Ukrainian songwriter, composer, accordionist. He entered the history of musical Lviv as a composer of the light genre.
Biography
Born in Vienna on May 31, 1915. After the First World War, the family moved to Stry. He studied at the Law Faculty of Lviv University and at the Mykola Lysenko Higher Music Institute. He also graduated from the Consular Academy in Vienna. He knew several foreign languages.
Bohdan Vesolovskyi and "Yabtso-jazz" in Cherche
"Yabtsia" chapel. From left to right: Stepan Guminilovich, Anatol Kos, Leonid Yablonskyi, Bohdan Vesolovskyi
He started writing music at the age of 16, and at the age of 22 he wrote one of his most popular songs - "The Time Will Come". Already the first musical works brought glory to Bohdan Vesolovsky. In the 1930s, together with the violinist Leonid Yablonskyi (Yabtsyo) and the accordionist Anatol Kos-Anatolskyi, he was a member of the then popular youth band "Yablonskyi Jazz Band" ("Yabtsyo-Jazz"; the soloist was Iryna Yarosevych). The jazz band had great success at the parties of Lviv youth in the interwar period, in particular at corporate balls.
Having received his education, in December 1938 he left for Transcarpathia to participate in the development of Carpathian Ukraine. After the defeat of the Carpathian Sichovs, he emigrated to Vienna, where he later married Olena Zalizniak.
In Vienna during the Second World War, together with the composer Andrii Hnatyshin, he worked out the sheet music of Ukrainian folk songs for the publishing house of Boris Tyshchenko.
During the war, two sons were born to the Vesolovsky couple. In 1949, with the help of the Ukrainian community of Canada, the family moved to this country. He worked for the rest of his life in the Ukrainian editorial office of International Canadian Radio in Montreal.
In the late 1960s, he was allowed to visit Ukraine under the Canadian-Soviet exchange. Then he visited Lviv, met his relative Ostap Okhrimovych, visited the grave of Taras Shevchenko in Kanev. After returning to Canada, he died soon after (December 17, 1971). 20 years later, his wife fulfilled his will - the urn with the ashes of Bohdan Vesolovsky was buried in Strya in the family cemetery.
Family
Father Ostap Vesolovsky — born on September 20, 1872, p. Chesnyki, died March 1, 1929, Stryi
Mother Maria Okhrimovych (Vesolovska) — born on August 28, 1884, p. Hrabovets, died July 24, 1948, Drohobych, buried in Strya.
Wife Olena Vesolovska (Zaliznyak), born 1917, married February 27, 1941, Vienna
Son Ostap, born July 12, 1941, Vienna
Son Yuriy, born October 13, 1944, Vienna
Father-in-law Mykola Kindratovych Zaliznyak
Mother-in-law Zaliznyak-Okhrymovych Olena Yulianivna
Creative legacy of the composer
According to the songwriter, the immediate impetus that revealed his compositional talent was the lack of Ukrainian entertainment music. Polish music dominated at that time. It was possible to compete with her only in terms of quality.
The composer's song legacy includes more than 130 works. In the first (Lviv) period of creativity, they were written mainly in the genre of tango, foxtrot, light waltz. The content of the verse texts of these songs was mostly love lyrics. In the following years, the songs took on a bright civic sound ("Fly, a longing song" and "The Charm of the Carpathian Mountains").
In the post-war years, CDs with Vesolovsky's songs were released in Canada.
His songs were also performed in Ukraine, but as works of an "unknown author". Several songs were heard from the stage only at the end of the 1980s, performed by the band "Lvivske Retro".
In 1998, a disc was released with a recording of 15 songs by B. Vesolovsky performed by the singer Ostap Zorych. At the initiative of O. Zorych, with the financial support of Lydia Matiyashek-Chorna, 4 videotapes of Olena Vesolovska's memories of her husband were also filmed.
In 2001, with the participation of the composer's wife Olena Vesolovsky (Zaliznyak), the first collection of Vesolovsky's songs was published, which included 56 works.
The next step in returning Vesolovskyi's creative heritage to Ukraine was taken by Oleg Skrypka, who recorded two albums "My heart is vulnerable..." (2009) and "Zhorzhyna" (2011) based on the composer's musical materials found in Toronto.
B. Vesolovskyi's melody was used for the music design of Yu. Lukanov's documentary film "Stepan Bandera's Three Loves".
Tango "The time will come"
The most popular songs of the composer include the tango "There will come a time":
to look at you again
To shake with you one more time,
In the evening, as the stars shine in the sky,
In the autumn evening, as soon as the day has faded.
One more time to go together with you
Holding hands, as before,
In the woods along the paths in the sad autumn,
where we met for the first time a long time ago...
Chorus:
There will come a time when you will long for me,
There will come a time when you will remember our days,
Maybe then you will understand my love
And maybe you will be grateful to me for that love.
Look into your eyes
And listen to your words,
In the moonlight of a summer night
Listen to the nightingales singing.
Is it just a dream?
Are these only dreams?
Why, why is all hope gone
faded like a flower in spring
Chorus.
Tribute
2010 — a memorial plaque was opened in Stryi on the house where Bohdan Vesolovsky lived (11 Chornovola Ave.)
2013 — the book of the Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada, Ihor, is publishedOstash: Ihor Ostash. Bondi, or the return of Bohdan Vesolovskyi. — Ed. Maryna Hrymych. — K.: "Duliby", 2013. — 328 p. — ISBN 978-966-8910-73-9
2015 — commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bohdan Vesolovsky.
2015 — the annual International Festival of Ukrainian Retro Music named after Bohdan Vesolovsky was launched.
2016 — a series of concerts by B. Vesolovskyi, in particular, in Poltava, Kyiv, Lviv.
2022, October 15 - the premiere of the play "Lviv Tango" about the life and creative activity of Vesolovsky took place in the National Drama Theater named after Maria Zankovetska. The play also highlights the political activities of the musician and his love story.
