DATELINE NEW YORK: The bells ring out (02/22/98)

DATELINE NEW YORK: The bells ring out

by Helen Smindak

This is carnival time on the Ukrainian calendar, when Ukrainians traditionally celebrate the period before Lent with festive gatherings and merry-making. Join me in celebration by reliving some joyous holiday moments which passed by unrecorded while "Dateline" took a brief sabbatical at year's end.

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Our cheerful New Year carol "Schedryk" was heard so often in concert halls, churches and shopping centers and on the airwaves that it surely can be counted as a top-10 favorite in North America's Christmas repertoire. That little swallow from the Volyn region who informed the landowner about the coming of spring and the bounties that were to follow had no idea what it was starting. The legend of the "lastivochka" (the swallow), recounted in a winsome folk song, was given a harmonious arrangement by Mykola Leontovych and traveled to the United States in 1922 with Alexander Koshetz and the touring Ukrainian National Chorus. American composer Peter J. Wilhousky added new lyrics, upped the tempo and named the song "Carol of the Bells."

Although some may feel they've heard more than enough of the "Bells" carol, others can't seen get enough of it. (Did you ever tire of hearing "Silent Night" or "White Christmas?") The English lyrics may not adhere to the Ukrainian text, but whether you hear bells ringing or birds singing, the spirit of delight in the new year is in the music, bright, vivacious and uplifting.

At the annual Christmas-tree lighting ceremonies at Rockefeller Center, a group of young skaters from the Ice Theater of New York twirled and danced to the "Carol of the Bells" on the Rockefeller Plaza rink as Mayor Rudy Guiliani, David Rockefeller, comedian Bill Cosby and hundreds of bystanders watched. The half-hour program was telecast by NBC-TV a week later, reaching millions of viewers. Another NBC holiday program showed President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Washington National Cathedral as they listened to a Christmas concert featuring opera star Denyce Graves, a mixed chorus and orchestra in a concert that included "Carol of the Bells."

New York's classical music station, WQXR-FM, brought the sound of the bells to countless radio listeners when it aired two Christmas-themed shows: "The New Yorker's Christmas With Nimet," hosted by Nimet Habachy, opened the program with a recording of the carol, and the New York Pops Orchestra, directed by the irrepressible Skitch Henderson, offered an instrumental version.

As in past years, the Dumka Chorus delivered a medley of lustrous carols at three metropolitan area churches - St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church and St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Manhattan and St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hempstead, Long Island. Conducted by Vasyl Hrechynsky and with Ksenia Piasecky introducing each selection, the choir conveyed a sense of exultation and peace with interpretations of such reverent carols as the beautiful "Oy, Rano, Rano" (In the morning), "Oy Leliia" (The Lily) and the majestic "Boh Predvichnyi" (God Eternal). Joyful messages reverberated from the carols "Oy, u Yerusalymi" (In Jerusalem), "Dnes Poyusche" (Sing and Rejoice) and "Schedryk," sung in moderate tempo and with the original Ukrainian lyrics. The concert at St. Vladimir's Church in Manhattan was dedicated to the memory of its longtime pastor, the Rev. Volodymyr Bazylevsky, who passed away in December at the age of 94.

Kyiv Chamber Choir at Carnegie

The Kyiv Chamber Choir, a 20-voice ensemble that has won international distinction in just a few short years, made its New York debut at Carnegie Hall on December 21, following highly praised performances in Philadelphia, Fairfax, Va., and Portsmouth, N.H., and appearances in Washington at the White House, the National Cathedral and the Embassy of Ukraine.

The group's eagerly awaited New York concert, offering Ukrainian ecclesiastical music and traditional Ukrainian Christmas music (including "Schedryk") was received with tremendous enthusiasm by the audience. There was warm praise from New York Times critic Allan Kozinn, who was especially pleased with an 18th century setting by Artem Vedel, "Oh Lord, I Have Hope in You."

Mr. Kozinn continued: "Vedel's style drew on both Baroque and Classical elements, as well as a call-and-response technique that may have folksier roots. Nearly as compelling was the "Resurrection Canon" by Mykola Diletsky, a composer who flourished at the end of the 17th century and whose work combines cosmopolitan influences - most notably that of the Venetian polychoral style - with melodies drawn from folk dances."

