(Russ. Khar'kov).
Ukrainian city. It is the second largest city in Ukraine. It is the historical capital of Sloboda Ukraine, an autonomous region settled in the 17th century with a Cossack tradition of self-government. The Ukrainian Cossacks founded Kharkiv in 1654 when they built a fortified settlement on the plateau between the Kharkiv and Lopan rivers. In the mid-18th century Kharkiv, because of its proximity to the Donets Basin and the trade routes between central Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus and the Black Sea ports, began to play a major role in the administration of the Russian Empire and quickly became an important industrial, scientific and cultural centre. From 1920 to 1934 it was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR.
Formal education was established in Kharkiv when the Byelgorod seminary was transferred by Prince Golitsyn to Kharkiv in 1726, and became a college in 1734. Under M. Kontsevich music courses were established and in 1773 the composer Artemy Vedel taught there (at which time classes in vocal and instrumental music were initiated). Music culture in the early days revolved around opera, serf-orchestras and various ensembles operated by the wealthy families. In 1780 a theatre was built which, in addition to plays, began to stage operas by Mozart, Paisiello, Cimarosa, Spontini, Spohr, Cherubini and works by Russian composers, such as M.M. Sokolovs'ky's The Miller who was a Wizard, a Cheat and a Matchmaker (1779). Formal concert life started in 1810 when I. Vitkovsky, a former pupil of Haydn and now teacher at the newly established university, conducted Haydn's The Seasons, soon followed by The Creation.
The formation of the Kharkiv University in 1805 along with a university press made Kharkiv an important educational and publishing centre in Ukraine and the Russian Empire. Among teachers of music theory at the university were I.S. Ryzhsky, a philologist and the first rector, the theorist and composer Gustav Hesse de Calve, who wrote a two-volume Theory of Music (1818) and I. Lozinsky, who published a book on violin method. Important ethnographic studies were initiated, student collectives regularly performed Ukrainian folk music, and a famous bandura performing school was established. From the 1810s Kharkiv was a leader in the Ukrainian linguistic, ethnographic, historical and literary renaissance. Among the significant cultural leaders who studied or worked in Kharkiv, many of them members of the Kharkiv Romantic School, were P.P. Sokal's'ky, composer and ethnomusicologist, and his nephew, the composer and pianist V.I. Sokal's'ky (1863–1919). But by 1848 all publications and even lectures were subject to censorship. This culminated in the Ems Ukase of 1876, which essentially forbade the development of Ukrainian culture. During the difficult years between 1848 and 1905, Kharkiv hosted many clandestine organizations of different nationalistic and political outlooks. Despite the adverse conditions, music in Kharkiv profited immensely at this time from the many activities initiated by the organizer and conductor I.I. Slatin and the activities of the Russian Musical Association (the Kharkiv branch was established in 1868). It was Slatin who gave the première of V.I. Sokal's'ky's Symphony in G minor in 1894. A yearly season of ten symphony and ten chamber music concerts was inaugurated and many musical luminaries made regular appearances, among them Tchaikovsky, Nikisch, Glazunov, Rubinstein and Skryabin.
A permanent opera company was established in Kharkiv in 1874 and was the first to stage Lysenko's Christmas Eve (1883). In 1918 the company became the National Opera and in 1920 the Russian State Opera. In 1925 it emerged as the Ukrainian State Capital Opera, the first Ukrainian opera theatre with a resident company. In 1931 the theatre became the Kharkiv Theatre of Opera and Ballet; in 1934 ‘Academic’ was added to the title and finally in 1944 the Lysenko Kharkiv State Academic Theatre (of Opera and Ballet) was born. In 1924 the first Ukrainian-language opera, Lysenko's Taras Bulba, was given its première. A relatively short period of experimentation came to a halt when Moscow declared the new dogma of socialist realism. By 1934 the company had produced 32 operas and 11 ballets, including new works such as Lyatoshyns'ky's The Golden Ring, Valentyn Kostenko's Karmeliuk and Lysenko's Taras Bulba. That tradition continued well into the 1980s. Among the notable opera and ballet premières were The Break by Volodymyr Femelidi, The Communist by Dmytro Klebanov and Vitaly Hubarenko's The Stone Guest.
The Philharmonic Society was established in 1928, and includes a symphony orchestra, an orchestra of folk instruments, a popular music orchestra and various chamber and vocal ensembles. There is also an orchestra in residence at Kharkiv Radio and Television.
The educational centre of the city's life in the 20th century was the conservatory. Kharkiv Music School was established in 1883, and in 1917 it became the Kharkiv Conservatory, then the Music Academy (1920), Music Institute (1921), Music and Drama Institute (1923), Kharkiv State Conservatory (1934), and then, in 1963, the Kharkiv Kotlyarevsky Institute of Arts. In 1998 the word ‘State’ was added: Kharkivs'ky Derzhavny Instytut Mystetstv. The outstanding teacher who in 1922 founded the composition faculty at the Kharkiv Music Institute was Semyon Bogatyryov. Under his tutelage there developed the first group of Ukrainian composers, among them Mykhailo Tits, Dmytro Klebanov, Yuly Meytus, Andry Shtoharenko and Mykola Kolyada. Another notable musician associated with the Institute was David Oistrakh, who began his career by winning the Ukrainian Violin Competition in Kharkiv in 1930. In the 1950s and 60s Klebanov was a crucial figure. Among his students was Valenty Bibyk, who in the 1970s and 80s, as composer and teacher, rejuvenated the musical scene and influenced the next important generation of Kharkiv composers, such as Oleksandr Shchetyns'ky, Oleksandr Grinberg and Aleksandr Gugel'.
ME (Y.L. Shcherbinin; also ‘Khark'kovsky teatr operi i baleta’, Y.A. Stanishevsky)
P.P. Sokal's'ky: Russkaya narodnaya muzïka, velikorusskaya, i malorusskaya v eyo stroyenii melodicheskom i ritmicheskom i otlichnaya eyo ot osnov sovremmenoy garmonicheskoy muzïki [Russian folk music, Great Russian and Ukrainian, its melodic and rhythmic structure and its difference from the principles of contemporary harmonic music] (Kharkiv, 1888; Ukrainian trans., 1959, ed. M. Khomichevsky)
Y. Stanishevsky: ‘Traditsii i novatorstvo: Kharkivs'kyy operi – 40 rokiv’ [Tradition and experimentation: 40 years of Kharkiv opera], Prapor (1965), no.11
K. Krasnopolska: ‘Symfonichna muzyka kharkivskykh kompozytoriv’ [The symphonic music of Khar'kov's composers], Ukrainske muzykoznavstvo, ii (1967), 33–43
I.M. Myklashevsky: Muzychna i teatralna kultura Kharkova XVIII–XIX st. [Musical and theatrical culture in Khar'kov in the 18th and 19th centuries] (Kiev, 1967)
I. Pyrohova: ‘Iz istoriï muzykalnoho zhettya Kharkova’ [From the history of musical life in Khar'kov], Ukrainske muzykoznavstvo, iii (1968)
I. Pyrohova: ‘Rol' presy u stanovlenni y rosvitu muzykalnoï kul'tury Kharkovu’ [The role of the press in the musical life of Khar'kov], Ukrainske muzykoznavstvo, iv (1969), 3–12
Y. Shcherbynin: ‘Bilya dzherel muzychnoï osvity v Kharkovi’ [Near the sources of music education in Kharkiv], Ukrainske muzykoznavstvo, vi (1971), 228–37
VIRKO BALEY