Hycz Orkestr. Pid markoyu Ivana Yakovycha. /premium, mini-book+CD/. (Under the Brand of Ivan Yakovych)

This publication is, in fact, a little book in hardcover with the preface of cultural studies, nine translated texts (three Icelandic, Portuguese, Scottish, Chinese, Italian folk songs, and a Ukrainian folk song and Shevchenko's "Testament" translated into German), and notes to them. Plus a CD, of course. Nicely designed, quality production – pleasant to hold, pleasant to present. And it should be presented, because it is, after all, a really cool, outstanding, ingenious album. Not just an album. A small chest of treasures. An attempt of 100 years ago to tell ordinary Ukrainian about the world, who had not seen that world – to tell about it so that those strange songs became a little bit native, close, and through them the world would become closer as well. An attempt to show that there are local characters everywhere – and yet they are similar, wherever they sing about them. And then – the German language translations, to tell the world about Ukrainians.. And – 100 years later – the extraordinary musical presentation of this attempt by Franko. Especially with the recognizable color tones characteristic of a particular nation – but also with the HYCh's skill of imbuing them with purely Ukrainian patterns, and at the same time of creatively designing the themes so that to blur boundaries, to reach the universal. That is, to do in music everything that Franko did in the lyrics. Freely but carefully. To afford a brief grotesque caricature on one occasion, or to make it so that an essentially simple song grew into a small suite – on another, or to subtly mix pathos and irony.. HYCh Orchestra expresses itself very succinctly – and very nicely. Listen..