He was equally impressed with works from the late 19th and the turn of the 20th centuries, including "A Mercy of Peace," a serene, gorgeously harmonized work by Kyrylo Stetsenko, the more rhythmically vital hymn "You, Our God, We Praise" by Mykola Leontovych and Mykola Lysenko's lush setting of "How Ought We to Stand Before Your Countenance."

In 20th century works by Lesia Dychko, Volodymyr Stepurko, Alexander M. Yakivchuk, Yuri Alzhnev and Anatoli Avdiievsky, Mr. Kozinn discerned "the shimmering, light dissonances heard in much contemporary American and English choral music."

Music director and conductor Mykola Hobdych was commended for drawing from the choir "a disciplined, well-blended sound that was appealingly varied in color and flexible when the music demanded broad dynamics."

Along with gloriously pure sound, the choir offered choreography and animation as it re-arranged itself in a different formation with almost every piece. Most of the music was sung without accompaniment, although a saxophone, flutes and hand bells were used in the second half of the program. The unusually low bass and alto voices added a wonderful richness to the program's harmonic texture, and the choir exhibited a marvelously controlled and steady length of tone with lusty fortissimos and delicate pianissimos.

The "Schedryk" was given a different treatment from that which we are accustomed to hearing. A soprano voice carried the lyrics, while the choir intoned special "bell" effects, then the male voices took up the lyrics in slow tempo as the women performed the song at a quick, joyful pace. The carol was performed once again, as an encore piece, this time in its customary style and tempo.

The "Schedryk" at Carnegie Hall was not the first time the choir performed it in New York. A few days earlier, during a welcoming reception in a private dining room at the United Nations, the group offered sampling of its concert works, ending with "Schedryk." The reception was attended by over 50 guests, including Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. Samir Sanbar, Ukrainian consular and U.N. officials, members of the Kyiv City Department of Culture, Ukrainian community leaders and representatives of Carnegie Hall and Micocci Productions, the tour coordinators.

Vira Hladun Goldmann, founder and chairman of American Friends for Ukraine, a recently established non-profit foundation that hosted the U.N. reception and served as the lead sponsor of the choir's tour, extended a welcome to the choir and introduced Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine's new ambassador to the United Nations.

While focusing on the restoration of ancient Ukrainian liturgical music that was suppressed and nearly lost in recent centuries, the choir was won numerous prizes at European music festivals. It has also issued several recordings, including "Christmas Evenings," a CD featuring traditional and contemporary adaptations of Christmas carols and songs by Ukrainian composers. The CD of course includes "Schedryk."

Another choir, other venues

Traditional Ukrainian koliadky (Christmas carols) - as well as the "Schedryk" - were chosen for the second half of the Festival of Sacred Music presented before Christmas by the Russian Chamber Chorus of New York because its conductor, Nikolai Kachanov, believes "Ukrainian koliadky are very beautiful, but not widely known." The chorus's usual repertoire explores Russian music, beginning with ancient liturgical chants through Baroque-style music, folk songs, Russian classical music and world premieres by leading Russian composers.

The chorus's offerings of Ukrainian carols at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, repeated in full at St. Ignatius Church on the Upper West Side and St. Peter's Church in the Citicorp Building in midtown Manhattan, embraced a very recognizable and enjoyable "Nebo i Zemlia" (Heaven and Earth) and "Schedryk" (transliterated in program notes as "O Goodly Spirit"). Just as satisfying, but new to my ears, possibly because of regional differences or Mr. Kachanov's scoring, were "Nova Radist" (A New Joy), "Oy Predvichnyi Bozhe" (O Eternal God) and "Raduitesia" (Rejoice). Beautifully executed, with the women's voices predominating, the carols sounded angelic in tone and symphonic in style.

Program notes referred to the "extraordinarily rich heritage of carols" possessed by the Ukrainian people - literally hundreds of tunes and texts, mostly devoted to Christmas, but also including other feasts of the Eastern Orthodox festival cycle. Some carols were preserved in standard published collections of devotional, extra-liturgical songs, while others were collected and notated in villages by musical ethnographers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Liturgical music offered in the first half of the program included Dmytro Bortniansky's "Tebe Bozhe Khvalim" (We Praise Thee, O God). The deep-bass solos in Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Great Litany" from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and Alexander Kastalky's "znamennyi" chant "Z Namy Boh" (God Is With Us) were sung by Kyiv-born Anatoly Panchoshny, who acknowledged his Ukrainian ancestry to "Dateline" some years ago.

