HANNA HAVRYLETS. HISTORICAL ORATORIO "THE WINDS ARE BLOWING"

About the concert

The Winds Are Blowing (Viiut' Vitry) is an oratorio by Hanna Havrylets based on traditional historical songs collected by Oleksandr Koshyts in the Kuban region. It presents poetic vignettes depicting the Ukrainian nation's struggle for liberation against Russian occupation.

In the winter of 1903, Koshyts received a letter from Mykola Lysenko informing him that the Kuban Cossack Host administration was seeking a specialist to organize the field recording of Cossack folk songs. Lysenko recommended Koshyts for the task. For three consecutive summers, Koshyts traveled through the Kuban stanitsas (Cossack villages). "The musicality of the Kuban Cossacks was truly extraordinary," he later wrote. "It showcased all the inherent Ukrainian musicality and ancient choral traditions." His efforts yielded nearly a thousand transcriptions compiled across eleven collections.

The main body of these original manuscripts was lost. According to some sources, NKVD agents destroyed the collection in 1939 alongside other historical documents from the library of Hryhorii Kontsevych, the executed conductor of the Kuban Choir. Fortunately, portions of the transcriptions that Koshyts later reconstructed while living in the United States continue to resurface in archives and private collections.

To mark the centenary of Koshyts's expedition, Hanna Havrylets expanded twelve of these folk songs into full choral poems, featuring percussion arrangements by Heorhii Chernenko. While keeping the original melodies and lyrics intact, Havrylets reshaped the music through harmony, texture, and tonal colors—evoking the rich traditions of Baroque partesnyi polyphony, the intricate voice-leading of Leontovych, and the symphonic breadth of Liatoshynsky.

The lyrical center of the oratorio features two authored songs that became folk classics: "For Over Two Hundred Years" (Uzhe lit za dvisti) by Anatolii Svydnytskyi—banned by censors under both the Russian Empire and the USSR—and "Oh, Woe to the Lapwing" (Oi hore chaitsi), traditionally attributed to Hetman Ivan Mazepa. These are presented alongside the ballad "A Turk Walks Through the Marketplace" (Khodyt turchyn po rynochku), "Ukraine Was Grieved" (Zazhurylas Ukraina), "Oh, the Muscovite Writes" (Oi pyshe moskal), and "The Winds Are Blowing" (Ta viiut vitri).The heroic counterpart includes "Maksym, the Cossack Zalizniak" (Maksym kozak Zalizniak) about the leader of the Koliivshchyna uprising, "A Cossack Left Ukraine" (Ikhav kozak z Ukrainy) set to a lively Hopak rhythm, and the military marches "Oh, Reapers Reap on the Mountain" (Oi na hori ta zhentsi zhnut) and "Hey, Lads, To Arms!" (Hei, nu, khloptsi, do zbroi)—the latter composed by Marko Kropyvnytskyi.

Concert Program

Hanna Havrylets – Historical Oratorio "The Winds Are Blowing" (Viiut Vitry)

Performers:
Liatoshynskyi Capella Choir
Kostyantyn Lenchyk, conductor

Soloists: Iryna Miasoyed, Olena Sarakhman, Anna Dvorytska, Maryna Zinevych, Kateryna Shymko, Oksana Huliak, Petro Pshenychnyi, Vasyl Titov, Ivan Hembach.