Romanian composer, teacher, choirmaster, musician and public figure of Ukrainian origin. He was the author of choral works, romances, songs, arrangements of Romanian and Moldovan folk songs, piano arrangements of folk melodies, harmonized and translated ancient church songs into modern notation. Muzychenko's name was given to the Chisinau Institute of Arts (now the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts of the Republic of Moldova).
Biography
Gabriel Muzychenko was born to Vakula Onysymovych and Varvara Danylivna Muzychenko in Izmail on March 20, 1847.
Postage stamp of Moldova, 1997
From childhood he sang in a choir, then after graduating from the seminary and conservatory in Iasi, he was appointed a teacher of singing at the Izmail seminary. At the seminary, he met his destined one, the daughter of vocal professor Vasyl Mandinescu.
In 1871, Muzychenko entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory and was admitted to the Imperial Chapel. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1872. After graduation, he was offered to stay at the royal court and take the post of conductor of the Cathedral Chapel of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Muzychenko refused this offer and returned to Izmail. After that, a denunciation was written against him: "In disgrace. He dared to refuse himself." The doors of the houses whose owners once considered it an honor to host a celebrity are closed on him.
After two years of wandering without work, Muzychenko is forced to leave for Romania.
After passing the competition in Bucharest, Gabriel Muzychenko held the position of head of the Department of Music Theory at the Iași Conservatory. In 1901, he became its director.
In 1876-1903, Gabriel Muzychenko was the director of the Metropolitan Choir in Iasi.
Gabriel Muzychenko died on December 8, 1903 in Jassy and was buried in the city cemetery of Eternitate.
Achievements.
Gabriel Muzychenko was the first to write church music with Romanian texts and harmonize Romanian church chants, and he laid the foundation for Romanian professional choral art. He translated many church music books from Greek notation to the five-line, Western European notation system. His efforts introduced music classes in private and governmental educational institutions in Romania. Muzychenko wrote an elementary music theory in Romanian. Muzychenko's compositional activity is devoted mainly to sacred music.
Gabriel Muzychenko is the author of eleven volumes of church hymns and liturgies, three choral concertos with a developed polyphonic structure, 25 school choirs and textbooks, a number of piano arrangements of folk melodies, choral arrangements of Ukrainian, Romanian, Moldavian, Bulgarian and Gagauz songs.
In 1889, Gabriel Muzychenko's collection "12 Folk Melodies Harmonized and Arranged for Choir and Orchestra" was awarded the Gold Medal at the International Exhibition in Paris. The "Practical Course in Vocal Music" is still considered a masterpiece of combining scholarship and accessibility for learning.
Honoring the memory
After the death of Gabriel Muzychenko, a street was named after him in Yassa.
A bust of Gabriel Muzychenko was erected at the entrance to the National Conservatory of Moldova (now the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts of the Republic of Moldova), which bore his name for half a century.
In his native Izmail, there is also a street named after Gabriel Muzychenko.
