THE UKRAINIAN ONE

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 2
Liszt Piano Concerto no 2
Skoryk Melody
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 2 ("Ukrainian")

15 May 2027 7.30 pm

William Poon piano
Reuben Brown
Mariacostanza D'Agostino
conductors

One Hungarian, one Ukrainian and one Russian composer feature in our May concert. So why 'The Ukranian One'?

It is true there is nothing Ukrainian about Liszt. We just like the music. The second half, though, is more Ukrainian than is generally realised. Myroslav Skoryk, a Ukrainian composer, originally wrote his now most famous piece for flute and piano. It has since been orchestrated for various ensembles. With its accessibility and emotional impact it has become almost a second national anthem since the Russian invasion, and is played all over the world.

Tchaikovsky's second symphony gained the nickname Little Russian through his use of Ukrainian folk tunes in the work. Tchaikovsky had a fondness for Ukraine which at the time was, somewhat dismissively, known as "little Russia" and the nickname stuck. Since Ukraine's independence, what was already a disrespectful term had become still more offensive to Ukrainians even before the events of recent years threw it into sharper focus. The time seems ripe, therefore, for a correction to treat the older term as "of its time" and consign it to history.