September 20, the concert hall of Kyiv’s House of Scholars and Scientists under the National Academy of Sciences hosted a concert also serving as a presentation of the CD O, Rozkishna Venero [Oh, Beautiful Venus] and other melodies dating from the Hetman period of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. This time it was not just another gala show (of which we all have, frankly, tired), but a new project of People’s Artiste of Ukraine Nina Matviyenko and the Old Music Ensemble directed by Kostiantyn Chechenia, a well-known Kyiv lutist, expert, and researcher of authentic music. The album includes nine instrumental pieces, dances of that period performed by the Old Music Ensemble.
Secular and religious melodies performed during the concert-presentation were a sudden and extremely pleasant surprise, presenting the audience with something long-sought yet inherently absent on the domestic music market. Somewhat archaic harmony and texts with a definite Slavonic flavor, something you are not likely to hear anywhere these days. Such music for a large audience remains unadmitted to the history of Ukrainian musical culture. It is not box-office or marketable, although it secures the roots of our national music, the very soul of the Ukrainian song, as well as our balanced and friendly character that has been innate in us Slavs since olden times.
Kostiantyn Chechenia’s Ensemble was not just an accompanist in Nina Matviyenko’s new project. Chechenia did what is best described as a Herculean effort, meaning days, months, and years of painstaking search and undying hopes. One must remember that such music is usually conveyed to us in the tabular form originating from various parts of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, and then reprinted abroad. You will not find it in any music store. Only a handful of music experts can read scores dating from that epoch. Kostiantyn combines all the rare gifts of researcher, decipherer, musicologist, performer, and artistic director. Another album of the Ensemble is being prepared.
Oh, Beautiful Venus became a new, extremely interesting challenge for Nina Matviyenko. Vocally, she achieved a remarkable combination of the academic and folk approaches to music. The result is akin to the economic and restrained baroque school, allowing to sustain a note of penetrating heartfulness. These melodies are arrestingly ingenious and the performer’s femininity lends them a primordial spiritual strength, something we have lost over the past stormy centuries. The audience was bewitched by the song Jesus Christ, My Lord. Its religious emotionality and expressiveness were over and above time and space, reaching deep into the modern listener’s heart. With laconic accompaniment, the singer created a powerfully real image of sorrow and grandeur.
