David Dalle
Thursday August 25th, 2022 with David Dalle
Ukrainian symphonic cycle. The symphonies of Boris Lyatoshynsky. Music from Yemen. Frederic Rzewski.

Today we continue with the symphonies of Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky. I wrote a brief description of his life and career in the first program, where you can also listen to his 1st symphony: https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/57119.html Today we will hear his 2nd symphony, composed in 1935 and 1936. This was a very turbulent period for Ukraine, just several years after the Holodomor--Stalin's forced famine--where millions of Ukrainians died--the streets of Kyiev had been full of the dying and the dead. This catastrophe is keenly felt in this music. The symphony is in three movements, the outer movements are full of stress and jagged, violent outbursts. Even the middle slow movement, though starting with lush and expansive Romantic harp and basset horn, has layers of ominous cellos and anxious woodwinds that are joined by brass and percussion in discomfiting surges. Lyatoshynsky's 2nd symphony did not pass the censors' approval and was not premiered until 1964, nearly 30 years after it was composed. Lyatoshynsky nearly didn't live to see it performed, dying in 1968. I believe it is essential to promote Ukrainian culture while bombs are currently falling on Ukraine. Putin's genocidal goal is to erase Ukrainian culture and language as much as physical control of the land (in this, he joins a long tradition going back to the Stalin, and earlier, the Tsars in Imperial Russia). Tyrants always try and suppress culture because it is necessary to a people's survival (Canada has its own shameful history with the Indian Act and Residential schools intention to erase indigenous language and culture). In this same light, we will also hear some wonderful Yemeni music. The war in Yemen has been almost forgotten by the West. There has been a fragile ceasefire since this spring, but eight years of warfare has caused irreparable harm and trauma to the country and its people. Yemen has always been the poorest of the Arabian Peninsula's nations, but it has always had the richest culture and music in the Peninsula. A curse on all tyrants whether they live in Moscow or Riyadh.