SOUNDS AND VIEWS: A musician for all seasons (02/20/00)

SOUNDS AND VIEWS

by Roman Sawycky

A musician for all seasons

Dr. Wasyl Wytwycky of Summit, N.J., eminent educator, author, critic, composer-conductor and diaspora's greatest contemporary musicologist, passed away on December 31 at 94. He contributed to Svoboda and many other periodicals since 1949.

Dr. Wytwycky was born October 16, 1905 in Kolomyia, western Ukraine. In 1932 Dr. Wytwycky received doctorate in musicology from the University of Krakow.

When his memoirs "On Roads of Music" were published in 1989, this writer noted: "W. Wytwycky was lucky: his life has reached creative longevity, having spanned the century in uninterrupted output. He achieved prominence in the science of musicology, where the author searched for truth, but was likewise recognized as composer-conductor, who seeked beauty." His activities, therefore, and resulting legacy abound in creative riches.

Dr. Wytwycky's biography is that of "a musician for all seasons" (to paraphrase an Oscar-winning film) - a researcher with encyclopedic knowledge of medieval and modern times. He studied the 18th century of music classicism as well as the correspondence between Mykola Lysenko and Ivan Franko, and excelled in such diverse topics as the monumental style of Stanislav Liudkevych, the lyrical Vasyl Barvinsky, modernist Virko Baley or the rebirth of the bandura on the stage and in the national awareness.

This wide scope of interests developed in him a tolerance for differing views of other authorities (a patience not sustained to such a degree in his colleagues). In his articles Dr. Wytwycky even mentions contemporary rock bands - a rare subject among classical music experts - and writes attentively of women in music.

At the beginning of the 20th century much of western Ukraine's musical life was still on the amateur level; Dr. Wytwycky contributed much to its evolution into professional performance and publishing.

Arriving in Detroit at mid-century, however, this consummate professional met near-sighted slogans such as: "Let's give a concert and collect money." In answer Dr. Wytwycky, the visionary, counterproposed: "Let's raise money and stage a concert."

Dr. Wytwycky's writings are characterized by their democratic outlook, tolerance for other professional views and conciseness. The author had a rare gift that enabled him to sketch an image or concept in few words; the 215 pages of his memoirs contain more essence than the thick volumes of some other writers on music.

Brevity and exactitude are a must when contributing to encyclopedias. Dr. Wytwycky had been active in this field since the 1950s, working closely with Volodymyr Kubijovyc on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.

As a pioneering musicologist (somewhat in the style of his senior colleague Zenowij Lysko), Dr. Wytwycky authored the first monographs on Barvinsky's piano music (1928), on composers Mykhailo Haivoronsky (1954), Maksym Berezovsky (1974). He was fortunate in discovering Berezovsky's Violin Sonata at the National Library in Paris - one of the most interesting finds of recent decades from Ukraine's classic period. The bibliographic essay "M. Lysenko in American Musicology" (1962) was unprecedened and inspired this writer to expand the findings into a thesis for a master's degree.

I also avidly followed in the footsteps of his published research on Ukrainian influences on Chopin (1934), Liszt (1959), Stravinsky (1971), Prokofiev (1973) and Bartok (1981). Still unpublished are Dr. Wytwycky's valuable accounts of Ukrainian elements in Franz X. Mozart (son of Amadeus) and Charles Loeffler, and analyses of the lesser-known music by Barvinsky, which he typed in 1981-1987 at my request.

Dr. Wytwycky's second profession as librarian helped him compile a catalogue of his life's work as musicologist and composer; this "autobibliography" is unique among scholars of his generation.

His pioneering spirit extended onto the airwaves, when in the years 1939-1944 Dr. Wytwycky alternated with my father, Roman Sawycky Sr. as music director of Radio Lviv. In the 1970s he initiated music broadcasting in Detroit, the only city with a high quality program of folk and professional music of Ukraine.

Besides contributing to Svoboda for four decades Dr. Wytwycky also published in such periodicals as Dilo and Novy Chas, Nashi Dni (all in Lviv); Ukrainska Muzyka (Stryi - Lviv); Novyi Shliakh and Novi Dni (both in Toronto); Visti (Minneapolis); Suchasnist (Munich - New York); The Ukrainian Quarterly (New York); The Slavonic and East European Review (London) and Kultura (Paris).

Dr. Wytwycky was also steadily active as a composer and conductor. In the years 1941-1972 he conceived both vocal and instrumental forms, writing chamber, orchestral, ballet and children's music, as well as producing choral and piano settings of Ukrainian folksongs.

Composer-critic Antin Rudnytsky wrote in 1962: "W. Wytwycky was able to fuse with much skill and genuine talent the elements of folksong with contemporary music style. His arrangements of folksongs for piano four hands are the only such settings in contemporary Ukrainian literature - exemplary by way of piano technique, harmonic diversity and originality."

His orchestral "Dyptych" for strings was performed by several orchestras, including the string sections of the Toronto and the Detroit Symphony. The composer was very pleased with the stereo recording of this work by the Lysenko Chamber Orchestra, led by Ivan Kowaliv.

Dr. Wytwycky's music was published and performed in Ukraine, Germany and North America, and has recently returned to the composer' s birthplace, Kolomyia.

His creative output became the subject of analytic writings and lectures by such authorities as Halia L. Zaleska, the late Daria Karanowycz, Roman Prydatkevych, Roman Sawycky Jr., Vadym Svaroh (all in America), as well as Yuri Yasynovsky and Myroslav Skoryk of Lviv.

* * *

Although both Dr. Wytwycky and the pianist Ms. Karanowycz did not live to reach the 21st century, both, no doubt, will be embraced by the future for their benevolent ideas and achievements. It was a rare treat to have known them and to mix business and pleasure with both. In the able hand of Wasyl Wytwycky, the baton and sharp pen became like a javelin. With the aim and strength of his mind he hurled his always vital ideas into the distant future.

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