The Most Famous Unknown Folk Song Has Everything to do with Ukraine Right Now
Carol of the Bells a HUGE Christmas hit.
But its history may surprise you with how timely it is to explore right now. In The Broadway Carolers’ caroling book, at the top of the title page of the sheet music, under “Carol of the Bells”, it says, “Ukrainian Bell Carol.”
That’s right - Ukrainian. And it DID originate in Ukraine, but it wasn’t called Carol of the Bells or Ukrainian Bell Caro,l and it had nothing to do with Christmas OR BELLS at the time.
Before it was a carol that was known and loved on all continents - there lived a man named Mykola Leontovych. Born in 1877, he had a heart for God, music, people and Ukraine. Leontovych was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, enthnomusicologist, teacher and a defender of Ukrainian freedom.During his lifetime, his compositions and arrangements were popular across the Ukrainian region of the Russian Empire. He wrote Ukrainian folk music, and amateur and professional musicians alike, performed his works all across Western Europe and North America, which - In France anyway - earned him the nickname “the Ukrainian Bach.”
He came from a very musical family and a long line of priests. It was expected that he would become a village priest, and he and his brother attended the same theological seminary their father and grandfather had attended before them. His brother did become a priest, but while they were both still studying, the seminary choir director died, and the administration asked Mykola to take over the position. He agreed. While he was the choirmaster there, he added secular music to the repertoire of the traditional church music - (which was a feat in itself, back then,) and that included Ukrainian folk songs arranged by himself. He graduated and broke family tradition by not becoming a priest, but instead, teaching music and putting choirs together (a man after my own heart of course!)
This line of work caused him to have, (some things never change,) an unstable income, so he headed to the big city - the one we hear about in the news all the time these days, Kiev/Kyiv.
What’s the deal with Kiev/Kyiv?
I was wondering about the different spellings and pronunciations of this city, so I looked it up and found something interesting: Are Kiev and Kyiv the same? Yes and No. They both refer to the capitol of Ukraine, but Ukrainians have a goal to persuade English-language media and organizations to exclusively use “Kyiv,” (pro: Keev,) which is derived from the Ukrainian language name, instead of “Kiev,” (pro: Kee-ev,) which is derived from the Russian language.. It is a part of a wider campaign called #CorrectUA. (For more, go to https://mfa.gov.ua/en/correctua )
So - there - in Kyiv - Leontovych taught voice and math and continued to compose and arrange music. He went on to organize an amateur orchestra, and as was his habit, he included his own choral arrangements of folk songs and some entirely original works of his in the repertoire. He also wrote a book called (translated to English) How I Organized an Orchestra in a Village School. He would move again and organize another choir and a concert band. He married and had two daughters. He continued to study music as well as teach it.
Then he started to get political.
Because of financial issues, he moved his family to the Donbas province in eastern Ukraine, (another name in the news these days,) and started teaching voice and instrumental music to children of railroad workers. This was in 1904. Then, during the Russian Revolution of 1905, Leontovych organized a choir of the railroad workers which performed at meetings. The works they performed at these meetings were his arrangements of Ukrainian, Jewish, Armenian, Russian and Polish folk songs. This activity caught the attention of the local authorities and he was forced to move back to his home province of Podolia, in the city of Tulchyn in 1908. More on why this “activity” might have been a problem in a minute…
In Tulchyn - he hit his creative musical stride! He continued to study, and would travel to Moscow and Kyiv, and He became very involved in community life, even taking charge of a local organization called Prosvita, which means “enlightenment.”
During this period of his career, he was super-productive and churned out loads of music. Among this was his most popular piece called Shchedryk, the premier of which was performed by the student choir of the Kyiv University on December 26, 1916.This performance brought him critical and popular success, and people in Kyiv started really paying attention to him.
Shchedryk (Which means, The Little Swallow) is a folk song; a greeting. It was sung as a New Year’s wish for abundant blessings when the New Year was celebrated not on January 1, but in the springtime, when the first swallows arrived. It tells the story of a swallow flying into a household to sing of wealth and prosperity that will come with the following spring.
