The historical, cultural and spiritual capital of Ukraine. The conversion of Ukraine to Christianity (988) brought the acceptance of the Byzantine rite, and with that came Byzantine sacred music via the Greeks and the Bulgarians. By the second half of the 11th century, the Kievan Monastery of the Caves had become the centre for religious music in Ukraine and had developed an original style based on Byzantine traditions and local folk music. This employed two types of non-linear motation for its monophonic singing, znamenna (written above the words of the liturgical services) and kondakarna (used to note down liturgical singing, specifically the kontakia). This liturgical music developed into an original Kievan monodic style known as Kyivskiy raspev, or znamennďy raspev, since it used neumatic notation. Kiev's political importance diminished in the 13th and 14th centuries and did not regain its stature until the Polish-Lithuanian union of 1569 brought the Ukrainian Church under Western influence. This resulted in the adoption of Western musical theories and polyphony at the Kiev Mohyla Academy (1615–1915). The Mohyla Academy adapted these new musical theories and became, in the 17th and early 18th centuries, the musical centre of the eastern Slavonic world. At the height of its development, during the Hetmanate period (the name of the Ukrainian Cossack state, 1648–1782), the Mohlya Academy had an orchestra of 100 and a chorus of 300. The polyphonic style matured in Kiev and contributed to the evolution of the choral concerto, which was then transmitted to Moscow via the many Ukrainian singers and composers who went there to develop professional music careers. The Mohyla Academy produced several generations of composers, the most notable (and one of the last) being Artemy Vedel (1767–1810), and influenced a whole generation of other Ukrainian composers (including Maksym Berezovs'ky and Dmytro Bortnyans'ky) working for the newly dominant Russia. By the early 19th century Kiev had lost its musical primacy to Moscow.
In the 19th century musical culture in Kiev was dominated by various societies. The most important was the Kiev branch of the Russian Music Society, which, in addition to sponsoring concerts, established a music school (where the Czech violin teacher Otakar Ševčík taught, 1875–93). This school provided the foundation for the later conservatory. Under its auspices many famous figures appeared in Kiev, among them Lysenko, Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Chaliapin and Koussevitsky. Central to the development of a Ukrainian national style and the leading figure in its 19th-century music circles was Mykola Lysenko. After settling in Kiev in 1876 he was very active as a composer, pianist, choral conductor, ethnomusicologist and teacher. In 1904 he established in Kiev the Muzychno Dramatychna Shkola (‘Music and Drama School’) for students between the ages of nine and 17. In 1918 this school became the base for Muzychno-Dramatychny Institut im. Lysenka (‘The Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama’). In spite of his reputation, but because of his strong national and political beliefs, he was shunned by the influential Russian Music Society, without whose support certain doors would remain shut.
In 1913, the Kiev Conservatory was formed from the Kiev School of Music, which had existed from 1868 under the aegis of the Russian Music Society. The second principal was Glier (1914–20). In its early years it boasted an excellent faculty, producing a number of important performers, among them Vladimir Horowitz. In 1925 the Soviet government reorganized music education, renaming the conservatory a music school for younger students, while the older ones were sent to the Lysenko Institute. The conservatory was restored in 1934; in 1938 an opera studio was added to it, and in 1940 it became known as the P.I. Tchaikovsky Kiev State Conservatory. In 1995 it was renamed Natsional'na Muzychna Akademia imeni Chaykovs'koho, Kyiv (‘the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy, Kiev’). As well as Glier, Lyatoshyns'ky and Revutsky have also taught at the faculty and among the many distinguished graduates are Valentin Sil'vestrov, Yevhen Stankovych, Myroslav Skoryk, Ivan Karabyts and Vitaly Hodzyatsky. Today it is the largest music school and research centre in Ukraine.
