Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko (born November 11 (23), 1896, St. Petersburg — died October 3, 1938, Kyiv) — Ukrainian composer, pianist, teacher.

Composer and pianist Viktor Stepanovich Kosenko (1896-1938) while still a student of the Petrograd Conservatory (graduated from its piano and composition faculties in 1918; piano class of I. Miklashevska, composition class of M. Sokolov, conducting class of M. Cherepnin) wrote a large number of talented instrumental miniatures , performed in a post-romantic style under the great influence of the music of F. Chopin and O. Scriabin (preludes, mazurkas, characteristic pieces, poems, romances). From 1918 to 1928, he worked as a piano teacher at a music school, and later at a music technical school in Zhytomyr. Here he developed an active musical, public and concert activity, becoming one of the founders of a chamber trio, with whom he performs many concerts and conducts musical and educational activities. During the Zhytomyr period, the lion's share of all chamber-instrumental and chamber-vocal works of the composer were created. In 1922, V. Kosenko arranged his first author's concert, and already in 1924 he visited Moscow (in 1925 he gave an author's concert in Moscow), in 1927 he gave author's concerts in the then capital of the USSR - Kharkiv. In 1928, V. Kosenko, together with the singer O. Kolodub, went on a tour through the cities of Donbas, organized by Ukrfil. The press responds very favorably to the composer's performances and concerts. In the 1928-29 academic year, V. Kosenko transferred to work from the Zhytomyr Music Technical School to the Kyiv Music and Drama Institute (since 1932 - professor). Since 1934, V. Kosenko - himself a good pianist and ensemble player - led piano and chamber ensemble classes at the Kyiv Conservatory. In the capital, the musician continued his active performance as an ensemble player and accompanist, participated as an organizer and jury member in music competitions, performed on the radio. The composer died in Kyiv in 1938. In 1964, the V. S. Kosenko Memorial Apartment Museum was created in Kyiv in the apartment where the artist lived. Today, the Zhytomyr School of Music bears his name, where he worked until 1928.

In the 1920s, the works written by V. Kosenko in the previous decade began an active concert life, some of them were published and received positive feedback from famous musicians, which encouraged the composer to further active creativity in similar genres (mazurkas, etudes, poems, concert waltzes , romances). There were also three piano sonatas, a sonata for violin and piano, a concerto for violin and orchestra, a sonata for viola and piano, a sonata for cello and piano, a trio op. 17 ("Classical") for violin, cello and piano, string quartet, a number of works for orchestra.

Piano and cello sonatas by V. Kosenko still occupy a prominent place in the Ukrainian pedagogical and concert repertoire. they are characterized by an expressive attraction to classical clarity of form, vividly typified melodic lyrical-psychological sound, use of dramaturgy based on impetuous ups and downs. The one-movement first and third sonatas for piano by their moody lyrical imagery, symmetry of architecture and clarity of lado-harmonic changes and transitions show impetuous ups and downs of drama. The one-movement first and third piano sonatas show a clear affinity with the composer's piano poems in terms of moody lyrical imagery, architectural symmetry, and clarity of lado-harmonic changes and transitions. The second sonata is a three-part, more dramatic in character. Her themes are saturated with acutely dramatic emotions of a tragic sound, sometimes filled with pathos and romantic excitement, and sometimes with despair or quiet contemplative lyrics. In general, the sonatas, like many other instrumental works of V. Kosenko of this period, are characterized by an excessive sophistication of texture and a certain repetition of favorite elliptical turns, which led to a slowdown in dramatic development and a certain monotony of sound.

A notable work in Ukrainian music of that era was the sonata in D minor op. 10 for cello and piano, written by the composer in 1923. The traditions of the music of P. Tchaikovsky and S. Rachmaninov are clearly felt in this piece. The cycle of the sonata is three-part. The emotional and dramatic extreme parts are written in sonata form, the elegiac and contemplative second part - in the developed three-part form. The texture is thick, saturated with polyphonic harmonies, melodized in the Rachmaninoff style. Immediately after writing, the sonata entered the active concert repertoire of cellists.

The composer's talent was most fully revealed in the romantic genres of poems, etudes, and solos, which dominated V. Kosenko's work until the end of the 1920s. In them, we can see an unequivocal orientation to the imagery and style of Scriabin miniatures. All six of the composer's piano poems and two Legend Poems op. 12 show us the universality of this romantic genre. This is a wide range of lyrical feelings, passionate urges, sincere tenderness, dramatic clashes of high pathos and sincere longing, moments despair, which is replaced by pictures of peace and thoughts. The names of the poems given by V. Kosenko give a more or less clear idea of the nature of the musical images of some samples of this mobile genre: "Call", "Desire", "Tragic", "Fantastic". The compositions are distinguished by a detailed texture, a wide variety of rhythmically complicated melodic formations, a wealth of methods of rhythmic and melodic variation, demanding from the pianist a perfect mastery of the timbre resources of the instrument and the ability to coordinate the rise and fall of the density of harmonic development with textural development. The music of the etudes of Op. 8 V. Kosenko, and his cycle "Eleven etudes in the form of ancient dances" op. 19 actualizes the classical-baroque preferences of the composer, which are manifested in the classical clarity of the chosen forms, the transparent texture enriched with polyphonic techniques, and the use of 18th century music genres.

Often performed works in the 1920s were romances by V. Kosenko, written based on the poems of Russian poets (or. 1 bis; 7; 16; 20; 24). They are distinguished by a sincere and sophisticated melodism, a texture rich in saturated and transparent sounds, beautifully conveyed in music by the intonation of the poem. Unfortunately, in the 1930s, the composer departed from the artistic and aesthetic positions developed in previous decades, often writing conformist, ideologically motivated and artistically unconvincing works.