Artemy Lukyanovich Vedel (), born Artemy Lukyanovich Vedelsky, was a Ukrainian-born Russian composer of military and liturgical music. He produced works based on Ukrainian folk melodies, and made an important contribution in the music history of Ukraine. Together with Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky, Vedel is recognised by musicologists as one of the "Golden Three" composers of 18th century Ukrainian classical music, and one of Russia's greatest choral composers.
Vedel was born in Kyiv, the son of a wealthy wood carver. He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy until 1787, after which he was appointed to conduct the academy's choir and orchestra. In 1788, he was sent to Moscow to work for the regional governor, but he returned home in 1791 and resumed his career at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. General Andrei Levanidov recruited him to lead Kyiv's regimental chapel and choir—under Levanidov's patronage, Vedel reached the peak of his creativity as a composer. He moved with Levanidov to the Kharkov Governorate, where he organised a new choir and orchestra, and taught at the Kharkiv Collegium.
His fortunes declined when the cultural life of Kharkiv was affected by decrees issued by Tsar Paul I of Russia. Lacking a patron, and with his music unable to be performed, he returned home to Kyiv in 1798, and became a novice monk of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. The monastery's authorities discovered handwritten threats towards the Russian royal family, and accused Vedel of writing them. He was subsequently incarcerated as a mental patient, and forbidden to compose. After almost a decade, the authorities allowed him to return to his father's house to die.
Vedel's music was censored during the period that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. More than 80 of his works are known, including 31 choral concertos, but many of his compositions are lost. Most of his choral music uses texts taken from the Psalms. The style of Vedel's compositions reflects the changes taking place in classical music during his lifetime; he was influenced by Ukrainian Baroque traditions, but also by new Western European operatic and instrumental styles.
Background
The character of Russian and Ukrainian worship derives from performances of the znamenny chant, which developed a tradition that was characterised by seamless melodies and a capacity to sustain pitch. The tradition reached its culmination during the 16th and 17th centuries, having taken on its own character in the Russian Empire some three centuries earlier.
Choral music has a special significance for Ukrainian culture; according to the musicologist Yurii Chekan, "choral music embodies Ukrainian national mentality, and the soul of the people". Ukrainian choral music changed during the Baroque era; passion and emotion, contrasting dynamics, timbre and musical texture were introduced, and monody was replaced by polyphony. The new polychoral culture became known as the ("singing in parts") style. During the 19th century, Znamenny chants were gradually superseded by newer ones, such as the Kyiv chant, which in their turn, were replaced by music that was closer to recitative. Most Znamenny melodies gradually become lost or forgotten. In the early 19th century, music in West-European was making the transition from classical to predominantly Romantic, having earlier shifted away from the Baroque style.
The tradition of Russian church music can be traced back to Dmitry Bortniansky, who revered the Russian liturgical musical tradition. The early part of the 19th century was a period that marked a low ebb in the fortunes of traditional Russian music. Bortniansky studied in Venice before eventually becoming the director of music at the court chapel in St Petersburg in 1801. Composing in an era when attempts were being made to suppress the Russian Empire's cultural heritage, Bortniansky's choral concertos, set to texts in Russian, were modelled on counterpoint, the concerto grosso and Italian instrumental music. Under him, the Imperial Court Chapel expanded its role so it influenced, and eventually controlled, church choral singing throughout the Russian Empire. Vedel followed Bortniansky in combining the Italian Baroque style to ancient Russian hymnody, at a time when classical influences were being introduced into Ukrainian choral music, such as four-voice polyphony, the soloist and the choir singing at different alternative times, and the employment of three or four sections in a work.
Sources The original biographical sources for Vedel are a biography about his pupil, the composer , and an article about Vedel by the historian Viktor Askochensky. Askochensky based his information on verbal accounts by Vedel's contemporaries and a biography written by Vedel's pupil Vasyl Zubovsky. The composer 's biography of Vedel, published in 1901, used similar sources.
Documents relating to Vedel were accidentally discovered in 1967 by the Ukrainian nationalist Vasyl Kuk when he was researching the Moscow military archives about NKVD operations against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Today, advocates of Vedel such as Mykola Hobdych, the director of the Kyiv Chamber Choir, and the musicologist Tetyana Husarchuk, continue to research and popularise his music. The task of studying Vedel is made more difficult for historians and musicologists because of the fragmentary and superficial nature of the sources—information about his methods is lacking, and his works cannot always be accurately dated.
Life Family Artemy Lukyanovich Vedel was born in Kyiv in the Russian Empire, probably on 13 April 1767. He was the only son of Lukyan Vlasovych Vedelsky and his wife Elena or Olena Hryhorivna Vedelsky. The family lived in Podil, the old trading and crafts centre of Kyiv, in the parish of the . Their house stood on what is now the corner between and Andriivska Street; Artemy lived there throughout his childhood. Almost half of the population of Kyiv lived in Podil, which was one of the three walled settlements that formed the city, along with Old Kyiv and Pechersk.
