The procedural trinity of Vasily Medved s creativi

 
It is pleasant and responsible to write about colleagues and friends. And if time brings you back to the works of one and the same author, it means that there are still many discoveries and revelations on your path that shape the musical world as a whole.

My acquaintance with the composer Vasily Medved, which has lasted for almost a decade, has become so multi-meaningfully important for me. It is a great fortune to be friends with him, and it is necessary to write about the maestro’s work, because together we have gone through a path of long conversations and reflections, which stimulated a continuous creative search.

Vasiliy Medved is an example of unusual self-realization at the crossroads of different countries and music schools. He was born in Mogilev-Podolsky, Vinnytsia region, studied at the Moldovan Conservatory in the jazz department for 5 years, then entered the composition class of Liviu Stirbu, with whom he studied for two years. Then fate abruptly changed its trajectory and he had to emigrate to the United States due to family circumstances.

Vasily continued his musical education in the USA: initially, these were bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at the Mannes Conservatory in New York (1999; 2001). And after studying in graduate school at Boston University and defending his dissertation (Dissertation Topic: Concerto for Four Wooden Instruments and Orchestra, composed and presented to the committee), Vasily Medved was awarded a Doctorate in Composition (2009).

Since then, many interesting events and meetings have taken place. Vasily Medved became a member of three creative organizations at once: the American Society of Composers and Writers (ASCAP), the Union of Composers of Ukraine, and the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Moldova. His music is heard in America, Ukraine, Australia, Moldova, Russia, Israel, Romania, Japan, and the Czech Republic.

A teacher, composer, philosopher, and author of music in a wide variety of genres, he is a welcome guest in musicological publications, because he wields words as interestingly as he wields musical material.

For the Chairman of the Zaporizhzhia branch of the NSCU, Honored Artist of Ukraine Natalia Boeva: “The music of Vasyl Medved is akin to the sound of the Bell, calling to listen to the beating of the heart - does it coincide with the rhythms of life of the Universe, is it organic with the peace of the World, its harmony?  He studies the genres and forms of musical art with all the care of a scientist, theorist and composer. Music finds the composer everywhere: in the fall - in New England (a work with a similar title for chamber orchestra), in Russia - by the fireplace, where he listens to the voice of Marina Tsvetaeva's poetry (By the Fireplace for mezzo-soprano and piano was recently published in Moldova). With the voices of the Baroque era, she calls to him from Frankfurt, the Balkans, Japan (Bach’s Variations on Chorales for piano, Frankfurt Inventions for two clarinets, Balkan Mood for Brass Trio, Triptych of Japanese Haiku for Choir). The composer's work includes both polyphonic forms (fugue, chorale, invention) and genres of the Romantic era. Among them are "Nocturne for Viola and Piano", "Two Songs for Tenor and Piano" (verses by W. Blake), "Sonata for Piano", "Duet for Soprano and Flute", "Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon", "A Little Piece for Guitar", "To My Angel" for Pipe Organ".

Vasily Medved's piano works and choral opuses are very popular. The Piano Sonata of 2012 performed by Alexander Prigalo was presented in Chisinau. This opus is distinguished by its uniqueness and unobtrusiveness. The work of Medved is a dialogue with the listener. The process of thinking, the conversation itself, the result of which is variable and endless, is important to him. At the heart of Sonata’s dramaturgy one can hear the traditional Romantic question mark. But the Sonata itself is by no means romantic. There is no impetuosity or pathos in it. Medved’s questioning is not painful - rather, it is procedural, like a search-question, in principle, not particularly in need of an answer.

The cycle Five Dialogues for Piano, jointly composed by Vasily and his friend, the Zaporizhzhia composer Dmitry Savenko, based on a series of watercolors by the London artist Joe Francis Dowden, was performed in Moldova and in the United States, in Boston. There are plans to perform the cycle in Kyiv and Moscow. The cycle, along with the Piano Sonata, Nocturne for Viola and Piano, and another chamber works, was published in Moldova and Belgium.

In the spring of 2024, a collection of choral pieces by the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Moldova was published in Chisinau, where Vasile Medved's "Triptych on Japanese Haiku for Choir, A Cappella" was published, which laid the foundation for the three-part cyclicity that the composer later loved so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dzcw_i0wJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyQx-P0BQ5g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RONdWOKKsE8
 

The composer’s procedural trinity of thinking is vividly reflected in the cycle “Three Graces for a Septet of Violas da Gamba”, which we discussed in detail in the publication, where “the heroines of the cycle are not only graceful in accordance with the title of the cycle -they are thoughtfully ambiguous - there is a certain duality, asynchrony of their existence in two or even three time planes at the same time. The Graces live not only their own special life - rather, together at the same time - the three of them."

