Levko Revutskyi (8 (20) February 1889, Irzhavets, Pryluky district, Poltava province, Russian Empire - 30 March 1977, Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) was a Ukrainian composer, teacher, musician and public figure. Doctor of Art History (1941), Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1957), Honoured Artist of the USSR (1941), People's Artist of the USSR (1944), Hero of Socialist Labour (1969), laureate of the USSR State Prize (1941), Taras Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR (1966). Member of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR of the 2nd-5th convocations.
He was born on 8 (20) February 1889 in the village of Irzhavets in the family of an honorary citizen.
His father, Mykola Havrylovych, had a good bass voice and sometimes sang some of the repertoire for this voice and played the violin to the accompaniment of his wife; his mother, Oleksandra Dmytrivna (maiden name Kanevska) (1844, Kyiv - 1906), was a schoolteacher in the village of Irzhavets and a folklorist before her marriage. She was fluent in French and German and received her musical education at the boarding school for young ladies in the village of Rymarivtsi, Hadiach district, from the German teacher Blumel. She played the piano (performed Chopin's works and Beethoven's sonatas) and collected local song folklore. In 1880, she married Mykola Revutskyi. She corresponded with Leo Tolstoy about the organisation of education in a village school. In 1930, Dmytro Revutskyi transferred these materials to the Yasna Poliana Museum. When Leo Tolstoy was in Bakhmach at the estate of the artist Mykola Ge, they met in person.
The mother's grandfather, Dmytro Kanovskyi, was a military officer who retired as a staff-rotmist of the Kharkiv Ulan Regiment and settled in Irzhavka.
Early years
According to the composer himself, at the age of four he learnt music, he had an absolute ear, for which he was jokingly nicknamed Camerton, and from the age of five he studied piano. From 1898, Revutskyi and his older brother Dmytro studied at the Pryluky Gymnasium. During these years, he became acquainted with the masterpieces of world and Ukrainian literature, in particular, during concerts Revutskyi performed excerpts from Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
In 1903, he was enrolled in the Gottlieb Walker Private Gymnasium in Kyiv and, at the same time, in the Mykola Tutkovsky Music School. There he studied piano with Mykola Lysenko. He graduated from the Mykola Lysenko Music and Drama School. From 1907, he studied law at Kyiv University. His first works for the piano were composed at that time: a sonata, preludes, waltzes and a concerto for piano and orchestra.
In 1913-1916, he studied composition at the Kyiv Conservatory in the composition class of R. Glière and the piano class of S. Korotkevych and H. Khodorovsky. In 1916, Revutskyi graduated from the Conservatory and Kyiv University (Faculty of Law) at the same time.
Although Lev Mykolaiovych was educated at the seminary, he did not work as a priest: he was a village teacher. On behalf of the Zemstvo, he conducted regular observations at the meteorological station, systematically preparing various charts and statistics.
Pre-war years
In 1916-1918 he was in the army, in 1919-1924 he taught at school and directed village choirs in Irzhavka and Pryluky. During this period, he composed the cantata "The Shawl". In 1924, he was a teacher at the Mykola Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kyiv, from 1933 he was the head of the Department of Composition and Music Theory at the Kyiv Conservatory, and from 1935 he was a professor.
Sharply criticised for his Piano Concerto (1934), Revutsky limited his compositional work, focusing almost exclusively on his professorship, editing earlier works, and public activities in the Union of Soviet Composers of Ukraine. He was a member of the organising bureau of the Union of Soviet Composers of Ukraine (1932-1939), the organising committee of the USSR (1939-1948), and the chairman of the board of the Union of Soviet Composers of Ukraine (1944-1948).
Post-war years
During the Second World War, he was the head of the Department of Composition, Theory and History of Music at the Tashkent State Conservatory of the Uzbek SSR. After the war, he returned to Kyiv and continued teaching until 1960 (among his students: Ihor Khutoryansky.
He was elected a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of several convocations. The 1950s saw a huge amount of work on editing and preparing for publication of M. Lysenko's works, which was successfully completed. In February 1969, on the occasion of his 80th birthday and for his outstanding creative achievements, Lev Revutsky was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour.
He died on 30 March 1977 and was buried at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.
The musical works of Levko Revutskyi
Revutsky composed works of large musical forms: a sonata for piano, two symphonies (the second on the themes of Ukrainian folk songs in 1926, revised in 1940, one of Revutsky's best works), two piano concertos. These works were written with a fine knowledge of the performing apparatus, among the first in Ukrainian musical literature. Also in smaller works (piano preludes, works for violin and cello with piano) Revutsky is very original in the freshness of his musical language and technical techniques. Among his vocal works, the cantata "Khustyna" is notable, as well as his beautiful arrangements of folk songs for voice and piano, in which the piano parts are especially interesting, interpreted through and through independently (separate collections "Galician Songs", "Sunshine", "Cossack and Historical Songs").
