Borys Lyatoshyns'kyi - Ukrainian Quintet, Op. 42 (1945)

Boris Mykolayovych Lyatoshinsky or Lyatoshynsky (Ukrainian: Бори́с Миколáйович Лятоши́нський, Borys Mykolayovych Lyatoshyns′kyi; January 3, 1895 – April 15, 1968) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, and teacher. A leading member of the new generation of twentieth-century Ukrainian composers, he was awarded a number of accolades, including the honorary title of People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR and two Stalin State Prizes.

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Ukrainian Quintet in G minor, Op. 42 (1942-45)

1. Allegro e poco agitato (0:00)
2. Lento e tranquillo (12:59)
3. Allegro (24:09)
4. Allegro risoluto (30:44)

Lidia Futorska and Andriy Tchaikovsky, violin; Marta Karapinka, viola; Viktor Rekalo, cello & Ivan Pahota, piano

During the Second World War, Lyatoshinsky created some chamber works, ‘beautiful compositions’ (as observed by Glière ) such as Ukrainian Quintet (for the piano, violin, viola and cello), Shevchenko's Suite for the piano (dedicated to legendary long-suffering Ukrainian poet), Ukrainian Quintet Fourth String Quartet (based on the Ukrainian themes), Suite for the Quartet, Second Trio for the piano and many solo and choir arrangements. Remarkably, Lyatoshinsky chooses themes for his compositions based on the songs with a melancholic character, such as Pechal za Pechaliu (The Sadness is following Sorrow). During these years, Lyatoshinsky carried on his work as an academic and a composer.

Between 1941- 1943 many faculties of the Moscow Conservatoire, including the music department, were relocated to Saratov, a town near the Russian river Volga. Lyatoshinsky expected to work not only as a composer but as a public figure. During this time, Lyatoshinsky established contacts and worked collaboratively with the administrators of the local Concert Hall and Radio Committee; he took charge and led operations to save and transport Ukrainian musical manuscripts to the areas of non- conflict. At this time Lyatoshinsky approached the transitional moment in his music, achieving the necessary compromise between pessimistic decadence and revitalisation. It is characterised by the demands of the renewal in the face of anxiety and despair, reviving a vital driving force by means of modernistic fusion of atonality with the motivic realisation of folk song, encapsulated in the polyphonic writing.

In 1946, Lytoshinsky's Ukrainian Quintet was honoured with the Stalin prize (in 1952 he received another Stalin prize, this time for the music in film about a Ukrainian national poet and a revolutionary hero Taras Shevchenko).