Elena Uzun. "Three Graces of Vasily Medved" | Talented People's Website Talenthouse.md

In the summer of 2024, Vasily Medved made an transcription of "The Three Graces" for Strings. The triptych won the international composers' competition in 2024 and was included in the upcoming disc "Masters of Orchestral Music" Volume 12 of the American record company Ablaze Records. The release of the disc is scheduled for Autumn 2025. Let us recall that "The Three Graces" was performed and recorded on May 6, 2025, in the Czech Republic by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Michele Toms.

The questions of Faith, fundamental to the composer’s entire work, are more specifically reflected in Vasily’s opuses “To My Angel” for organ, “Psalm 67 for choir and bells”, “The Silent Prayer” for cello and piano, the Triptych “Trinity” for four violas da gamba, which has also existed, since Autumn 2024, as a transcribed version for Strings.
“Faith in the Trinity” became the core theme of my article “Time to Watch, Believe, and Create,” where Vasily Medved, Vladimir Belyaev, and Vladimir Cholak and I attempted to find a spiritual way out of the increasingly complex global situation.

Time to be vigilant, believe and create! | Talented people website Talenthouse.md

Quote from the article: “The first trio level in the opuses: Symphony for organ and timpani by Vladimir Cholak, Passion-XXI by Vladimir Belyaev, Psalm N67 by Vasily Medved purely musical and these are the composers themselves - Vladimir Cholak, Vladimir Belyaev and Vasily Medved. Each of them became the author of important works addressed to deep questions - "Faith - Man - Apocalypse". The second level is to be vigilant, to believe, to create – philosophical and procedural. And the third one – the combination of Faith, Music and Poetry – unites in a stronger spiritual space the musical works of Vladimir Cholak, Vasily Medved, Vladimir Belyaev and the poetry of Elena Uzun.”

If we add to this the composer's geography of Ukraine-Moldova-USA, then there is no doubt about the trinity of Vasily Medved's creativity. For Vera is his companion and support in everything. And only God knows why the composer needs the creative air of not one, but three countries as his creative foundation.

I was lucky to hear another Three-Part creation by Medved, conceived as a String Quartet. A composition with subtle polyphony, an anxious need for eternal movement, reflecting the questions-searches

when from one intonation of a question many other questions are born. The atonal nature of the Quartet creates an effect of impenetrability, invulnerability, provoking a play of intonations, forms, motives, which, in general, is unusual, mysterious and unusual for the music of Medved.
“This three-part quartet reflected my attitude towards the artist moving in an open musical space, forming his own musical components,” explains the composer. Man is multidimensional, and this multidimensionality is the basis of the atonal environment. The quartet is about a man who finds himself in an open inner space, about an individual who has discovered the bottomlessness of creative potential, about the multiplicity of what he has seen, about the search for God in the light of his adoption by Eternity. And about how the search for truth can look like through expanding composite melodic, contrapuntal questions. In addition, this quartet absorbed my searches and developments in polyphonic idioms and reflected my desire to preserve elements of the language of my native culture in a collision with a new environment of open atonal realities. I had to find my place in the new world, creatively and spiritually-personally. In the first part, by the way, there is a sea of fire. The second is full of disturbing, but still - lyricism. The third, the most difficult - an offering to Johann Sebastian Bach, especially the Prelude, Fugue, and Postlude - were not easy for me. There is no beaten path where I have been while writing them; I know from my own experience how complex a person is, how bottomless and deep he is.”

Love for Search, self-knowledge in the open Cosmos of creativity is a wonderful goal, to which Vasily goes in his Processual trinity – the trinity of eternal movement. Each time from the beginning and each time Three Steps of Self-knowledge!