A lone holdout

The Lastivka women's choral ensemble, which takes its name from the Ukrainian word for the swallow, rates inclusion in this "Dateline" compilation not only for its sparkling Christmas carols and schedrivky (songs that welcome the New Year), but also because it was the sole Ukrainian group we heard that did not sing Leontovych's "Schedryk."

Appearing at historic St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery in the East Village, the ensemble presented a program featuring several old carols with pre-Christian origins: "Zhala Ulianka" (Ulianka was Reaping), an uncharacteristic 6/4 rhythm at the beginning revealing its pagan genesis; "Oy Tam za Horoyu" (Beyond the Hill), a humorous schedrivka in which the sun, moon and rain boast of their influences upon the earth, and "Oy Posered Dvoru Bereza" (A Birch in the Garden), telling of a birch on whose golden branches migrating birds have landed to peck at the bark and advise the landowner to clean up his property because Jesus' Holy Day is here - a theme of nature very similar to that of "Schedryk." A folk melody from Podillia, "Ide Zvizda Chudna," (The Miraculous Star), that tells the story of the three Wise Men on their way to Bethlehem, also bore evidences of ancient origins - long open notes at the end of phrases and a scattering of Old Church Slavonic words.

The eight-member ensemble, directed by its founder, the Rev. Michael Lev, proclaimed its joy in the birth of Christ with the carol "Dnes Poyusche" (Sing and Rejoice), sung in Old Church Slavonic. Clear intonations and exquisite harmonizing was embodied in the program, which included two non-Ukrainian pieces sung in Ukrainian - "O Holy Night" and "Ave Maria" - featuring soprano Natalia Honcharenko. Audience appreciation was heightened by explanatory notes offered by Volodymyr Kovbasniuk.

The Rev. Lev, the pastor of St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bayonne, N.J., and a former choir director of St. Vladimir Church in Manhattan, tailors traditional melodies to the Lastivka chorus, while keeping musical themes and character intact. He sometimes accompanies the group on piano, as with the lullaby "Dyvnaya Novyna" (Wondrous News). A professor of music theory at Uzhorod Music College before coming to the U.S., he composed "The Volodymyr Symphony" dedicated to the millennium and has orchestrated cantatas and other Ukrainian works for performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington and Carnegie Hall. Last year, he and the Lastivka ensemble traveled to Ukraine to present a Christmas program and humanitarian aid for patients of the Chornobyl Children's Clinic in Lviv.

A Ukrainian renaissance

New Yorkers are taking more notice of Ukrainians and Ukrainian traditions these days.

The Flushing main post office in Queens included the Ukrainian Christmas greeting "Khrystos Voskres" (Christ is Born) on the multi-language sign that fronts the building during the holiday season, its banner headline proclaiming "No Matter How You Say It - Happy Holidays." The action was taken soon after New York Plast activist Volodymyr Kornaha broached the idea to postal authorities, and the Rev. Philip Sandricks, pastor of Holy Cross Ukrainian Catholic Church in Astoria, indicated his support of the project. A photo of the sign, with the Ukrainian greeting smack in the center foreground, appeared on the front page of the Daily News' weekend editions in Queens.

On January 7, Katie Couric of NCB-TV's "Today" show wished co-host Matt Lauer "Happy Ukrainian Christmas." As far as is known, Mr. Lauer has no Ukrainian connection, so Ms. Couric was simply paying a tribute to the Julian calendar Christmas.

And in the East Village, the section of Manhattan which used to be known as Little Ukraine is experiencing "a small renaissance," according to a New York Times story penned by Jesse McKinley. As evidence that a Ukrainian resurgence is under way, spurred by the latest wave of newcomers and a surging national pride, the Times' reporter cited positive statements from several Ukrainians who work or reside in the area, and pointed to these phenomena: the coming construction of a $5 million home for The Ukrainian Museum, increased enrollment at St. George's Academy, large crowds at St. George's Church, a greater number of young Ukrainian professionals who have taken up residence in the neighborhood, and the addition of another Ukrainian meat market on First Avenue, opened last summer by Bohdan and Maria Tsish.

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