Here is a translation of the lyrics. They were not meant to be sung, as they have not been re-crafted to rhyme or scan rhythmically:
A little swallow flew [into the household]
and started to twitter,
to summon the master:
“Come out, come out, O master [of the household],
look at the sheep pen,
there the ewes are nestling
and the lambkin have been born
Your goods [livestock] are great,
you will have a lot of money, [by selling them]
Your goods [livestock] are great,
you will have a lot of money, [by selling them]
if not money, then chaff: [from all the grain you will harvest]
you have a dark-eyebrowed [beautiful] wife.”
Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka,
A little swallow flew.
Now, the timing of all of this is very important: Shchedryk premiered in the last days of the year 1916. The period from 1917 to 1921 is called “The Ukrainian Revolution.” During those tumultuous years, the dream of Ukrainian patriots and fighters to revive Ukrainian statehood was finally realized. This was a very dramatic, exciting and turbulent period of Ukraine’s history. This was a time of Ukrainians rising up in dignity about their sovereignty! See, they had been living under the thumb of oppressive prohibitions.
An example of these prohibitions was the Ems Decree, which was an order signed by Emperor Alexander II of Russian in the town of Ems. It was signed on May 30, 1886. The decree forbade the publication of original and translated works, including music, into Ukrainian. It prohibited the import of Ukrainian-language publication from abroad into the Russian Empire, and it prohibited performances in Ukrainian and concert of Ukrainian songs and recitals. In fact, for 300 years, Ukrainians had been dominated by different colonial powers, and the Ukrainian language, itself, was subjected to all sorts of restrictions and prohibitions more than 30 times by the time the 20th century rolled around.
So now, here we are, smack dab in the middle of the Ukrainian Revolution. We’ve got this creative, enlightened Ukrainian patriot in Mykol Leontovych, who is very involved in what is now being called The Ukrainian Independence movement, and he has written a New Year’s song, a Shchedrivka, that has taken Kyiv by storm. It’s a magical song! Everybody’s crazy about it. How they got away with singing it in Ukrainian, I don’t know, but - it’s really popular.
Now, along comes the creation of The Ukrainian Republican Cappella, which was a choir that was created on January 16, 1919 under the direction of Oleksandr Koshyts, a brilliant conductor and composer. Koshyts and Leontovych are friends and contemporaries, and Leontovych is one of the commissioners of this choir. This choir had a sort of ambassador-like mission to shine a light on Ukraine to other nations who didn’t understand their sovereign and unique identity. All the members of the choir were listed as civil servants, and concerts and other activities were funded by the Ministry of Arts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a private donor.
The Ukrainian Republican Cappella performed Shchedryk at their concerts, and it was so successful that it was often greeted with standing ovations and demands for encores. Even without translation, it was considered a gift to the world from the true Ukrainian heart.
The Ukrainian Republican Cappella was renamed The Ukrainian National Chorus a couple years into its existence. The choir was a big deal! At one time, a performance of the Ukrainian National Chorus held the world record for audience attendance for a non sports event.
It was this choir, and this conductor, Koshytz, who popularized Shchedryk.To illustrate how powerful this endeavor was to reach their goal of shining a clear and bright light on the real Ukraine, consider these reviews from the first tour of the Ukrainian Republican Cappella, which began in Czechoslovakia, continued to Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and England.
The reviews show how this cultural diplomacy influenced foreign audiences and just how effective Ukrainian “song power” is!
Prague:
“The Ukrainians came and won! It’s sad, but we knew so little about them and often offended them when we unknowingly merged them with the Russian nation. Our desire for a “great and indivisible Russia” is indeed a weak argument against nature, against the will and sentiment of the Ukrainian people, for whom freedom and independence, just as for us, means everything.”
Vienna”
“The Ukrainian Ministry of Arts and Culture has focused on choral singing as a means of political propaganda. The world, which has been so deliberately and negatively informed by a despotic Russia about Ukraine, should now be aware of Ukraine’s unique cultural identity. Such cultural maturity should also legitimize this country’s political independence.”
