Songs of Longing, presented by Wellesley Russian Area Studies

Lyatoshynsky’s 4th quartet belongs to a special category of works written during the time of an extraordinary trial for the Ukrainian nation. In 1941 it only took 2 months for Nazi Germany to reach Kyiv and by the end of the year the entire Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was under occupation, which would last 3 years and become infamous for its atrocities. Lyatoshynsky was a preeminent Ukrainian composer and a professor at the Kyiv and Moscow conservatories. As such, at the start of the invasion he was hastily evacuated to Saratov, where this and other wartime compositions were created. 

While Lyatoshynsky’s style is typically modern and symphonic, folk influences, which already took root in the decade prior, sprouted powerfully in this and other works he created during these years. Each of the five movements is based on a folk melody and weaves its narrative with deceptive simplicity. Much of the…