Step-by-step trinity and progression of questions

The theme of the trinity of faith is closely intertwined with the dialectic of questioning in the works of Vasily Medved. In his Piano Sonata in the Chisinau performance, I noticed an emphasis on the intonation of the question. In the Quartet, the same idea is complicated – and this is the ambiguity of the question and even the growth of many others from one question. This is the path of the composer Medved’s search – the step-by-step situation of the Question.
And most often these are Three Large Steps - or Triptych. I really like Vasily's triptychs. I have already written about Three Graces and other levels of trinity: Three Composers, Three Graces, Trinity, Three Parts, Three Steps and even three Medved’s Homelands. I see all this as stages of the processual development of the Idea, which the author cultivates through the progression of questions. But if in the Piano Sonata this is one main question, then in later works personal stylistic idioms gave a progression from one question to a space of multiple questions.




With the situation of the question, the composer formed different works - in the Sonata, Graces and Quartet - with each new opus, the stylistic components of Medved are increasingly refined and confidently transformed into musical genomes, linking philosophical attitudes with the development of creativity. Thus, the author is repeatedly convinced of the correctness of his movement in time.

Vasily Medved is a musician, a reasoner - not just a composer. I am one myself and am very grateful to him for the opportunity to talk, discuss, find some versions of solutions and discussions. Vasily writes many articles about the works of fellow composers. He is able to offer his own individual version of interpretation. Alternating thoughts and solutions in sounds, he connects the necessary. One stimulates the other and this is not a vocal opus. No. Word and music in different combinations for us - a version of fate, not immediately solved in one way. Many times, we will ask - Why? - and all creativity will be the answer.

I offer a version of our dialogue with Vasily Medved about the stages of creativity, as we experience it.

Elena UZUN
— I would like to discuss the question of how composer Vasily Medved works in search of a new idea. For me, the First Stage is often “Doubts-Negations” and a vivid example of this is the creative method of Giacomo Puccini, who constantly doubted: in the choice of the plot, the search for intonations and the very possibility of creating the next opus. And after the opera was finished, I couldn't believe that he had written it. Now I understand that it is the Antenna of Creativity that wavers in a painful search for a new idea and its worthy embodiment. How many operas had been created in Italy before him? And he had to become unique, which means doubts and throwing, even to the point of self-denial, are quite normal stages of searching and creating.


Vasily Medved
— I think that doubts, up to and including denying the viability of the idea that has emerged, the experience, are inevitable. Let us recall the burned works of Mikhail Bulgakov, Jan Sibelius. I will speak briefly about the process of searching - at what stage of self-knowledge can we be satisfied with, using what we have received for the cause? And in what direction should we move? These questions are resolved by experience. It happens differently for me - but there is a desire to tie everything learned together. Hence - a series of states, a constant expansion of zones of internal involvement. The word came, in my case, after Music; it carries within itself its semantic essence, being a continuation of the creative outpouring of life-giving ideas into the world in us and into the world through us.

In creation, in its very act, there are answers, even if they are partial, which speaks of the continuation of the destinies of the outlined thought after the completion of the life cycle. Nature does not have unnecessary manifestations - everything exists for a specific purpose and need.
I am not talking about the fates of creators and why they are exactly like this, and no other. There is a flood of facts here, without final answers, at least at this stage of the historical process. A period is put at the end of a chapter, a book, a piece of music. You have to write until your last breath. If we create, we must be separated from society, and so fate singles us out, to whom it is destined, leaving us in a suspended state. This is the answer to the question - why is all this exactly like this and why is it hard to bear the burden of being yourself?

And those who have established themselves in themselves and come to the source of meaning understand that otherwise there is a risk of conformism to one degree or another, and this is inevitable and inescapable. Now, after some time has passed, I think that a person, having decided on the main thing, does not need to change his place of residence in order to succeed creatively and personally. But there is a will of fate and there is no escape from it - you need to learn to accept new realities in yourself and try to go in the chosen direction. Each person has unique features of his personality, and therefore - some fateful events are present in all of us. We, in essence, choose the degree of heaviness of the burden for ourselves, we instinctively move away from its full weight, but life, sooner or later, will outline for us the entire complexity and multidimensionality of its sections, driving us either down into oblivion (professional), or bringing some of us into the light of public attention and professional recognition. Which is extremely binding and serious, because the question arises about the personal addressee of the phenomenon of life and what fills it through our own actions and being.

Elena Uzun
— The next stage of creativity is the necessary push or immersion into oneself. If only I could find that magic key that would guarantee a successful result. There is none. Everything slides, fluctuates. And how does it happen to you? Is there an external push or is the stimulus realized from within? Do you plan long in advance, or do you spontaneously find an idea?



Vasily Medved
— For me, Music was, is and will remain the song of a person walking towards God, and in this sense, it is always based on the live hood confessionalism. We can say that confessionalism is our sincerity, which naturally and unusually accurately indicates the correspondence of musical material under consideration to the tasks and goals of the new concept. Sometimes a surge of emotion, memory, or the indignation of a personal experience provides everything necessary to begin working on a piece. Very often the character is clear from the very beginning, completely, and it dictates the language of presentation. My plays are always plot-driven, they are inspired by life, thoughts, conscience; they speak about life and about the states of the soul, mind, heart. It seems to me that sincerity cannot but lead to an interesting presentation of thought, to a motive, to a harmonious turn, to an image, perhaps even, since the pure is always alive and unique by its nature.

Ideas come either from within, or I see them already manifested in other branches - literature, philosophy, psychology, painting, sculpture, in life. If they catch my attention, I start working. The interesting thing is that a certain peculiarity has appeared to express what I have received mentally, figuratively in the form of music, as if I were reading a novel and seeing what is happening on stage. The language itself indicates the internal action that is taking place. Later, some hints of expressing something similar in words appeared. But in essence, this is a conversation about related things, with the involvement of different languages - music and words.

Elena Uzun
— But what if people don’t understand you and don’t understand your actions for a long time?

Vasily Medved
— If this happens, I return to my basics, review the original foundations of the material, look for a way to the listener, try to tell with music where I am, and why there and not somewhere else. "In my Father's house there are many mansions" - I always keep these words of the Savior before me in my mind, conscience, and heart. I try to do everything I can to make music easy to perceive. This is not a simplification - I strive for clarity. But when I find support - I stop searching and begin working on developing the grains, their germination into new form-changes without losing the substantive unity. That is, first defining yourself, thinking that you yourself are like a drop as part of a great multitude, and only then do I fill the meaningful vessel of creativity with these drops. Without movement within, search, discoveries, comprehension – for me there is no understanding of the process of transformation, no understanding of the direction of this flow as deeply humanistic, having, ultimately, a direct relation to each person. “I am” – this is when the verb “to be” is embodied. Or – “to live”, truly.

Elena Uzun
— You are right. Decided to be yourself — be it, there is no turning back. Film critic Anton Dolin said it well about David Lynch: “Where I, a critic, will stand against the Wall and rest my forehead, Lynch will see something through the Wall. Because he sees the Essential.” And the Essential and the Explainable are not equal. The Essential is often inexplicable — it is unthinkable to explain it even to creative people who measure someone else's world with their own standards.

Vasily Medved
— The essential introduces its manifestations into the explainable, such is the order of things, the main thing is always hidden due to the lack of clear formulations. We try to formulate - this is half the battle. Then comes the difficult period of embodiment of the essence of what was heard, received, manifested. Embodiment. Misunderstanding of the environment is a frequent companion of the bearer of a creative idea. Let us recall the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring". Something similar happened with Dante Alighieri – he created while in exile due to disagreements with the ruling circles of Italy of his time, but he wrote the Divine Comedy for reasons far beyond the difficulties that befell him and the complexities of the lives of his compatriots. Dante looked into the essence of the human problem, wrote our collective confession.

Individuality must be tested for strength; we are aware of the form in which this happens. But it is not the person who is being tested – it is his integrity, his ability to create freely, at liberty. Therefore, we can sum it up – the artist is sometimes torn out of the context of his time for objective reasons, which determine his freedom to create according to his creative goals, which often conflict with reality. I read the American philosopher Thoreau from Massachusetts - today it is a universally recognized classic. I get to know his life, and I understand - an outcast, rejected and rejected by the literary community of New York because of his individual, special vision of the problems of human society. Ridiculed, he retreats into the wilderness, into the forest, where he writes his books, remarkably in all respects. How many more examples do we need to accept the obvious? Are we doing well, not scorched by the rejection of our thoughts and ideas?

But there are also completely opposite examples of the creative abundance of masters living on their native land and serving their people with purity in their hearts, understanding life in the context of their native environment, weaving its uniqueness and originality into the layers of world culture. To find oneself and not lose oneself any more is the miracle of possessing a personal being, unique to anyone else by virtue of one’s nature, as God created it – it seems to me to be true happiness both for the author and for every person, society. And therefore, the free man is closer to the Truth, to the feeling that it is here and now, nearby. This movement has no limitations in time and space; it seems to me that it hovers above everything - this is the feeling of the presence of the essential around you.

We do not see the unique features and specifics of our own individuality and often perceive the difficulties of life and the blows of fate as punishment. Serious reflection is needed here; if one has already been plunged into the abyss of life, into its drama, then one must soar even higher in spirit. To realize one's place and one's tasks, according to one's gift and feeling. And to bear a crown of thorns - do we want to? Where are the true sources of understanding such an experience? If there is still a desire to understand, one must have the courage to look higher and deeper at one’s own free will, considering this act of active participation in the inner search a privilege. We usually endure the blows of fate, according to our strength and capabilities. More than we can endure is not sent by heaven. But the final word is always with God. In essence, a person stands before God - alone, and God's conversation with him is individual. Therefore, the relationship of a person with the Creator is a mystery, always unique and - always hidden from the eyes of other people, which is good. Coming to an understanding of the dramatic events that happen to us, to an understanding of them as useful for us is not at all easy, but if you start with yourself, then it is possible to learn to interpret drama as a necessary step on a person’s path to approaching harmony - with himself and the outside world.

Patience and endurance to all of us, I repeat. In creative terms, it is not our positions and social status that define us, but our thoughts, values and the fruits of labor and inspiration, work. Joseph Haydn, the son of a carriage builder, self-taught, created the classical style of music. Johann Sebastian Bach, an orphan, gave the world his Art by embodying its ideas in the form and content in which he felt them and considered necessary for the benefit of people. When asked about the goals of his own creativity, Bach replied: “I consider the goal of research in the field of Musical Science to be the recreation of the human soul.” Music teachers work wonders with the souls of students, inspire young minds with faith in their voice, and guide young people toward freedom of individual vision in the process of professional and personal development. Experience and inspiration require the work of applying human strength in a chosen field. Then there is hope. Life does not stop; it constantly unfolds before us and – within ourselves. The road will always be mastered by the one walking.
Elena Uzun
– I really like your cycle “Trinity”, which has undergone changes in the arrangement as Triptych for strings?
Vasily Medved
– Yes – it is “Trinity”, based on the polyphonic tradition of In Nomine, founded by John Taverner, an English composer of the 14th-16th centuries. But it is also Russian music, as I perceive it, according to its tasks and aspirations. The melodiousness of native Ukraine is also given a special place in the triptych. The music of "Trinity" was born in Boston, but its roots go back to the past, live in the present, and, I dare to hope, look to the future. I have such a life, a triple one - a triple citizenship of the heart, and I have to solve problems in a world that is sick and suffering, in which everything and everyone is mixed up. I was fortunate to get to know the United States creatively from the inside, and gradually become part of this creative environment, remaining myself, keeping in my memory and heart the original reasons for the decision to enter the world of writing. And it turned out later that everywhere the world is looking for solutions to the most pressing issues through the preparation of individuals for serious upheavals of the spirit and environment. Life does not give us peace, pushes us to active thought-existence. If not, life unfolds before us in all its depth and drama and we feel that we are missing out on a lot, that we do not understand its complexity, we get upset at the moments of mature contact with its challenges. Therefore, creativity is a great privilege in the ability to speak out in order to maintain a relationship with one's conscience. This is enough to understand the complex component that surrounds us from the outside and - affects us from within the reality.

Elena Uzun
- Trinity is archetypal and is based on the well-known dialectic Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis, which in music I would interpret as Extrovert-Introvert-New quality. For Medved, there are also different stages of questioning, suggesting the eternal germination of the following questions from the previous ones, not requiring immediate answers. Returning to his musical roots again and again, the composer has the opportunity to be convinced of the correctness of the chosen path, as demonstrated by the musical genomes of the author. Further we observe the dialectic of interactions of creative idioms, crystallizing the individuality of the musical language and style of the composer. But each time Vasily Medved immerses us in the Trinity Processualism of his musical reflections and only Time will give an answer to how valuable our Searches were.

If you hear
Elena Uzun

When the leaf falls,
you have the right to bloom.
When the walls collapse,
You have the right to change.
No one is given
a place and time,
there is only a pulse and a feeling,
There is only you, only you.

You can call, you can cry,
asking fate:
"Where is my path? Why is
Everything different, not so?
But only then does
the golden branch of fate blossom,
if you hear yourself
and God in yourself.
               
Music critic (R. Moldova)                Elena UZUN