Platon Mayboroda
Platon Mayboroda was given by the land of Poltava which is generous with talents. He was born on a farm Pelehivschyna Globinsky region into a peasant family in which relatives knew a lot of songs, liked to play different musical instruments. This family created a unique ensemble consisting of violin, a bandura, a balalaika, a mandolin. Since his childhood Platon learned to play the balalaika. Heorhiy Mayboroda, his brother, was the first in the family paved the way for the musical arts. Heorhiy began to teach him to read and write music.
In the ensemble Platon learned many popular songs at the time the he played with Heorhiy, who played the mandolin
(Czardas Monti, Mazurka Wieniawski, Brahms' Hungarian Dances).
In 1932 the family moved to Kyiv, where at that time Heorhiy worked. In Kyiv Platon went on to study at the secondary school and was actively involved in amateur musical circle, where he learned to play the mandolin and guitar, mastering a musical instrument, wrote notes to the parts of simple pieces for the school orchestra. Then he began to develop his creative potential.
Love for the music and a passionate desire to master this fine art brought Platon to the decision to go to Kiev Conservatory (1934), where Heorhiy Mayboroda studied in the class of the outstanding composer and teacher Lev Revutskiy. Unfortunately the knowledge was not enough for admission. However, the talented young man was lucky: Lev Tolstoy took him to his composition class in the Kiev Music Institute. Wonderful memory, perseverance, and exactingness helped P. Mayboroda to study a four-year course of music school for two years. In 1938 he became a student at the conservatory. On the advice of L. Revutskiy Platon, except of his major, seriously studied Ukrainian folk song, annually participated in folklore expeditions.
Particular impression on P. Mayboroda made hutsul folklore. He recorded hutsul songs, made recordings of Ukrainian folk songs, in particular poems of T. Shevchenko. Subsequently they entered the various folklore publications and special collections. That was the adaptation of hutsul folk songs for voice accompanied by piano that became the beginning of the song way of the artist. The song "Six of them were" on a poem by A. Bandurka was created during these years. Platon Mayboroda produced fragments of the future symphonic overture "Prometheus". However, work on it he had to stop: the Great Patriotic War began, and the brothers Mayboroda came to the defense of the Fatherland.
In the last month of the war P.Mayboroda was appointed music director of the military song and dance ensemble in Vienna. In the Austrian capital he spent about six months.
P.Mayboroda at the end of 1945 after demobilization returned to his homeland. In 1947 he graduated from the Composer Department of the Kiev Conservatory. His thesis was the symphonic overture "Prometheus" (or "Heroic Overture").
Platon worked about six years as a teacher at the Kiev R. Glier Musical School and as a teacher in evening 
music school for young people. It was the time when songs attracted his attention as a composer. 1947 marked the artist's creative relationships with such groups as the choir of the Kiev House of Pioneers and the famous Ukrainian Choir of Bandurists.
Platon Mayboroda wrote cycle of six songs for children's chorus on the poems by M. Priyara, P. Tychyna, I. Nekhoda. For the chapel of Bandurists was created triptych of heroic and patriotic course.
The best of this cycle was the song "Laid down the Mists" (or "Guerrillas") on A. Nowickyi’s poem, that enriched the culture of Ukrainian song and became a model for the magnitude of small compositional form.
In 1948 P. Mayboroda together with the Ukrainian poet Olexiy Yushchenko created a dynamic and full of heroism "Shchorsivska" and two lyrical songs: "And Lighted up an Evening glow" and "Maidenish".
In 1949 there was an acquaintance of P. Mayboroda with the renowned Ukrainian poet-lyricist Andriy Malyshko, who extremely felt the music and not only wrote poetry, but created music for it.
Long-term cooperation P. Mayboroda and Malyshko began with "Kolkhoz waltz", which was widely popular. The fruit of collaborative efforts of the composer and the poet were more than twenty songs, including such masterpieces as "My Own Mother", "Song about the Towel", "We'll Go Where the Sloping Grass", "White Chestnuts", "Kyiv Waltz", "Song About the Teacher".