Lev Revutsky creatively developed the methods of Lysenko and Leontovych, which consisted in the inseparable merger of musical folklore with the achievements of harmonic thinking of the late nineteenth century. He enriched Ukrainian music with individual stylistic discoveries. L. Revutsky's compositional style was formed on the basis of a deep and comprehensive knowledge of national folk melodies and the transformation of the traditions of modern professional music. The artist's works are characterised by a life-affirming mood, lyricism, restraint, breadth and richness of emotions. The measured, expressive melody is combined with intense complex harmony. L. Revutsky revealed reality in both lyrical and dramatic, and lyrical and epic keys. His works are included in the golden fund of Ukrainian classical music (his Second Symphony and Piano Concerto are the first significant works of these genres in Ukrainian music). L. Revutsky also made a significant contribution to the development of the genre of folk song arrangements. His creative heritage includes about 120 original arrangements.
The significance of Levko Revutsky's creative activity
Together with B. Liatoshynskyi, Revutskyi is considered to be the most influential figure of Ukrainian musical culture of his era. The graduates of his class were M. Dremliuha, V. Homolyaka, O. Andreyeva, H. Zhukovsky, H. Maiboroda and P. Maiboroda, V. Kireiko, A. Filipenko, S. Zhdanov, A. Kolomiets, O. Znosko-Borovsky, L. Levytova, H. Miretsky, V. Rozhdestvensky, L. Hrabovsky, and others.
Revutskyi did much to popularise the works of Mykola Lysenko. He was the editor of the 20-volume collection of works by M. Lysenko, and made a fundamental edition of the opera Taras Bulba. L. Revutskyi also edited V. Kosenko's Piano Concerto.
Honouring him
Musical groups and institutions are named after Revutsky, including the Municipal Academic Men's Choir named after L. Revutsky, a music school in Chernihiv, a secondary school in Irzhavtsi, a children's music school No. 5 in Kyiv, and a steamer on the Dnipro River. Streets in Kyiv and Lviv are named after L. Revutsky. Every year, at the end of February, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine awards the L. Revutskyi Prize. The Museum-Estate of L. Revutsky and D. Revutsky operates in the village of Irzhavets.
Creative contribution
Vocal and symphonic works
cantata-poem "Shawl" (words by Taras Shevchenko, 1923, 2nd ed. 1944);
"Ode to a Song" (lyrics by M. Rylsky, 1956);
"Winter" (lyrics by O. Oles, 1924);
for voice and orchestra
"The Monologue of Taras Bulba" (lyrics by M. Rylsky based on the story by N. Gogol, 1956);
four Ukrainian folk songs - "Chervona Ruzha", "A Cossack was Riding" (1928), "Ta oy kryklyly zhuravly", "Hear, my brother" (1959), etc;
for symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 1, parts 1 and 3 (1916-1920, 2nd ed. of the 1st part, 1957);
Symphony No. 2 (1927, 2nd ed. 1940);
Kozachok (1936);
Overture to the opera Taras Bulba by Mykola Lysenko (1952);
for piano and orchestra
Concerto (1934, last revision 1963);
chamber ensembles
Intermezzo for violin and piano (1955);
Ballad for cello and piano;
for piano Sonata, 7 preludes, etudes, song, humourous piece, canon, waltz, 2 etudes, children's pieces, transcriptions;
for voice and piano
"Well, tell me" (words by Khomenko, 1923);
"The Thought of the Three Winds" (lyrics by P. Tychyna, 1925);
"Where are those words" (lyrics by O. Oles);
"Millet is Mown" (lyrics by M. Rylsky);
"Silence" (lyrics by the author), etc;
for unaccompanied choir - "On the rivers there is a circle of Babylon", "I went to the crossroads", "Oh, why are you blackened" (all on the words of Taras Shevchenko), etc;
for choir and piano
five Ukrainian folk songs;
three spring songs;
choirs for children and youth, etc.
arrangements of folk songs (over 120), including:
cycles for voice and piano - "Cossack Songs" (1925), "Galician Songs" (1926), "Songs for Low Voice" (1925-1927), "Songs for Medium Voice" (1925-1943), "Songs for High Voice" (1925-1947);
for mixed choir - "I washed my face on the masonry", "Grandfather is coming", "A rifleman was going to war", "Jewish folk songs" (1934), "Balkan folk songs" (1934), etc;
a collection of arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for children "Sunshine" (1925); songs - "From behind the mountains and from behind the high ones" (lyrics by M. Rylsky), etc;
Other
music for theatre performances, films ("Earth", "Steppe Songs"), radio broadcasts;
edition of the 1st part of the Piano Concerto with orchestra by V. Kosenko. V. Kosenko;
fundamental edition and addition of a number of numbers of the opera "Taras Bulba" by M. Lysenko.
Literary works
Autobiographical notes // Soviet music. - 1939. - No. 1;
Education of composer youth // Art. - 1956. - No. 1;
Lysenko's strings are alive // Art. - 1967. - № 4 and others.
Family
See more: Revutsky family
Son - Yevhen Revutskyi, a participant of the Second World War, was seriously wounded, was on the verge of death, later - Doctor of Medicine.
Brother - Dmytro Revutskyi, Ukrainian musicologist, folklorist and musician.
Nephew - Valerian Revutskyi, Ukrainian theatre critic, teacher and theatre critic.
A relative (cousin of Hanna Pavlivna, Levko Revutskyi's maternal grandmother) - Oleksa Storozhenko, Ukrainian writer, ethnographer, playwright.
A distant relative (Levko Revutskyi's fifth cousin) is Mykola Storozhenko, a Ukrainian literary historian.
