One thousand years ago with the ward of Christianity to Ukraine the culture on
these grounds did not begin anew, but its new page was opened. Alongside with
the partially kept prior archaic layers and on their basis, Christianity has
formed other original forms of culture, genres and styles.The influence of these
processes on national music was especially expressive.
In pagan times the Kolyadkas (1,4,5,7-11,14,16,18,20,21) and Shchedrivkas (2,15,17,19)
were a component of sacramentals related with New Year Day and vernal equinox.
In later time Kolyadkas and Shchedrivkas (Christmas carols) became a symbol of
Christmastime and other biblical dates and events. Obviously, such reassess of
function has served as the reason of a semantic and stylistic variety of
Kolyadkas and Shchedrivkas, represented on the disk.
The content of spiritual verses is always Christian. Their musical stylistics
can inherit ancient epic singing-narrative tradition of east Slavs (6). The
closest relation with Orthodox Christian religious doctrine and ideology, and
also with Church service music is observed in folk canticles (3,12,13) and
polychronions (20,22).
The biblical characters (Jesus Christ, The Theotokos, apostles Peter and Paul,
saint George and saint Basil, Herod the king and others), and also place of
events in folklore musical compositions as though they are passed through a
prism of representation of the Ukrainian peasant consequently get typical
features of Ukrainian everyday life.
The musical stylistics of the folk compositions, represented on the disk, shows
different stages of Ukrainian folk singing history. Besides it is caused by the
certain regional tradition. The heterophone Kolyadkas and Shchedrivkas from
Polissia (North Ukraine) are the most archaic. The manner of their performance
is especially ceremonial, and reminds a wail (2,8,11). In other regions of
Ukraine such manner of singing is of rare occurrence (15). The characteristics
of the later stylistic features are: adding of an independent top voice to a
song melody (9,14,17,18); expansion and enriching the canvas with additional
voices (1,12). So it forms chord-harmonic canticle style of 17-18 centuries (3,4,5,7,10,13,16,20,22)
and change vocal manner to church singing (5,16). Dniper Livoberezhzhia singing
(3,7,13) is noticeable for its extended, polyphonically wide style. It is very
close to local lyrical singing tradition. In Polissia the singing of winter
ceremonial songs could be traditionally accompanied by a violin (8,21).
This disk represents only small part of a unique musical folklore heritage of
Ukrainian people. Tunes were recorded on an audio tape in 1978-1999. All of them
were performed by singers from villages of three regions of Ukraine - Pripyat'
Polissia, Poltavshchina and Cherkashchina. Ensemble "Drevo" has kept features of
local musical stylistics (canvas , characteristic sound, a melodic variation,
ornamentation) and a language dialect.
The ensemble "Drevo" (founded in Kiev in 1979) has begun the movement for
authentic reproduction of traditional peasant music in musical culture of
Ukraine. The art director is an ethnomusicologist, the candidate of an art
criticism, senior lecturer of National musical academy of Ukraine Eugeny Efremov.
The ensemble consists of the young scientists, who collect and investigate
traditional national music of different regions of Ukraine - mainly Polissia,
Podillia and Livobverezhzhia - for many years. "Drevo" recovers the material
gathered in ethnographic expeditions without additional art processing, keeping
its natural, original form.
