Vasyl Barvinskyi’s Musical Salon

Performers:

• Lux Sonorum Ensemble:
  • Olena Kravets, violin
  • Borys Koblyk, violin
  • Maksym Semeniuk, viola
  • Olena Humeniuk, cello
  • Daniil Hrushyn, double bass
  • Yevа Kulikovska, piano
• Rostyslav Fedyna, piano
• Denys Lytvynenko, cello
• Violina Petrychenko, piano

Programme:

Vasyl Barvinskyi.

• Sextet for two violins, viola, cello, double bass, and piano
• Ukrainian Suite for piano
• Dumka for cello and piano

In 2026, we are delighted to present the continuation of the project “Vasyl Barvinskyi’s Musical Salon”!

On 20 February, we invite you to a камер programme featuring the first Ukrainian chamber work written for six instruments — two violins, viola, cello, double bass, and piano. This is Vasyl Barvinskyi’s Sextet, completed in 1914 and dedicated to the memory of Mykola Lysenko.

The Sextet was conceived in Prague and immediately won the hearts of audiences as a masterful and inspired work by a young composer. Initially, however, it existed only in manuscript form. The material was lost during the dramatic events of 1940, when Barvinskyi was repressed, and only after his exile did the composer reconstruct it from memory.

At the centre of the cycle are genre variations that seem to live their own lives. Here we encounter the sparkling and witty “Scherzo”, the “Lirnyky” movement whose melody sounds like a distant memory of an ancient song, the profound and deeply expressive “Dumka”, and the final “Kolomyika”, bursting with the energy of dance and joy. Each movement feels like a ray of light breaking through old walls, like the breath of spring rushing into the frozen streets of our seemingly endless February.

Barvinskyi’s “Ukrainian Suite” opens an entirely different world — a dialogue between epochs. Folk song appears in Baroque forms, recalling Bach, Handel, or Couperin, while at the same time being filled with an emotional intensity that was modern for the early twentieth century. The Prelude is monumental, like an ancient temple; the Scherzo is light and playful; the Song is sincere and lyrical; and the finale — Variations and Fugue — unfolds as a solemn, energetic journey toward a clear and radiant conclusion that, we believe, will inevitably arrive.