The Vedelsky family adhered strictly to the Orthodox faith. Lukyan Vlasovich Vedelsky was a wealthy carver of wooden iconostases, who owned his own workshop. The name Vedel, probably an abbreviated form of Vedelsky, was how the composer signed his letters, and named himself in military documents. His father signed himself "Kyiv citizen Lukyan Vedelsky".
Early years in Kyiv Vedel was a boy chorister in the Eparchial (bishop's) choir in Kyiv. He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, where his teachers included the Italian Giuseppe Sarti, who spent 18 years as an operatic composer in the Russian Empire. By the end of the 18th century, most of the students attending the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy were preparing for the priesthood. It was at that time the oldest and most influential higher education institution in the Russian Empire; most of the country's leading academics were originally graduates of the academy.
Vedel attended the academy until 1787. After that he studied philosophy and music, and began composing as a student of Potemkin's Musical Academy. Whilst studying the advanced philosophy course, he was appointed as the conductor of the academy's choir—the academy provided extensive programmes for the training of choral singers—and conducted the student orchestra. He also performed as a solo violinist. He studied the academy's theoretical books on music, and became acquainted with the religious works (including cantatas) composed by the academy's students, as well as the spiritual concerts of , and perhaps also those of Sarti and Maxim Berezovsky.
Moscow In 1788 Vedel, along with other choristers, was sent by , the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halych, and the rector of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, to Moscow. There he served as the assistant choir master and a violinist for , the Governor-General of Moscow, and, after 1790, by his successor, Alexander Prozorovsky. The choir was at the time an artistically important part of the Imperial Court in Moscow.
Vedel's talent was recognised by other musicians in Moscow. He probably continued his musical studies at the university. During this period, he had the opportunity to become more familiar with Russian and Western European musical cultures. He did not stay in Moscow for long and, resigning his position, he returned home to Kyiv in the early 1790s.
Patronage under Andrei Levanidov
In Kyiv, Vedel returned to leading the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy choir. Among the famous choirs in the city at that time was one belonging to General Andrei Levanidov at the Kyiv headquarters of the Ukrainian infantry regiment. From early 1794, Levanidov acquired Vedel's services to lead the regimental chapel and the children's choir. Levanidov, who valued and respected Vedel as a composer and a musician, was able to act as an influential patron—the years from 1794 to 1798 saw the zenith of Vedel's musical creativity. From 1793 to 1794 he directed the choirs of both the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and his patron. He was rapidly promoted within the army; on 1 March 1794 he was appointed as a staff clerk, and on 27 April 1795 he became a junior adjutant.
On 13 March 1796, Levanidov was appointed as Governor General of the Kharkiv Governorate. The composer moved to Kharkiv, along with his best musicians. In Kharkov (now Kharkiv, Ukraine) Vedel organised a new gubernia (governorate) choir and orchestra, and taught singing and music at the Kharkiv Collegium, which was second only to the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in terms of its curriculum. The music class at the Kharkiv Collegium was first recorded in 1798, when in January that year two canons and a choral concerto by Vedel were performed.
Vedel did much of his composing during this period. Works included the concerts "Resurrect God" and "Hear the Lord my voice" (dated 6 October 1796) and the two-choir concerto "The Lord passes me". The composer and his works were highly valued in Kharkiv; his concerts were studied and performed at the Kharkiv Collegium, and they were sung in churches. Bortniansky, who conducted the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella, praised the quality of Vedel's teaching. In September 1796, Vedel was promoted to become a senior adjutant, with the rank of captain.
Decline in fortunes In December 1796, on the orders of Tsar Paul I, the Kharkiv Governorate was abolished, and was replaced by the newly created Sloboda Ukrainian Governorate. Levanidov was dismissed on 9 January 1797, when his corps was disbanded by Paul I, and he left Kharkiv. Paul I decreed that all regimental chapels were to be abolished, which caused Vedel to resign from the army in October 1797. He worked as a musician for the governor of the new province, . Teplov, who as a young man had received an excellent musical education, treated Vedel as well as he could.
The tsar's decrees caused the cultural and artistic life of Kharkiv to decline. The city's theatre was closed, and its choirs and orchestras were dissolved. Performances of Vedel's works in churches were banned, as the tsar had prohibited singing in churches of any form of music except during the Divine Liturgy.
The loss of Levanidov's support caused Vedel to become deeply depressed. Despite the support he received from Teplov, Vedel decided to leave Kharkiv. He distributed his belongings (including all his manuscripts), and the end of the summer of 1798 he returned to live at his parents' house in Kyiv. There he wrote two choral concertos, "God, the law-breaker of the rebellion against me" (11 November 1798) and "To the Lord we always mourn". The concertos were performed in the and St Sophia Cathedral in the city.
Life as a novice
Early in 1799, frustrated by the lack of opportunities to compose and teach and possibly suffering from a form of mental illness, Vedel enrolled as a novice monk at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. He was an active member of the community and was respected by the monks for his asceticism.