Ukrainian composer, pianist and music critic. Son of Ostap Yosypovych Nyzhankivskyi.
Biography.
Nestor Nyzhankivskyi was born on August 31, 1893 in Berezhany in the family of composer, conductor, and Greek Catholic priest Ostap Nyzhankivskyi. He completed his secondary education in Stryi, studying at a gymnasium. Then he studied at the Mykola Lysenko Higher Music Institute in Lviv.
He was married to Melania Semaka, who spent his entire life with him.
Nyzhankivsky developed his compositional skills in exile at the Vienna Academy of Music (class of J. Marx), from which he graduated with a doctorate in philosophy.
During the First World War, he was drafted into the army, taken prisoner, and returned in 1918. Later, Nyzhankivsky studied at the Prague Conservatory with Vitezslav Novak, graduating in 1926 with the composition of the E minor Piano Trio.
In 1928, Nyzhankivsky became involved in the musical process in Western Ukraine, taking a position as a lecturer at the Mykola Lysenko Higher Music Institute in Lviv.
The composer was a member of the musicology section of the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society, a music critic for the Ukrainian Newspaper, and a co-organizer and first chairman of the Union of Ukrainian Professional Musicians (SUPROM).
Nestor Nyzhankivsky died on April 10, 1940, in Lodz (Poland), where he was buried.
In November 1993, Nestor Nyzhankivsky's ashes were reburied in the cemetery of Stryi, not far from his parents' tomb.
Creativity.
The sophistication and variety of lyrical images make Nyzhankivsky the composer similar to Vasyl Barvinsky (there is a certain similarity in the types of piano texture, full-sounding and at the same time transparent, in harmonic means, generally not complicated, but endowed with a certain sharpness and richness of sound, boldness of tonal comparisons). Most of his romances ("Rye" and "Come, Come" based on lyrics by Oleksandr Oles, "Dreaming of Me" based on lyrics by Bohdan Lepkyi), as well as piano pieces such as "Waltz", "Intermezzo", "Memory", and the poetic chorus "Tick" based on lyrics by M. Obidnyi are indicative of this.
Nyzhankivsky's imaginative horizons were not limited to music. From the beginning of 1920, epic expressiveness became more and more prominent in his music, in particular in the solo song "Play, Trembita" to the words of Roman Kupchynsky. The pinnacle of epic content was his choral poem "The Hireling" to the words of Ivan Franko (1933), written under the influence of Stanislav Liudkevych's cantatas. This work became part of the treasury of the spiritual heritage of the Ukrainian people. In it, the composer reflected the dream of Ukrainians about the future freedom for everyone with musical means.
Nyzhankivsky's work for theatrical performances was also successful, in particular his music for Yuriy Kosach's comedy Kirke z L'olei, which was staged in 1938 by the Ivan Kotliarevsky Theater in Lviv. One of the reviewers wrote: "...Nestor Nyzhankivsky gave a sample of really good, well-thought-out, illustrated music. For it is light in form, uncomplicated, and simple in concepts, but completely convincing and characteristic of the composer and the comedy itself. Here we meet a well-solved problem of the so-called light and yet artistic music..."
The composer Nyzhankivsky's oeuvre also includes works for children: "March of Sparrows," "Old Ukrainian Song," "Kolomyika," "Ivasko Plays the Chello," and "Gavotte Dolls." The composer also worked on arrangements of folk and rifle songs: "Why are you to me, dear girl", "Oh, the wild cherry blossomed", "Oh, in the field", "About Nechai", "Oh, there behind the mountain", "Come, come", "Sad, trembita".
He also went down in the history of Ukrainian music as a pianist and music critic.
