in serious financial difficulties. On 18 March 1804, he died of a heart attack "when he came to his study for his pension".
Ivan Khandoshko was buried in the Kazan Cathedral and was buried at the Volkovo Cemetery.
Creativity
The fate of most of Handoshko's creative heritage is unknown. Only a small number of his sonatas and variations have been published.
Of the compositions by the master associated with Ukrainian folklore, only: "Kozachok with 21 Variations for solo piano", "12 Variations in D major for solo violin on the theme of the song "Mowers went out into the field" and "12 Variations in F major for violin with bass accompaniment on the theme of the dance "Kozachok".
Until recently, the question of Ivan Handoshko as a Ukrainian composer did not arise at all, although as early as 1850 the famous writer Fedir Koni noted: "Do we know anything about the Little Russian artist Handoshka, the great violinist who charmed Catherine's court? Meanwhile, Handoshka wrote and published up to a hundred compositions for the violin. Today, these works are archaeological rarities."
We can proudly add the glorious name of Ivan Handoshko, a Ukrainian from Poltava region, to a number of great names of Ukrainian artists who lived and worked in the capital of the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century: Dmytro Bortnyansky, Maksym Berezovsky, Marko Poltoratsky, Anton Losenko, Tymofii, Osyp and Yelyzaveta Bilohradsky, Ivan Martos, Dmytro Levytsky, Tymofii Bublychenko, Volodymyr Borovykovsky, Artemii Vedel, Mykola Dyletsky, Semen Pekalytsky, Ivan Domaratsky, Vasyl Pashkevych, Stepan Davydiv, Stepan Degtyarevsky.
Ivan Handoshko's sonata "On the Death of Mirowicz" was performed for the first time after the author's death on 9 September 2008 in Torun (Poland) by contemporary Ukrainian violinist Dmytro Tkachenko.
Achievements.
Handoshko composed over 100 works for violin and three sonatas. His works were published in the 18th century by I. D. Gerstenberg and later by F. T. Stellovsky.
He was the first violin teacher at the Academy of Arts.
In addition to the violin, he played the guitar and balalaika.
The composer Mykhailo Goldstein dedicated his "Handoshko Concerto for Violin and Orchestra" to the violinist.
His works include
"Sensual aria" for solo viola
Variations on Russian folk songs
Duet for violin and viola
Sonata for solo violin in E flat major, Op. 3 No. 2
Sonata for solo violin in D major, Op. 3 No. 3
Sonata for solo violin in G minor, Op. 3 No. 1
Concerto for viola and orchestra
