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Mykola Pavlovych Dyletsky

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Mykola Pavlovych Dyletsky
Дилецький Микола Павлович
Bornc. 1630
probably Kyiv (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth)
Died
Moscow (Tsardom of Russia)
Occupation(s)choir director, composer, music theorist
Notable workA Musical Grammar
Signature

Mykola Pavlovych Dyletsky, also Nikolai Pavlovich Diletsky (Ukrainian: Дилецький Микола Павлович, Russian: Николай Павлович Дилецкий), c. 1630–c. after 1680) was a choir director, music theorist, and composer born in the Kiev Voivodeship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and active in the Tsardom of Russia. There is evidence he died in Moscow. Little information about his life is known. He was widely influential in late 17th-century Russia with his treatise on part song, A Musical Grammar, of which the earliest surviving version dates from 1677. Dyletsky's followers included the Russian composer Vasily Titov.

Life

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Little is known about Mykola Pavlovych Dyletsky, who at various times during his life lived in Vilnius, Kyiv, Smolensk, and Moscow.[1].

Kyiv

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Ioannikii Trofimovich Korenev, a fellow music theorist, described him as a resident of Kyiv[2]—(zhitel’ grada Kiyeva)[1]—and this remark is considered evidence of Dyletsky's Ukrainian origins. Korenev's statement is probably reliable, as they were apparently were well acquainted.[3] The pair worked together; their treatises are paired in some manuscript sources.[1] However, the date and even the year of Dyletsky's birth are not known, and no details on his early life have surfaced.[citation needed]

Vilnius

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Dyletsky may have been educated at the Vilnius Jesuit High School,[1] where his music teachers were probably the Ukrainian musicians, Ziusky, Mykola Zamarevich, and Martyn Melchevsky. Dyletsky later was employed in the city as a choirmaster and teacher of church singing.[4]

Dyletsky must have moved to Vilnius (then a town in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) before 1675, because that year his Toga zlota ("The golden toga") was published there by the Franciscan printing press. The text is now lost.[1] It was written in Polish, and the surviving title page[5] indicates that it was probably a panegyrical pamphlet.[1] Some sources indicate that he wrote at least a more extensive musical treatise whilst in Vilnius, now lost:[6] this treatise is first mentioned in Grammatika musikiyskago peniya (1677), and the Idea grammatikii musikiiskoi (1679) is described as a translation of the Vilnius work in its title page.[citation needed] Dyletsky is known to have produced A Method for Training Children for a choir director.[2]

Smolensk and Moscow

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After Vilnius, Dyletsky lived in Smolensk, where in 1677 the first surviving version of his magnum opus, Grammatika musikiyskago peniya ('A Grammar of Musical Singing'), was published. The book, written in six chapters, became the first music theory work of that time. It was a practical manual for composers, theorists, and singing teachers.[4]

Dyletsky moved during the 1670s to Moscow to work as a choirmaster and teacher.[4] There the subsequent two versions of the work appeared in 1679 and 1681.[citation needed] The book appeared in four editions in Vilnius, Smolensk, Moscow.[4] He was probably the director and conductor of the Moscow choir of Grigory Dmitriyevich Stroganov, as he dedicated the Moscow edition of his treatise A Musical Grammar "To the noble, to the illustrious, to his illustrious master, Gr. Dm. Stroganov."[citation needed] However, no evidence has emerged to support the theory that he worked for the Stroganov family.[1]

Nothing further is known about Diletsky's life from 1681 onwards, and it is generally assumed that he died shortly afterwards. His date of birth is projected from this hypothesis.[3] His name is mentioned in a source produced in the 1690s that states he was a "well-known master at the tsar’s court’" (tsarstvennïy preslovushchiy master), without making it clear if he was still alive at that time.[1]

Works

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An 18th-century manuscript copy of Dyletsky 's A Musical Grammar (1675), State Historical Museum (Moscow)

Although several of his compositions survive, Diletsky's fame rests chiefly on his composition treatise, Grammatika musikiyskago peniya (A Grammar of Music[al Singing]), which was the first of its kind in Russia. The three surviving versions bear different names, but the content is roughly the same with some important differences.[7] The treatise is in two parts. The first teaches the rudiments of music theory, "relying heavily on Western terminology and theoretical precepts, especially the hexachord", and the second teaches composition of a cappella concertos, a genre that came to Russia through Ukraine and of which Diletsky was one of the first exponents.[7] Diletsky provides a wide variety of examples, both from his own work, including an 8-voice setting of the Divine Liturgy that he composed in Smolensk specifically to illustrate the Grammatika,[8] and from that of contemporary Western composers, particularly the Poles Marcin Mielczewski and Jacek Różycki. Apart from the tremendous influence it had on subsequent generations of Russian church composers, the Grammatika is of particular interest for having the first known description of the circle of fifths, one that antedates Western examples by several decades.[1] The Grammar is recognized by musicologists as an outstanding music theoretical treatise, which summarized almost a century of practice of part song.[4]

List of works

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In both his compositions and writings, Diletsky used Kyiv notation [uk] exclusively.[2]

Writings

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A sample page from Idea grammatiki musikiyskoy (Moscow, 1679)
  • Grammatika musikiyskago peniya (Грамматика муcикийского пения, "A grammar of musical song", Smolensk, 1677)[2]
  • Idea grammatikii musikiyskoy (Идея грамматикии муcикийской, "An idea of musical grammar", Moscow, 1679),[2]
  • Grammatika peniya musikiyskago (Грамматика пения муcикийского, Moscow, 1681)

Music

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Dyletsky's music is polyphonic in style. It replaced the chant that had prevailed for centuries:[4] In 2013, the musicologist Natalya Plotnikova published previously unknown information about 36 four-part concertos by Dyletsky.[9]

  • Three settings of the Divine Liturgy for four to eight voices ("Kyivan Chant", "Proportional", and "Resurrection Canon")[4]
  • Two sacred concertos (Izhe obra "Tvoemu" for four voices, Voshel esy vo tserkov for eight voices)[4]
  • Resurrection/Easter kanon, 8vv[10]
  • A eucharistic setting Tlo Hristovo priymyte[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jensen & Vorob'yov 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e Gordiychuk & Kostyuk 1989, p. 416.
  3. ^ a b Jensen 1992, p. 310.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dytyniak 1986, p. 45.
  5. ^ Jensen 1992, p. 311.
  6. ^ Jensen 1992, p. 309.
  7. ^ a b Jensen 1992, p. 307.
  8. ^ Jensen 1992, p. 312.
  9. ^ Plotnikova 2018, p. 38.
  10. ^ Gerasimova-Persidskaya, Nina Oleksandrivna (2003). "Микола Дилецький. Духовні твори Диск 1: Про альбом" [Mykola Dyletsky. Spiritual Works Disc 1: About the album] (CD notes). Kyiv Choir (in Ukrainian). Atlantic. Retrieved 30 November 2025.

Sources

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Further reading

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