Switzerland:
“Here’s an example of one of the best propaganda promotions ever. While the young republic struggles in the stifling embrace of Denikin and the Bolsheviks, its government strives to establish its right to freedom and independence, to its own national culture. After two centuries of enslavement, the Ukrainian song has proclaimed its right to freedom… These artists sing in a most convincing and attractive manner. The choir members feel that they are fulfilling a patriotic duty; the soul of a whole nation echoes in their voices, a nation that has preserved its optimism, good humour, healthy morals and strong belief in a free country despite years of terrible suffering. Their songs reflect the language of a nation of 40 million people who want neither Bolshevism nor tsarism but only to be able to govern their own country.”
That’s a small sampling. There are many more with similar raves. For five and a half years, the Cappella toured 200 cities in 17 countries, gave over 600 concerts, and received more than 1,300 reviews from the world press. All this time, as Maestro Koshyts recalled, Shchedryk was “the focal point of our repertoire.”
So, why am I talking so much about Shchedryk? Well, as you may have guessed, Leontovych’s Shchedryk was the basis - the source material - of what would become The Ukrainian Bell Carol and Carol of the Bells.
How did that happen? An American named Peter J. Wilhousky, who’s slavic parents had shared the Olde World folk songs, dances and ancient legends with him when he was a boy, came across this Shchedryk, and it reminded him so much of that rich tradition about which his parents had reminisced. Wilhousky was a gifted singer, composer, lyricist, conductor and arranger. He created famous concert arrangements of many pieces and directed the 1500 voice All City High School Chorus of NY. He produced several major concerts at Carnegie Hall. He became the arranger for the legendary NBC Radio Network’s symphony orchestra under Arturo Tosconini. He was a busy man with loads of honors and awards, but his favorite thing to do was to study Eastern Europe and its music. He found Leontovych’s Shchedryk in 1936, almost 20 years after it made its big splash in Europe.
One of the legends his parents had told him was a story about all the bells of the world ringing out at the same moment to herald the birth of the Savior. Wilhousky wanted to combine that idea with this magical piece of music. He arranged it and added the words we know today. The NBC Radio Symphony and a choir performed it over the airwaves, and it caught on like wildfire.
Sounds like a happy ending, doesn’t it? Musicians are bringing a Uniquely Ukrainian piece of music to the world and Ukraine is becoming more and more recognized and respected as a sovereign nation, in part because of this artistic effort. However, when the army of Denikin unleashed a terror campaign again the Ukrainian intelligentisa which promoted the independent Ukrainian state, Leotovych was forced to leave Kyiv and, in 1921, just as he was finishing the opera “The Rusalka’s Easter,” he was assassinated by a bolshevik Cheka agent, under the pretext of Leontovych being suspected of “engaging in nationalist activities.” Unthinkably, Leontovych had welcomed his assassin in to his parents’ house, where he was staying. This kind of hospitality was commonplace to show to travelers in Ukraine in those days. Not surprisingly, the story was covered up, as was the practice during Soviet times. It was revealed only as recently as 1990, when the KGB archives were opened.
This tragic murder of a Ukrainian creative spirit was, unfortunately, a harbinger of the future Soviet execution-to-come of the Ukrainian cultural elites under Stalin’s terroristic rule in the 1930’s. During that horrific chapter, no one would be spared. The cultural leaders would either be killed or terrorized into praising the communist leaders, and Ukraine would, once again, be divested of its identity and voice.
We watch in helpless horror and admiration as Ukraine, yet again, is straining against a Russian entity that is hellbent against the country’s freedom. President Zolensky, Leontovych-like, is showing himself to be a gentle, artistic, determined and indomitable adversary to the monster. I hope that when we hear Carol of the Bells, the Ukrainian Bell Carol, we’ll all remember Mykol Leontovych, who is now remembered as a martyr in the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian Church, and his valiant mission to fight - with music - for Ukraine’s freedom. And I hope that reminds us to honor the Ukrainian culture and its freedom-loving people.
