Dankevich, Konstantin
Dankevich, Konstantin
Dankevich, Konstantin , eminent Ukrainian composer and teacher; b. Odessa, Dec. 24, 1905; d. Kiev, Feb. 26, 1984. He studied with Zolotarev at the Odessa Cons., graduating in 1929. In 1942 he was made artistic director of the Red Army Ensemble of Songs and Dance in Tbilisi. From 1944 to 1953 he was a prof. of composition at the Odessa Cons.; in 1953 he was appointed to the faculty of the Kiev Cons. In his works, Dankevich utilized motifs of Ukrainian and Russian folk songs. He first attracted attention with his opera Bogdan Khmelnitsky (Kiev, Jan. 29, 1951), on a subject from Ukrainian history, which was attacked for its libretto and its unsuitable music; Dankevich revised the score, after which it gained favorable notices in Russia. He also wrote the opera Nazar Stodolya (Kharkov, May 28, 1960). His most popular score was Lileya, a ballet (1939). Other works included 2 syms. (1937, 1945), several overtures, and patriotic choruses, including Poem of the Ukraine (1960) and the ideological cantata to his own words, The Dawn of Communism Has Risen over Us (1961). A mono-graph on him was publ. in Ukrainian in Kiev (1959).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire