On October 4th, a recording project will be released will serve as a profound tribute to the resiliency and spirit the Ukrainian people.
Called Prayer for Ukraine, this CD features the fabulous Vivere String quartet, performing music by Ukrainian composers. The CD explores both Ukraine’s history as well as the essence of the people. Their sorrows, joys, triumphs, and the harrowing destruction and devastating loss caused by the current war in Ukraine.
All proceeds from this disc will go towards the Revived Soldiers Ukraine, which helps to support the medical rehabilitation of Ukrainian Soldiers.
The disc features gorgeous and outstanding music. There is music that was composed amidst the war by the composer and cellist Zoltan Almashi. There is also music composed by the celebrated and much lauded Ukrainian composer Hanna Havrylets, a composer who died in the first days of the war, as a direct result of not being able to receive proper medical care. The recording also highlights a wonderful string quartet written by Vasyl Barvinsky, who survived the Soviet gulags of post-World War II USSR to become one of the first Ukrainian composers to receive worldwide recognition.
The Vivere String quartet is an internationally acclaimed Ukrainian ensemble that brings the world compositions of contemporary Ukrainian composers as well as the masterworks of the classical chamber music tradition, and everything in between.
Founded in 2010 by students of the Lviv National Music Academy, the quartet has gone on to win numerous prizes around Ukraine and is making a name for themselves on the word stage. The members of the quartet are violinists Anna Bura, Dmytro Lysko, violist Ustym Zhuk and cellist Dmytro Nikolayev.
The recording Prayer for Ukraine was made at Stanford University. The members of the quartet had to make two trips to Poland. The airspace of Ukraine is closed to commercial airline traffic, and it is not possible to get a visa to go to the States from Ukraine. The quartet had to make one trip to Poland to apply for a visa, and then make a second trip to fly to the United States.
The recording sessions in the states yielded some marvelous results.
Zoltan Almashi (1975--)
The first track on the disc is Zoltan Almashi’s beautiful and moving piece. Maria’s City (Mariupol) Composed in 2022 in the bomb shelters in Kiev, Almashi wanted to write a piece dedicated to the destroyed city of Mariupol. For Vivere quartet violinist Anna Bura the piece communicates a tremendous amount. “The piece represents what we feel and what we would like to express and what we want to say to the world. All these things are in this piece,” she says.
Maria’s City has a rhythmic and driving middle section that carries tremendous significance. Bura says, “This middle section is like a military attack. Mariupol was in siege for many days in a row. It was constantly shelled and bombed. The middle section represents the air raid attacks and bombing. The section ends with a high note in the first violin...it is like after an explosion, you cannot hear anything but this noise. [ringing in the ears]”
Maria’s City is poignant and moving, but also incredibly beautiful. The gorgeous slower sections that frame the stormy middle section could be seen to represent Mariupol before and after the attack. The themes are warped and changed in the second slower section. It is still Mariupol, but it has been changed forever.
Vasyl Barvinsky (1888-1963)
On of the centerpieces of Prayer for Ukraine is Vasyl Barvinsky’s 1935 String Quartet. Barvinsky was sent to a labor camp in 1948 as part of the Soviet purges. He would spend 10 years in the gulag, during which time many of his compositions were destroyed. After he was released, Barvinsky would spend the rest of his life re-writing his compositions from memory.
The string quartet was written while he was teaching at the Lysenko Music Institiute in Lviv. It is thought to have been written for younger players and is infused with many delightful folk elements. “This quartet is really popular in Ukraine. A lot of musicians perform it. We wanted to represent Barvinsky as a legendary Ukrainian composer,” says Bura.
Adding to legacy of Vasyl Barvinsky, the Vivere quartet also included his sublime Prayer for string quartet, which is one of h pieces he had to re-write after being released from prison, this is a stunner of a piece that should be performed and heard here in the west.
Hanna Havrylets (1958-2022)
There are two very lovely pieces on the recording written by Hanna Havrylets. Havrylets was a casualty of the war. She was killed in the first few days of the Russian invasion. As Bura explains, “Her music is very emotional and religious. It was tragic how she passed away. It was in the first days of the full-scale invasion buy the Russians. There was chaos around the country. All the hospitals were occupied and all emergency vehicles.” Havrylets died because of not having access to medical care.
Her pieces on the recording To Mary (1999) and Expressions (2004) are quite different from a compositional standpoint. However they are both wonderfully haunting and beautiful. To Mary has a hymnlike quality to it while Expressions, although quite minimal in its compositional material, is soothing and hypnotic.
All the funds raised by the sale of the recording will go to Revived Soldiers Ukraine. This is an organization that helps wounded soldiers recover and rehabilitate. As Bura says, “All Ukrainians...we have to be thankful. We cannot be thankful enough to people who are fighting for our freedom and survival. They [Revived Soldiers Ukraine] are doing a lot of work to help our soldiers to be able to walk again and stand on their feet... and get back to life as fast as they can.”
The music on Prayer for Ukraine is marvelous and needs to be heard and performed. When it comes to the goal of the Vivere String Quartet their mission is simple. “We hope to reach as many people as we can...to say, ‘we are Ukrainians!’ We want to present Ukrainian culture around the world. This is what we fight for...for our freedom, and our culture. It is a big part of the Ukrainian nation. Language culture...what else can we fight for. We would love for people to get to know more about Ukraine.”
With Prayer for Ukraine the Vivere Quartet have made a recording that makes for great listening and succeeds in furthering their causes of promoting Ukranian culture, while also raising money for wounded Ukrainian soldiers.
Slava Ukraini!
For More details on the Vivre Quartet's recording Prayer for Ukraine click here