Today is the birthday of Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921). You may not know his name, but you most certainly know “Carol of the Bells.”
Leontovych conceived “Carol of the Bells” as “Shchedryck” in 1919. It is actually a New Year’s carol, traditionally sung in Ukraine on the eve of the Julian New Year (January 13). The title is derived from the Ukrainian word for “bountiful.” The original text is about a swallow that foretells great fortune with the arrival of spring:
A little swallow flew
and started to twitter,
to summon the master:
“Come out, come out, O master,
look at the sheep pen,
there the ewes have yeaned
and the lambkins have been born
Your goods are great,
you will have a lot of money.
If not money, then chaff:
you have a dark-eyebrowed wife.”
Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka,
A little swallow flew.
The song was popularized in the West, following an appearance at Carnegie Hall in 1921 by the Ukrainian Republic Cappella, a group that Leontovych co-founded. American choral master Peter Wilhousky, himself of Ukrainian stock, was in the audience. He outfitted the melody with new lyrics to create “Carol of the Bells.”
I’m always sorry to have to define a composer, in part, through the manner of his death, since that is what we always seem to remember. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Leontovych’s demise were extraordinary enough to invite comment. He happened to be visiting his parents’ house for Christmas in 1921, when a traveler came to the door and requested lodging for the night. The stranger was put up in a room with Leontovych. At sunrise, Leontovych was shot and the family robbed.
The murder may have been politically motivated. The Ukrainian Republic Cappella was active in promoting Ukrainian independence, and Leontovych had earned his share of enemies. His eldest daughter recalled him saying that he had documents that would allow him to leave the country for Romania. He claimed those papers had been rifled through. Also, the stranger turned out to be an agent of the secret police.
Do you know the legend of the Christmas Spider? The Eastern European folk tale tells of a poor but hard-working widow who can’t afford to decorate the family tree that happens to be growing in the middle of the house (a chance result of a fallen pine cone). The family is too poor to decorate, but the children awake on Christmas morning to find the branches bedecked with spider webs that turn to gold and silver, at one stroke saving the holiday and rescuing them all from poverty.
The story is not for the arachnophobic, as it is often told from the perspective of spiders. Anyway, if you ever wondered at the spider web ornaments that turn up on Christmas trees from time to time, you need wonder no more.
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