There is an interesting story about the song "Kyiv Waltz". In a letter to P. Mayboroda and Malyshko students of the Kiev Medical Institute, expressed a desire to hear a song dedicated to blossom in Kiev, which they would like to impress upon their souls, when being young doctors, they disperse across the country. That medical students were the first audience and performers of the song, which later became one of the most beloved.
Waltz element was close the creative talent of the composer. "The Waltz of Collective Farm", "Kyiv Waltz", "White chestnuts", "Student Waltz" "My Good Friends", "Waves of Dneprovsk" and other tunes are known not only in Ukraine but also in many countries around the world, especially in where there are large Ukrainian community: the United States, Canada, Australia and Latin America. These songs remind Ukrainians of the distant native land, its nature and people.
And the greatest success in Ukraine and abroad got the "Song of the Towel". It was written for the movie "Young years" (1959) in one breath. P. Mayboroda even made a sketch of a rough version of the poetic text composing the musical phrases. Malyshko retained the first two lines proposed by the composer for this song. It is a kind of quintessence of vocal lyricism of P. Mayboroda.
Recent joint work of the composer and the poet was the song "My Path". Malyshko’s words were written in the
hospital in February 1970, but the music he was never able to hear. This is the swan song of the poet, which gives meaning to life deeply, in which there is an image of narrow, trodden barefoot path in his native village, leading to the world wide.
For many years P. Mayboroda collaborated with the Kiev Film Studio of Dovzhenko, wrote music for numerousfilms.
In 1960 in the film "Blood of Man - Not Water" was performed for the first time the same song of P. Mayboroda on a poem of A. Nikonenko. In this song the composer so realistically and inspiringly recreated the image of kobzar so convincingly put together fragments of melodies that there was a feeling, as it really was a striking example of folk art.
Among the works of the last decade of life of the composer memorable was his monumental work the "Hymn to Kiev" on Korotych poems (1981), which was declared the winner of the contest for the best song of Kiev, it took place on the 1500-year anniversary of the city.
Platon Mayboroda wrote more than 200 songs, cantatas, oratorios, overtures and ballads, many of them entered the treasury of Ukrainian art song. He was not the first figure of Ukrainian music, who successfully used the folklore and romance songs intonation, relied on traditional harmonic formulas. However, he was the first (and perhaps the only one) who was able to unite these disparate stylistic sources in organic synthesis, reinterpreted through unique creative individuality.
Since 50s songs of Platon Mayboroda won hearts of millions of music lovers in Ukraine and far beyond. They had considerable social and political importance: among the approved by the authorities multitude of Moskow songs of those years, that virtually swept the air and concert veriety, songs of Platon Mayboroda reminded to Ukrainians that unsurpassed beauty and value of their own folk songs, the native language, which was pushed off for many years from usage.
Symbolically that the last journey of Platon Mayboroda accompanied his "Song of the towel", sang by Olexandr Tarantsev, who was its first performer.
After the death of the composer his wife worked with his archive. Her name is Tetyana Mayboroda-Vynnychenko (01/25/1926), a singer (lyrical-dramatic soprano). In 1948 she graduated from the Kiev Conservatory (class of K.Brune Kamionskogo in 1947-1948), the soloist of the Kiev Opera, soloist of the Leningrad Philharmony (1950-1955), the soloist of the Kiev studio Conservatory (1959-1964), the soloist of the Ukrainian Republican Philharmony (in 1964-1981).
Every year on the day of memory of P. Mayboroda Tetyana organizes concerts, where sounds his works, also on radio and TV programs. She has collected memoirs of contemporaries, published articles, has initiated a memorial room, produced a release of CD.
On her order was set a tablet on the house where the composer lived (str. Sofiyevska, 16). Also a tombstone on the grave on Baikove cemetery (sculptor M. Bilyk, architect A. Chemerys).
In 1990 the Zaporozhye State Musical College was named after Platon Mayboroda.
On the uniqueness and singularity of talent of the composer aptly spoke Olexandr Bilash, finding the definition of the essence of Mayboroda as a phenomenon: "Platon Mayboroda has blown with the song".
