Mykola Vilinsky

Vilinsky, 1911

Mykola Mykolayovych Mykola was born on 2/14 May 1888,[note 2] in Holta, in the Russian Empire, now part of the Ukrainian city of Pervomaisk.[1] He had an older sister, Tamara.[2] Vilinsky's mother Olena Petrovna was descended from the Baroque era composer Josse Boutmy, who belonged to a family of musicians from Ghent known as the Boutmy Dynasty.[3] His father Mykola Oleksandrovych Vilinsky was the mayor of Ananiv.[4] The family on his father's side was descended from a Polish nobleman, Tomasz Wiliński. [5]

The Ukrainian writer Marko Vovchok, born Mariia Vilinskа may also have been related to the family. The so-called "golden soprano" of the Bolshoi Theatre, Ksenia Derzhynska, and the musicologist and writer Alexander Ossovsky were both his cousins.[4]

Vilinsky's mother was his first music teacher. He began to seriously engage in music on his own whilst at school in Ananiv, conducting the church choir and organizing the school's folk music orchestra. After he completed his school education in 1906, his father decided to prepare his son for a career in law, and Vilinsky entered the Faculty of Law of the Imperial Novorossian University in Odesa, where he graduated in 1912.[4] For a short period he worked in the Odesa District Court.[6]

Whilst still studying law, Vilinsky attended the Odesa Music School, where he studied composition under the Polish composers Witold Maliszewski and Witold Lutosławski.[4][note 3] Maliszewski valued Vilinsky as one of his best students. When he and his family was forced to leave Odesa, attempted to take Vilinsky along with them. Despite the strictly enforced censorship that existed, Vilinsky and Maliszewski continued to correspond.[4] In 1917 he finally abandoned the idea of a career in law to devote himself to music.[6] Despite his studies being interrupted in 1916 by conscription into the army,[7] he graduated from the Odesa Conservatory in 1919.[8]

The Odesa Conservatory, where Vilinsky worked for the first two decades of his career

During his career Vilinsky lived and worked in Odesa and Kyiv, separated by a period during the Second World War during which he was evacuated to Tashkent.[1] Along with his work as a composer and teacher, he wrote articles on Ukrainian and Moldovan music, and was a reviewer, a music critic, and an editor, when he oversaw the publication of the complete works of the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko.[8]

From 1920 to 1941, Vilinsky taught at the Odesa Conservatory,[1] succeeding Malyshevsky. At Odesa his talent developed and he gained recognition as a composer. In 1926 he was promoted to the rank of professor, and in 1931 he became the head of the department of composition. In 1935 he became the director of the Odesa regional organization of the Union of Composers of Ukraine, his deputies being two of his students, Serafim Orfeev and Leonid Gurov. Vilinsky was also a member of the board of the Union.[9]

In 1941, Vilinskyi and his family evacuated to Tashkent.[2] Along with Lev Revutsky, he worked as a professor at the Tashkent Conservatory. [10] He remained there until 1944, when he returned to Ukraine.[1] During the war, the Romanian authorities in occupied Odesa succeeded in permanently acquiring a number of Vilinsky's compositions, as well family documents and part of his music library.[11]

In 1944, Vilinsky returned to Ukraine and lived in Kyiv, where he led the composition department at the Kyiv Conservatory, a post he held until 1956.[1] Vilinsky was made an Honoured Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1951; he was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1953.[8] He was one of a trio of outstanding composers at the Kyiv Conservatory known as the "Three Mykolayovyches", which consisted of Vilinsky, Revutsky, and Borys Lyatoshynsky.[12][note 4]

Vilinsky some of his Odesa students: seated—Vilinskyi (right), Kostiantyn Dankevych (centre), Maria Zavalishina; standing—Serafim Orfeev (second from the right)

During the 1930s, Emil and Elizabeth Gilels, David Oistrakh, Yakiv Zak, Maria Grinberg and other musicians studied together with Vilinsky.[4] His other students included Kostiantyn Dankevych, Oleksandr Bilash, Volodymyr Femilidi,[8] Oscar Feltsman, Orfeev, Anton Mukha, Gurov, David Hershfeld, Maria Zavalishina, Albert Vodovozov, Yevhen Zubtsov, and Valentin Kucherov.[4] Orfeev, who later became rector (principal) of the Odesa Conservatory wrote, "It seems that there was no composer in Odesa who did not consult with Mykola Mykolayovych.... and his advice was unconditionally accepted."[4]

When Vilinsky realised that Dankevych had the potential to become a composer, he insisted that he attended composition classes. During the 1930s, Dankevych saved Vilinsky from the so-called "proletarian purge" at the Odesa Conservatory.[4] After the Second World War, he regularly visited Vilinsky at his dacha in Vorzel, spending time discussing composition with him, or relaxing with the family. In 1951, when Dankevich was being persecuted for his opera Bogdan Khmelnytsky, Vilinsky defended his student and supported him on his revision of the work.[13] Vilinsky remained as his mentor after he graduated from the Odesa Conservatory; their friendship lasted until after Vilinsky's death a decade later.[4]

Vilinsky, with his wife Olena and their son Serhii, photographed in October 1917

Vilinski's son Serhii was born in 1916. When the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany in 1941, Vilinsky had the opportunity stop his son fighting on the front line, Serhil survived the war, having fought with the Red Army in Bessarabia, Caucasus, the Crimea, and Königsberg. [11]

The composer's daughter Iryna Mykolaivna Vilinska was a singing teacher who wrote songs, arrangements of folk songs, and music articles.[4]

Vilinsky died in Kyiv on 9 September 1956,[1] and was buried in the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.[14]