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Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko (Микола Віталійович Лисенко, October 22 1842 – November 6 1912) was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and folksong collector. He is referred to as the founder of national Ukrainian classical music.

Early life
Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko was born on October 3, 1842 (Julian calendar) or October 22 (Gregorian calendar) in the Poltava oblast, then part of the Russian Empire, but in present day Ukraine. His family was very wealthy, with his father Vitaliy Lysenko, a colonel. Mykola's mother Olga, who spoke French almost fluently, made sure that he would only know French in his childhood and later he learned Ukrainian. Olga Lysenko also played the piano, and the parents noticed that Mykola would try to pick out melodies for hours on their grand piano, so they hired a piano teacher for him since he was five years old. Lysenko accelerated really fast in music. By nine years old (when he was in first grade) he wrote a polka that was published in Kiev.

Kharkiv
In 1855, Mykola Lysenko started attending the Second Kharkiv Gymnasium. During that time, he took piano lessons on the side. After a while, he became a well-known pianist in Kharkiv and was invited to play at various parties and balls where he played dances, pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and improvised on themes of Ukrainian folk songs. In the spring of 1859, Mykola graduated from the Gymnasium with a silver medal and later that year, he, together with his cousin Mykhailo Starytsky, joined the Natural Science faculty of the Kharkiv university.

Kiev
In 1960, Mykola's parents moved to Kiev, and the cousins switched to the Kiev University. Here Mykola's nationalism toward Ukraine's language and culture starting growing, according to his cousin Mykhailo Starytsky. He was even a pallbearer at Taras Shevchenko's funeral in 1861. While at the Universtiy, Lysenko started studying music of composers such as Glinka, Schumann, and Wagner. During vacations and holidays at the Universtiy, he started collecting and recording Ukrainian folk songs onto sheetmusic. On June 1, 1864, Mykola Lysenko finished the Physics-Mathematics Faculty of the Kiev University and in the May of 1845, he graduated with a degree of a Candidate of Natural Sciences. He then organized a few student choirs which he directed and performed with publicly.

Leipzig
Not long after graduating from the Kiev University, Mykola Lysenko decided to get a degree in music. With his family, he picked the Leipzig Conservatory, which they considered one of the best in Europe. In September 1867, he entered into the University. During his studies in the Conservatory, Lysenko continued to work on Ukrainian folk songs. In 1868, he published his first collection of Ukrainian folk songs, with 40 songs for piano and voice. Mykola also joined and activist group in Ukraine at this time, and published a cycle of songs, with words from Taras Shevchenko's "Kobzar". In 1869, Mykola Lysenko finished the Conservatory successfully after having played Beethoven's fourth piano concerto. During his studies here in Leipzig, Lysenko also authored a portion of a future suite for piano, a symphonic overture on the theme of the Ukrainian folk song Oi zapyv kozak, zapyv, the first movement of his Youth symphony, and a quartet and a trio for strings.

Marriage and children
In the summer of 1868, Mykola Lysenko married Olga O'Konnor whom he brought back to Leipzig with him to continue his studies.


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Return to Kiev
From 1869 to 1874 Mykola Lysenko lived in Kyiv becoming familiar with the creative, pedagogic, and community activities there. He was a member of the Russian Music Society from 1872 to 1873 and participated in its concerts. In 1872 Lysenko took charge of a newly-created amatuer choir with 50 singers (?with the goal of gaining support from the choir movement in Ukraine/supporting the choir movement in Kyiv?).

In 1872, a group of Ukrainian activists, headed by Mykola Lysenko and Mykhailo Starytsky gained the right to publicly perform Ukrainian plays. That’s when Lysenko and Sarytsky wrote the operettas Chornomortsi and Rizdvyana Nich (which they later made into an opera). Chornomortsi, a folk operetta, entered the theatrical repertoire in the same year, while Rizdvyana Nich was finally performed in the Kiev Opera House in 1974 by amatuer actors. This marked the beginning of Ukrainian national music theatre. In 1873, Mykola Lysenko published his first work on Ukrainian musical folklore entitled, Unique Musical Characteristics of the Ukrainian dumas and songs performed by kobzar Ostap Veresai. During this period, Mykola Vitalievych composed many works for the piano, as well as Kozak-Shumka, his symphonic fantasy on Ukrainian folk themes.

St. Petersburg
With the purpose of advancing his mastery in the sphere of symphonic instrumentation, in 1874 he enters the St. Petersburg conservatory into the course of world-renowned master Rimsky-Korsakov, which he finished in 1876. “…lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov greatened his musical erudition and opened before him new mysteries of compositions with many different sounds. The people for Petersburg even proposed to Lysenko the position of kapellmeister in a private opera with the perspective of a [later] transfer to the emperor’s stage …But a yearning for his homeland pulled him home”. (Mykhailo Starytsky. Recollections) During this period, Lysenko has friendlily communicates with the composers of the “Mighty Handful”, and takes part in concerts of the Geographic Society, directs choir courses, together with V.Paskhalov organizes “Solyanomu mistechku” concerts of choral music, where among the performed music, was Lysenko’s own as well. In the Petersburg period he wrote a sonata for piano, his first and second polonaises, first rhapsody on Ukrainian themes, and published “Molodoschi” (a collection maiden and child songs and dances). He worked also on the opera “Marusya Bohuslavka” (unfinished) and his second edition of the opera “Rizdvyana Nich”.

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Category:1842 births Category:1912 deaths

Mykola Lysenko Лисенко Микола Віталійович