Lysenko was born in the village of Hrynky in the Poltava region of western Ukraine, the son of a wealthy landowner. He studied music from a young age and continued this education when he entered a boarding school in Kiev and a high school in Kharkov. From childhood he showed interest in the folk songs of Ukrainian farmers and in the poetry of Taras Shevchenko. Lysenko was originally a biology student at Kharkov University, while also studying music privately. During his stay at Kiev University, he collected and arranged Ukrainian folk songs, which were published in seven volumes. With a scholarship he won from the Russian Music Society, he pursued further professional music studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. There he realized the importance of collecting, developing and creating Ukrainian music instead of copying the work of Western classical composers. In order to improve his orchestration and composition skills he traveled to St. Petersburg where he took orchestration lessons in the mid-1870s, but his ardent Ukrainian national stance and contempt for the Great Russian Empire hindered his career. He supported the 1905 revolution and remained in prison for a short time in 1907. In his later years, he raised funds to open a Ukrainian School of Music.
Lysenko composed over 120 artistic songs, many of them with lyrics by Taras Shevchenko, and performed about 500 folk songs for voice and piano, for choir and piano, or a cappella choir. His patriotic work in poetry by Oleksandr Konysky, originally intended for a children's choir, became known internationally as "Prayer for Ukraine", a spiritual hymn of Ukraine. His greatest works for piano include the Ukrainian Suite in the Form of Ancient Dances, two rhapsodies (the second, Dumka-Sumka is one of his most famous works), Heroic Scherzo and Sonata in Minority. He has also written a number of opera works, including the classical Ukrainian opera Natalka Poltavka. He died on November 6, 1912 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Of his three children, one of his daughters became a famous pianist and his son a music teacher in Kyiv.
Prayer for Ukraine
Lord, oh the Great and Almighty,Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Bless her with freedom and light
Of your holy rayslighten
Us, your children small,
In love pure and everlasting
Let us, oh Lord, grow.
We pray, oh Lord Almighty,
Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Grant our people and country
All your kindness and grace.
Bless us with freedom,
bless us with wisdom,
Guide into kind world,
Bless us, oh Lord, with good fortune
For ever and evermore.