Opera was an important and very popular musical development in the 19th century in Kiev. Although professional operatic activities can be traced to 1803, the first opera house built with city funds was completed in 1805–6. In 1851 the theatre was closed, and in 1856 a new city theatre was built on the site of the present Kyivs'kyy Natsional'ny Teatr Opery ta Baletu imeni T.H. Shevchenka (‘Shevchenko National Theatre of Opera and Ballet’). The first operatic production took place in 1856 with the opera The Ukrainians by M. Karol. In 1867, under the auspices of the Kiev branch of the Russian Music Society, a permanent opera company, the Russian Opera Company, was formed. This was the first official theatre to be organized in a province. It was praised by Tchaikovsky, and a number of important singers appeared on its stage. The development of a Ukrainian national opera in Kiev occurred in the early 1920s after the Russian Opera Company was disbanded in 1917. It was at this time that operas were first sung in Ukrainian. In 1926 the Kyivs'ka Derzhavna Akademichna Ukrains'ka Opera (‘Kiev State Academic Opera’) was inaugurated. In 1934 it became the Kyivs'kyy Derzhavnyy Akademichnyy Teatr Opery ta Baletu (‘Kiev State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet’), and finally, in 1939, adopted the title Shevchenko State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet. Before World War II the Opera cultivated a number of Ukrainian singers, such as Mariya Litvinenko-Wohlgemut, Ivan Kozlovsky and Borys Hmyrya. In the late 1920s a wave of experimentation swept through it (a good example being the cubist production of Lyatoshyns'ky's The Golden Ring). During the years of Soviet Socialist realism the productions and repertory were forced to serve the needs of communist ideology by greatly simplifying theatrical and musical values. After World War II, in the 1950s and 60s, the Kiev Opera expanded its activities and again achieved an international reputation. It began to tour abroad, after Ukrainian independence, in France, Italy, Egypt and Japan, and was renamed the Schevchenko National Opera of Ukraine in 1995.
The Stalinist years were traumatic ones for Kiev (Lyatoshyns'ky kept a packed suitcase by the door, waiting to be arrested), but the post-Stalinist thaw brought in a new renaissance, reminiscent of the experimental 1920s. The sixties and seventies are known as the period of the Kiev avant garde. This was a small group of composers and performers, all of them associated with Lyatoshyns'ky, who broke with the still prevailing dogma of socialist realism. The event that brought attention to the activities of the Kiev avant garde was an article by the Ukrainian musicologist Halyna Mokreyeva, ‘Letter from Kiev’, which appeared in the Polish journal Ruch muzychny in 1962. It announced that Kiev was home to a new generation of composers. This group, which consisted of Silvestrov, Leonid Hrabovs'ky, Hodzyatsky, Volodymyr Huba, Vitaly Patsera, Igor Blazhkov and Halyna Mokreyeva, revolutionized the Ukrainian musical establishment. By 1980 the Kiev-based publishing house Muzychna Ukraďna had published two significant booklets, one on Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and one on the music of Charles Ives by the musicologist Stepaniia Pavlyshyn.
Since independence, Kiev has retained its cultural leadership in Ukraine and enjoys a rich variety of performing ensembles. One of the more important, and the one with the greatest performing tradition, is the Natsional'nyi Zasluzhenyi Akademichnyi Orkestr (‘National Merited Academic SO of Ukraine’). Organized as the Orkestr Ukrains'koi SSR (‘State Symphony Orchestra of Ukrainian SSR Derztavnyi Symponichnyi’) in 1937, its music directors have included Natan Rakhlin and Igor Blazhkov and in more recent years the Ukrainian-American Theodore Kuchar, under whose direction it has recorded many compact discs. The Kiev Chamber Orchestra performed many premičres of western and Soviet composers under the direction of Blazhkov in the 1970s. More recently the State Chamber Ensemble Kiev Soloists (better known as the Kiev Camerata) has attracted international attention and the Lysenko String Quartet has toured and recorded extensively. The choral tradition, which has always been strong in Kiev, today includes the Lyatoshyns'ky Chamber Choir, the Veryovka Choir, the Dumka Choir and the Kiev Chamber Choir. The principal music publishing institution is Muzychna Ukraďna (established in 1967), which, in addition to publishing scores and books, produced a series entitled Literary Portraits of Ukrainian Composers. Festivals have also proliferated, the principal ones being the Kiev Music Fest and Music Premičres of the Season (annual since 1990) and the international piano competition named after Horowitz (bi-annual since 1995).
I. Asieiev: Mystetstvo starodavn'oho Kyieva [The arts of ancient Kiev] (Kiev, 1969)
L. Arkhimovych: Shlakhy rozvytku ukrains'koi radyans'koi opery [Paths of development of Ukrainian soviet opera] (Kiev, 1970)
Y. Stanishevsky: Ukrains'kyy radyans'kyy muzychnyy teatr, 1917–1967 [Soviet Ukrainian music theatre, 1917–1967] (Kiev, 1970)
M. Hordiychuk: ‘Na shlyakhu do stvorennya ukraďnskoi opery v Kievi’ [On the way to the creation of the Ukrainian opera in Kiev], Ukrainske muzykoznavstvo, x (1975), 93–113
For further bibliography see Ukraine, §I.
VIRKO BALEY