31 Facts About Viktor Kosenko

Viktor Kosenko was regarded by his contemporaries as a master of lyricism.

Viktor Kosenko's music combines a post-romantic idiom with intonations of Slavic folk songs and Western-European influences.

Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko was born on 23 November 1896 in Saint Petersburg, into the large family of a major general, Stepan Kosenko.

Viktor Kosenko's family moved from Saint Petersburg to Warsaw in 1898, where later he would encounter the best of world musical classics while listening to the performance of musicians such as Fritz Kreisler, Ferruccio Busoni, and Pablo Casals.

When Viktor Kosenko was about five or six, he began to pick out familiar melodies on the piano, as he had absolute pitch and a good musical memory.

Viktor Kosenko attempted to improvise, showing signs of his musical potential.

Viktor Kosenko continued studying composition and music theory under the composer Mikhail Sokolovsky, piano with Iryna Miklashovskaya, and playing as concertmaster at the Mariinsky Theatre.

In September 1922, Viktor Kosenko gave his first concert, attended by his family and close friends, traveling to Moscow the following year to meet with composers and musicians.

Viktor Kosenko was heavily involved in a myriad of musical activities such as the creation of a music society, concert appearances, the organization of his piano chamber trio, vocal quartets and even a symphony orchestra, besides serving as accompanist player for different ensembles in the musical life of the city.

Viktor Kosenko then performed as a virtuoso pianist in recitals and formed a piano trio along with violinist Volodymyr Skorokhod and cellist Vasyly Kolomyitsev, giving over one hundred free concerts throughout Ukrainian SSR between 1923 and 1929.

In 1927, Viktor Kosenko was invited by the Association of the Proletarian Musicians of Ukrainian SSR to give a concert in Kharkiv, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR at the time.

Viktor Kosenko began giving concerts in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, and nearby cities.

Viktor Kosenko originally taught piano and chamber ensemble classes, and a year later, he began teaching a specialized course on analysis of form in both the historical-theoretical and compositional departments.

Viktor Kosenko was often invited to be in the juries of musical performance competitions as a well-known performer and respected pedagogue.

Viktor Kosenko's output began to include new genres, particularly his Heroic Overture for symphony orchestra.

Viktor Kosenko arranged Ukrainian folk songs and in 1936, the first compilation of Soviet folk songs was arranged with his participation.

Viktor Kosenko spent most of his life in Zhytomyr, living in poverty, to which he seemed largely indifferent.

Finally in 1938, the sick Viktor Kosenko was personally awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour by the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Nikita Khrushchev.

Viktor Kosenko left for posterity his unfinished opera Marina, and dozens of works such as his Twenty-four Pieces for Children, Op.

Viktor Kosenko composed over 100 compositions for piano among waltzes, preludes, nocturnes, sonatas and mazurkas, in a total of about 250 musical works such as his symphonic Moldavian poem, violin and piano concertos, trios and string quartets during his short musical career.

Viktor Kosenko used then melodies, harmonies, dorian, lydian and phrygian modes, so linking his work with Ukrainian folk tunes.

Viktor Kosenko became closer to artists such as composers Borys Lyatoshynsky and Levko Revutskiy, and singers Ivan Patrozhynskiy and Maria Litvinenko-Volhemut who all highly evaluated both his musical and pedagogical activity.

Viktor Kosenko belongs to artists, around whom is created an artistic atmosphere, which is a living, momentous and active stimulus for creative work.

Viktor Kosenko was a leading figure among the broad-minded artistic collective of 20th-century Soviet music.

Viktor Kosenko was popular not only as a composer, but as an outstanding pianist who had a wide range of activity.

Viktor Kosenko's contemporaries noted his playing style, brilliant technique, powerful artistic interpretation.

Viktor Kosenko was influenced by the musical environment in which he grew up.

Viktor Kosenko became a piano professor, teaching specialized piano and chamber ensemble classes in Kyiv, first at the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama, and later at the Kyiv Conservatory.

Viktor Kosenko organized a piano trio with violinist Volodymyr Skorokhod and cellist Vasyly Kolomyitsev, thus gaining popularity as a performer.

Viktor Kosenko performed as soloist in piano concertos of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Grieg with an orchestra made up of local instrumentalists.

Viktor Kosenko gave his last concert in 1935, when he performed his own music with bass singer Ivan Patrozhynskiy and soprano Maria Litvinenko-Volhemut.