Leonid Hrabovsky

Concerto Misterioso

UCMF 2021 · The Kyiv Avant-Garde · Mar 6 · 1977 · Orchestral

for flute, clarinet, bassoon, crotales, harpsichord, harp and strings

Performed by Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra (Chamber orchestra), Chris Whittaker (Conductor)

Concerto Misterioso, for flute, clarinet, bassoon, crotales, harpsichord, harp and strings, exemplifies Leonid Hrabovsky’s idea that “the method of random numbers and the assumption of a certain role of chance is a creative process and can lead to unexpectedly interesting consequences.” The work was inspired by the mysterious canvases of Ukrainian painter Kateryna Bilokur (1900-1961). The composer was striving to capture the refinement, repetitive patterns and folklore feel of the paintings, and used structural minimalism based on his original algorithmic method in order to select melodic excerpts. The melodies came from the collection of 518 songs by Yavdokha Zuikha, a traditional singer from the Vynnytsia region, recorded by folklorist Hnat Tantsiura. The sequence of sounds seems somewhat random and unexpected, while in fact the compositional method in this piece is highly structured. The premiere of Concerto Misterioso took place at the Berliner Festival in 1986; it was also performed in Las Vegas in 1987, and in New York in 1994 by the Continuum Ensemble directed by Joel Sachs.

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Trio for Violin, Bass and Piano

UCMF 2020 · Composers' Roundtable · Mar 1 · Chamber

Iryna Kit, violin; Tristan Kasten-Krause, bass; Alexander Chaplinskiy, piano

Performed by Iryna Kit (Violin), Tristan Kasten-Krause (Double bass), Alexander Chaplinskiy (Piano)

Trio for Violin, Bass and Piano by Leonid Hrabovsky became the starting point in the composer’s transitive creative period based on the principles of spatial notation, approximate rhythms, shards of 12-tone, modal and purely sound-color elements — the manner that, from the time perspective, might be named polytechnic (a term coined by Polish avant-garde composer Bogusław Schaeffer). Written in three days, it bears, in its formal design, certain traces of improvisation. There is a belief that this Trio was historically the very first avant-garde composition in Ukraine — as that term was understood internationally in the 1960s. The desire to write an ensemble piece covering the full range of the 88-pitch-universe, in both piano and string instruments, determined the selection of double bass instead of the cello as a standard piano trio member. All possible non-standard playing techniques developed at that time — elbow clusters, playing on piano strings, Bartók pizzicato, playing behind the bridge etc. in strings — are present in Trio. During the last half-century, Trio has seen several performances in Kyiv, Moscow and New York, and has appeared on the record “20th Century Ukrainian Violin Music” with performers Virko Baley, Eugene Gratovich and Bertram Turetzky.

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EQVIN

UCMF 2024 · Defense, Defiance, Dedication · Mar 28 · 2022 · Chamber

Performed by Alexander Yakub (Violin), Forrest Eimhold (Piano)

EQVIN for Violin and Piano was commissioned by the violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv for the “Music at the Institute” programs at the Ukrainian Institute of America, where it premiered in May 2022. It is dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father, violinist/violist Olexander Hrabovsky, who perished together with millions of other victims in the infamous tsunami of repressions committed by Stalin’s communist regime in 1937; the work is a depiction in music of his tragic destiny.

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And It Will Be

UCMF 2025 · Fantastyka · Mar 13 · 1993 · Vocal

New arrangement; words by Mykola Vorobyov

Performed by TAK Ensemble (Ensemble), Laura Barger (Piano & synthesizer)

And It Will Be (“І буде так”), to texts of the Ukrainian poet Mykola Vorobyov, was written at the request of the CONTINUUM Ensemble; the world premiere took place on 17 October 1993 on its tour in Baltimore, and was repeated that season in Salzburg. Eight suggestive, strangely prophetic and out-of-this-world poems of Vorobyov feature an immense variety of apocalyptic suggestions and enigmatic visions typical of surrealist thinking; they gravitate to corresponding music images that mix different and unpredictable sonic elements. The restriction of instrumental setting led Hrabovsky to add timbres — a small CASIO-100 synth beside the (partially prepared) piano and a set of small percussion played by all the instrumentalists during rests — forming a “pocket chamber orchestra” of sorts.

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Pastels

UCMF 2025 · From Kontraktova Square · Mar 14 · 1964 · Vocal

Words by Pavlo Tychyna

Performed by Teryn Kytasty-Kuzma (Soprano), The Rhythm Method (String quartet), Kebra-Seyoun Charles (Double bass)

“The 4-part vocal cycle for voice and 4 strings was composed in the summer of 1964. It was one of the first works of my new avant-garde period, when I turned to the technique of partial rhythm aleatory with elements of 12-tone series, modal moments, clusters and other unusual sounds — a kind of polytechnic concept with the stress on timbre as the form-building element, the leading trend in Polish music of that time. Since my school years I have been fascinated by the poetry of Pavlo Tychyna… ‘Pastels,’ written in Tychyna’s early years (1914–1919), are short sketches of four times of day and fit easily to my wish to compose a cycle of vocal miniatures. In some moments they reflected my impressions from ‘Circles’ by Luciano Berio. Vocal sounds of ‘Pastels’ include singing, Sprechgesang, shouting, whisper and even the special technique of throat tremolo.” (Leonid Hrabovsky)

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For Elissa

UCMF 2025 · Ukrainian Tone Poems · Mar 15 · 1988 · Piano

Performed by Forrest Eimhold (Piano)

“This work was composed in 1988 to the request of American pianist Elissa Stutz for her concert in Merkin Hall, New York in the autumn of that year. The title is a humorous, witty allusion to Beethoven’s famous ‘Für Elise,’ and some people even expected quotations from the ‘original.’ The intention was to make a piece in a lyrical, dreamlike mood maximally fit for the modest technical resources of the pianist. Technically, ‘For Elissa’ is a work where my rhythm vocabulary and poly-mode chain pitch system of my algorithmic composition method were used in full scale for the first time, bringing to the music narrative the level of flexibility that was the aim of the composer.” (Leonid Hrabovsky)

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