Vasyl Barvinsky

VASYL BARVINSKY (1888 Ternopil – 1963 Lviv) – composer, pianist, musicologist, teacher, music critic. He began his musical studies at the Lviv Conservatory with V. Kurz, which he then continued in Prague studying at the university with Z. Neiedli and O. Hostynsky, and at the conservatory with V. Novak, from which he graduated in 1915.

Upon his return to Lviv, he took a position as director at the Lysenko Music Institute, which under his direction developed into one of the most important music schools in Eastern Galicia. He taught piano, music theory, and composition there, shaping a whole generation of professional musicians. Barvinsky and another Lviv-based Ukrainian composer, Stanyslav Lyudkevych, were invited by the Ministry of Religion and Public Enlightenment to participate in the committee reforming music education in Poland at the time. In the late 1930s, he was chairman of the Union of Ukrainian Professional Musicians and also collaborated with the monthly magazine Ukrainian Music. After World War II, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Soviet authorities for 10 years in the Mordovia concentration camp. Barvinsky was a master of piano miniatures – he can be considered the father of chamber music in Western Ukraine. He was the leading Ukrainian composer of his time and one of the most influential figures in Ukrainian music of the first half of the 20th century.