Mykola Vilinsky

Following the wishes of his father, Vilinsky was initially educated for a career as a lawyer, but then changed to study music at the Odesa Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1919.

Vilinsky's output includes symphonic suites, music for piano, and arrangements for choir and solo voices of Ukrainian, Russian, Moldavian folk songs.

The so-called "golden soprano" of the Bolshoi Theatre, Ksenia Derzhynska [uk], and the musicologist and writer Alexander Ossovsky were both his cousins.

[8] During his career Vilinsky lived and worked in Odesa and Kyiv, separated by a period during the Second World War during which he was evacuated to Tashkent.

[1] During the war, the Romanian authorities in occupied Odesa succeeded in permanently acquiring a number of Vilinsky's compositions, as well family documents and part of his music library.

[12][note 4] During the 1930s, world-renowned performers Emil and Elizabeth Gilels, David Oistrakh, Yakiv Zak, Maria Grinberg and other musicians studied the course of special harmony under Mykola Vilinsky.

[4] After the Second World War, he regularly visited Vilinsky at his dacha in Vorzel, spending time discussing composition with him, or relaxing with the family.

In 1951, when Dankevich was being persecuted for his opera Bogdan Khmelnytsky [uk], Vilinsky defended his student and supported him on his revision of the work.

When the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany in 1941, Vilinsky had the opportunity stop his son fighting on the front line, Serhil survived the war, having fought with the Red Army in Bessarabia, Caucasus, the Crimea, and Königsberg.

[14] Vilinsky's artistic output included symphonic suites, cantatas, vocal and choral arrangements of Ukrainian, Russian and Moldovan folk music, chamber and instrumental works.

[citation needed] Vilinsky composed skilfully with a style that was post-Romantic and greatly influenced by Ukrainian folk music.

[15] The songs of Grandfather Spiridon, old Moldovan beggar Vilinsky's father had once assisted at a fair, went on to influence the young composer's musical style.

[16] He helped develop the national musical culture of Moldova, travelling around its most remote areas and collecting songs and dance tunes.

As for Mykola Mykolayovych as a person, everyone who even occasionally met him could not help but be convinced of his high mental qualities, which were manifested throughout his life.