Zinoviy Shtokalko

Yuri Singalevych and Zinoviy Shtokalko. Lviv, 1939.

Zinoviy Shtokalko (25 May 1920 – 28 June 1968). Amongst the more renowned performers of bandura art, one of the prominent is that of bandurist virtuoso Zinoviy Shtokalko.

Biography

Shtokalko was born 25 May 1920 in the West Ukrainian town of Berezhany, the son of a priest. As a youth he showed a great interest in music and folk songs. His family had a bandura which his father rev. Pavlo Shtokalko had purchased in 1925 in Prague. Shtokalko initially took private bandura lessons from Yukhym Klevchutsky, and later, during his studies in Lviv took lessons from the Galician bandurist Yuri Singalevych, and during the war was strongly influenced by Kharkiv bandurists Hryhory Bazhul and Leonid Haydamaka. Shtokalko consistently collected the smallest snipets of information about the bandura and the kobzari and was able to include them in his performances. He consistently worked on collecting and studying everything associated with the bandura and the development of bandura technique.

His technique reached new heights of virtuosity.

Shtokalko was a doctor of medicine by day. His medical studies commenced in Lviv and he completed them in 1950 in Munich after which he emigrated to the United States. During his studies, and later his work, he never neglected his bandura playing.

Repertoire

In the United States, Shtokalko took part in the performances by the bandura ensemble led by Stepan Hanushevsky, performed on Ukrainian Television programs, and gave individual recitals of bandura music. All this took place outside of his work in his busy medical practice. Apart from this he also composed music. He arranged many Ukrainian folk songs, wrote the words to numerous songs, composed instrumental works such as 2 versions of the etude "Son" (Dream), "Oriental etude" and 2 versions of "Atonal etude" where he explored the technical potential of the bandura.

Shtokalko can also be credited with the revival of the ancient byliny (traditional epic poems) of Kievan Rus'. He was able to recreate three bilyny: "About the great bohatyr - Illiya Murometz and the Nightingale robber", "About Dobrynia and the Dragon" and "About the great bohatyrs Sviatohor and Illiya Murometz".

Recordings

In his repertoire Shtokalko had a huge reserve of historic songs and dumy (sung epic poems), many of which were recorded during the life of the bandurist. Of the more professional recordings are the dumy: "Marusia Bohuslavka" which was released in 1952 by the SURMA company in New York. After the death of Shtokalko, the renowned collector of Ukrainian recordings Stepan Maksymiuk found the recordings of two more dumy in the archives of M. Surmach, the tapes of "About Oleksiy Popovych" and "About the escape of three brothers from Oziv". Maksymiuk also discovered a recording of the duma "Kozak Holota" which was done live by an amateur collector during a concert performance of Shtokalko. These three dumy were after editing together with "Marusia Bohuslavka" appeared as a record album sponsored by Myron Surmach.

Death brought a halt to the work of Zinovyj Shtokalko. He died 18 June 1968 at the age of 48. Many of his plans were unrealized during his lifetime. Recently his textbook for the bandura was published in both English and Ukrainian. A collection of Ukrainian songs arranged by Shtokalko has also been recently published in Ukraine. (All 3 publications were prepared for publication and edited by Dr. A. Horniatkevyc)

Publications

Sources

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