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CD reviews
Mikołaj DYLECKI (Mykola DYLETSKY) (1630 - 1690): Requiem Liturgy, Canon of the Resurrection
Wrocław Baroque Ensemble
Dir: Andrzej Kosendiak
rec: Oct 30 - 31, 2023, Wrocław, National Forum of Music (main hall)
CD Accord - ACD 338 (© 2024) (39'08")
Liner-notes: E/PL; lyrics - translations: E/PL
Cover, track-list & booklet
Spotify
[Canon of the Resurrection];
[Christ is risen from the dead];
[David, the forefather of our divine Lord];
[Requiem Liturgy]
Aldona Bartnik, Aleksandra Turalska, soprano;
Piotr Olech, Daniel Elgersma, alto;
Maciej Gocman, Florian Cramer, tenor;
Volodymyr Andrushchak, Tomáš Král, bass
It is always interesting to become acquainted with music that was written and performed in what for a long time were the outer edges of Europe. In the case of the disc under review that means the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Ukraine. This kind of repertoire is not easily accessible to those ensembles of Western and Central Europe which are devoted to early music and historical performance practice. Once the early music movement disseminated across those parts of Europe, the exploration of their musical heritage was to be expected. The present disc is one of the fruits of this development.
It is very unlikely that more than a handful of music lovers from outside the region have ever heard of Mikołaj Dylecki, who is - according to New Grove - also known as Nikolay Pavlovich Diletsky. He was from Ukraine which in his time was under the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This explains that he studied in Vilnius. There he also worked for some time, and then moved to Russia, where he entered the service of Tsar Fyodor III Alekseevich. Through his treatise Grammatika musikiyskago peniya (A grammar of musical song, Smolensk 1677) he had a substantial influence on the development of liturgical music in Russia.
This treatise is also virtually the only source of knowledge about him. There are three versions in different languages: Ruthenian, Polish and Russian. It is not known exactly when he moved to Russia, but he may have written his Requiem Liturgy of 1674, which is the main item in the programme recorded by the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, in his capacity as composer for the choir of the Uniate metropolitan or archimandrite in Vilnius, for whom he wrote compositions in Church Slavonic, probably at the occasion of the death of the Kyiv metropolitan Gabriel Kolenda.
In order to put his music into its context, it is useful to quote the description in New Grove. "The Grammatika is a composition treatise, an introduction of the kontsert style to Russian-speaking students by an early master of kontsertï (polyphonic a cappella works created by means of a subtle interplay between contrasting elements such as rhythms, meter and texture, and unified by interwoven melodic and harmonic material). Diletsky's treatise uses hexachordal terminology and constructs to introduce the fundamentals of music, and teaches composition through a series of rules exploring the elements of the style. He provides many examples, citing his own works as well as those of other Russian and Polish composers, including Marcin Mielczewski and Jacek Różycki. One of his constructs is called a musical circle, in which a melody might pass through each of the major or minor keys at the interval of a 5th; it is introduced as a way of lengthening a composition and is presented on a circular staff. This is the first circle of fifths to appear in a theoretical treatise, antedating Western examples by several decades."
The liner-notes refer to Dylecki's partesny concertos, but don't explain what exactly these are. I found an explanation here: "A style of polyphonic singing, based on the Western European system of harmony and counterpoint, which arose in the early 17th c. in the Ukraine and in the mid-17th c. spread to Muscovite Russia. The leading theoretician and composer of that period, Nikolai Diletsky, distinguished two types of polyphony in PARTESNY SINGING: "natural" ("prostoyestestvennoye"? ), in which all the voices sang continuously and pronounced the words simultaneously, and "concerted" ("boritel'noye" or "kontsertovoye"), in which different groups of voices or different choirs sang in alternation and the imitative treatment of motives caused the text to be pronounced at different times."
Dylecki composed most of his partesny concertos for use in the Kyiv Metropolis. The texts, which were not in use anymore at the Moscow Patriarchate, had been adopted in the Orthodox and Uniate Churches of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. "Moreover, the pieces written during this period, for 3, 4 and 8 parts, could only be performed by a highly professional group of singers. Such a group was employed by the Uniate metropolitan of Kyiv, Gabriel Kolenda, whose residence was in Vilnius. It is assumed that the period from the mid-1660s to the mid-1670s was the time of Dyletsky's mature work" (booklet).
The Requiem Liturgy for eight voices refers to the Catholic tradition. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the performance of a Requiem Liturgy in Uniate monasteries became widespread in the 17th century. Dylecki's Requiem Liturgy comprises nine partesny concertos, written to the words of the relevant sections of the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. These concertos include litanies (ektenia in Church Slavonic), taken from the Catholic litany, consisting of the priest's invocation and the response "Lord, have mercy". In the opening section Dylecki quotes a Polish popular song: "She sat in the garden, she made three wreaths". "Dyletsky borrowed the idea in which the wreath of shame – hung in the song by the girl on the door of her house after a night spent with her beloved – becomes Christ's crown of thorns, symbolising both suffering for human sins and salvation. The melody of this folk song contains the rhetorical figure of the cross on which the Saviour was crucified." It is an interesting example of how the sacred and the secular could be mixed in the renaissance and baroque periods. The seventh section is the Cherubimic Hymn, in which Dylecki uses changing rhythms and metres. Like other composers of his time, he was influenced by the polychoral style of Venice.
The second major work on the programme is the Canon of the Resurrection, consisting of ten sections. "This extensive, eight-part cycle consists of the irmoses of the Paschal Canon, the troparion from the Canon ('David, the forefather of our divine Lord'), the Paschal troparion ('Christ is risen from the dead'), a sticheron ('Jesus is risen from the grave') and the exaposteilarion ('When thou didst fall asleep in the body as mortal')." Again, it would have been useful if the booklet had explained these terms, for instance in the way of a glossary. The irmos is the initial verse of each individual ode in a canon, sung by the choir. A troparion is a short hymn of one stanza, or organised in more complex forms as series of stanzas. A sticheron is a type of hymn used mainly in Vespers and Matins. The exapostilarion is a hymn or group of hymns chanted at the conclusion of the Canon near the end of Matins. It is chanted after the Little Litany that follows the Ninth Ode of the Canon.
As bonuses we get two further pieces for Easter. "The troparion of the fourth ode of the Paschal Canon ('David, the forefather of our divine Lord') and the Paschal troparion ('Christ is risen from the dead') were placed separately in this recording, outside the
coherent cycle of irmoses and the exaposteilarion. That decision was prompted by doubts over the originality of Mykola Dyletsky's setting of these two texts."
With a length of 39 minutes, this is a rather short disc. I don't know how much Dylecki has written that is still available. Whether there is more or not, this music is well worth being performed and recorded. It offers a fascinating insight into a world of liturgical music that many music lovers may not know. The liner-notes are extensive, but not always easy to understand for those who have little or no knowledge of the world of the Eastern Orthodox church. As I mentioned, more information would have been helpful. Fortunately, the nature and quality of the music can be enjoyed and admired even without it. These pieces don't fail to make a lasting impression, and that is also due to the outstanding way they are performed. The eight singers are well equipped to bring the world of Dyletsky closer to the listener. Their singing does full justice to the liturgical character of these works.
Johan van Veen (© 2025)
Relevant links:
Wrocław Baroque Ensemble