Roman Apollonovych Simovych (* 28 February 1901, Sniatyn, in the eponymous county of the Kingdom of Galicia and Volhynia as part of Austria-Hungary - † 1984, Lviv, USSR) was a Ukrainian composer, public figure, and teacher. Honoured Artist of Ukraine (1954), Professor of the Lviv State Conservatory (1963).
He was born on 28 February 1901 in the town of Sniatyn, now in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Three years later, the Simovych family moved to the town of Kitsman in the neighbouring Chernivtsi region, where his father worked as a gymnasium teacher. Here, the future composer received his primary and secondary education. His music studies, which began along with his general education, were rather unsystematic and then completely interrupted due to the events of the First World War.
After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Simovych returned to Sniatyn with his parents. Here he graduated from the gymnasium in 1919. He took an active part in the choral and drama clubs and continued to deepen his musical knowledge. This stage includes his first creative attempts, which, unfortunately, have not been preserved.
In 1921, Simowicz went to Berlin, where he entered the Higher School of Agronomy, graduating in 1925 and immediately entering the Krakow Conservatory in two specialities. During his years at the conservatory, he wrote several romances and piano pieces. In 1929, Roman Simovych moved to the Czech Republic and continued his studies at the Prague Conservatory, where he studied composition with O. Šín and the piano department, graduating in 1933. In addition, he graduated from the School of Higher Excellence in Prague with Professor Vitezslav Novak. His graduation work was the Carnival Overture for symphony orchestra.
After returning to his homeland in 1936-1939, Simovych taught piano and music theory at the Mykola Lysenko Music Institute in Drohobych, and later in Stanislaviv. This period includes a large number of his arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for choir, a sonata for piano, pieces for cello and violin, and the symphonic poem "To the Light". Already in this work, the composer tried to express the desire of the people of Western Ukraine for a free life, for joy and light.
In 1939-1942, Simovych worked as a music editor at the Radio Committee and as a teacher at the Stanislav Music School. During the years of German occupation, the composer's financial situation was very difficult. He moved to Lviv, where he began teaching at the Professional School.
A major turning point in R. Simovych's life came after the liberation of Lviv from Nazi occupation. The composer enthusiastically composed cheerful works of various genres. Already in his Sonatina for piano, composed in 1944, he skilfully uses the intonations of Ukrainian folk songs. All three movements of the work are based on rich folklore material. It is an important phenomenon that in the second half of the 40s Simovych switched to creating large musical forms and worked on them until the last days of his life.
R. Simovych completed his first "Hutsul Symphony" in May 1945. The everyday life of a person, his thoughts and feelings generated by the environment in which he finds himself - this is what lies at the heart of the symphony's figurative content. "Hutsul Symphony" is one of the few works by the composer where one can recognise specific Hutsul songs recorded by the author from an old Hutsul woman in the village of Kosmach. And the second symphony, which the composer called "Lemkivska", features colourful inflorescences of folk music from the Lemkivshchyna region. Here, one cannot recognise any specific folk songs at all, but one can immediately feel the peculiar aroma of Lemko art.
Already in these symphonies, especially in the Hutsul Symphony, the image of the Carpathian Mountains becomes one of the leading ones. Just as the mighty Dnipro River, sung in many works, evokes the majestic image of the Ukrainian people, so the Carpathians in Simovych's work are a personified image of freedom-loving people who originally settled on its slopes. A vivid confirmation of this is Roman Simovych's vocal and symphonic poem "In the Carpathians", written for choir and orchestra in 1949 to the lyrics of O. Yushchenko. At the same time as working on this vocal and symphonic poem, the composer was working on the final completion of the ballet "Dovbush's Piper", which he began in 1946. The libretto of Dovbush's Flute embodies a contemporary theme, the recent events of the war.
Roman Simovych also embodied his interesting findings in the field of symphonising Ukrainian folk dance, made while working on the ballet, in the symphonic suite Hutsulka. Parts of it are mainly Ukrainian folk dances: arkan, kolomyika, kozachok. They are based on original folk melodies masterfully developed by the composer.
Since 1945, Simovych has been teaching at the Mykola Lysenko Lviv State Conservatory instrumentalism, composition, and a number of other theoretical disciplines, such as harmony, solfege, and form analysis. The issues of instrumentation and the function of timbre in an orchestral score were in the centre of the artist's attention in his teaching. In 1951, he was awarded the title of associate professor. In the conservatory hall, where Professor (since 1963) Simovych held classes, there is an even, even gentle silence, he never raises his voice, never makes any remarks. Roman Apollonovych's students, and there were many of them during his 35 years of teaching, loved their teacher, just as he loved them. As the years passed, the grey-haired professor remembered not only the surnames but also the names of his students, and was always interested in their creative destiny.
But no matter how much time R. Simovych's teaching took up, his art remained the main thing in his life. In the early spring of 1950, Simovych began to write a new major work - his third symphony, which he named "Spring". At the same time, he composed the symphonic poem Dovbush.
Historical themes never ceased to interest the composer. Examples of this are the fourth symphony "Heroic", dedicated to Severin Nalyvaiko, the symphonic poem "Maksym Kryvonis", a piano fantasy that embodies the image of the fearless commander and courageous warrior Petro Sahaidachnyi. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ivan Franko's birth, the composer wrote a symphonic poem "In Memory of Ivan Franko", where the main theme is the melody of Mykola Lysenko's "Eternal Revolutionary".
In 1957, Roman Simovych composed another important work - the 5th Symphony entitled "Mountain". In 1959, he composed the cantata "Flower of Happiness and Freedom" based on the poems of Yurii Shkrumeliak. This work completes a certain period of the composer's work. During this period, R. Simovych's symphonic works are dominated by the genre principle, an optimistic, cheerful tone.
The works of the 60s and 70s reveal another, new facet of the composer's creative personality, a higher level of his outlook. This is the epic-dramatic line of symphonism, which is evident in the Sixth Symphony, and to a large extent in the Seventh Symphony and the "Pathetic Poem". These works are characterised by the dynamics of development, tension, and a wide symphonic scope. The themes - images - become active participants in the events: they grow to real tragedy, sometimes bend in grief, sometimes blossom with a kind human smile. It is the man, our contemporary, his fate with all the difficulties on the difficult path of search, with the joy of overcoming obstacles - this is the hero of Roman Simovych's works of recent years.
In 1984, the composer's heart stopped beating. Roman Simovych was buried at the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.
Musicological sources related to the work of R. Simovych are rather modest, most of them cannot be attributed to scientific research. A more detailed and in-depth approach to the composer's creative heritage can be found not in published articles, but in student theses of the Lviv National Music Academy. And now that the composer's son Ihor Simovych has left for permanent residence abroad, taking with him his father's entire archive of letters and manuscripts of his works, this problem will remain relevant for a long time.
He died in Lviv and was buried in field No. 5 of the Lychakiv Cemetery.
Works
Ballet "Dovbush's Flute" (1948, libretto by O. Herynovych).
7 symphonies:
Hutsul (1945);
Lemkivska (1947);
Spring (1951);
Heroic (1954);
Mountain (1955);
Sixth (1965);
Seventh (1972).
Symphonic poems:
Maksym Kryvonis;
Dovbush;
In memory of Ivan Franko.
Symphonic overtures, suites.
Concerto for flute and symphony orchestra (1953).
String quartet, two trios.
Works for piano: two sonatas, a sonatina, three suites, variations, a rondo, and a fantasy.
Works for violin and cello with piano.
Variations for harp.
Works for mixed choir with orchestra and unaccompanied.
