Authorship of musical works (“nameless Weksler”)

The aim of this article is to identify the composer - the author of musical works published with incomplete data (only the initials) in Kyiv, Yalta, Feodosia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Paris in the early twentieth century. The methodology of the study is based on the basic principles of a systematic approach to culture as a whole. There were applied methods of special historical disciplines - bibliography, book science, musicology,biography science, including historical-comparative method, as well as empirical observations - the result of the authors’ understanding of their own experience in attribution of works. All this, as well as the heuristic approach, the organization of selective search helped to find information about the life and works of the composer. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the basic information about Semen Weksler (1876, Kherson - 1950, Paris) has been established thanks to music publications from the Music Fonds Department of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, publishing catalogues, advertisements, the contents of the series, information about music sources from electronic catalogues of various libraries, correspondence, memoirs and historical literature. The aliases used by the composer have been identified. It was determined that Semen Wexlerand «French» Serge Weksler were one person. As a music editor (under the pseudonym of Serge Veksler), he redacted a multi-volume edition of the works of Frederic Chopin, which is considered one of the most important and notable among Chopin editions in the twentieth century. Six of S. Weksler’s eight brothers were also musicians (composers, conductors, performers, music educators) and marked the musical culture of Kherson, Kyiv, Katerynoslav (Dnipro), Odessa. For the first time a list of the works of Semen (Serge) Weksler is compiled. 13 editions of the Music Fonds Department of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine has been attributed as the works of Semen Weksler, and their bibliographic description is annexed. Conclusions. Semen Weksler Kharitonovich was a composer, a conductor, a teacher, an author of instructional exercises in a piano school. Semen Weksler was living and working in Kherson, Crimea, and Kyiv for a long time. But even in the emigration the musical intonation related to hishomeland continued to be heard in his musical works. Information about life and heritage of our countryman, although not decisive for the musical culture of Ukraine, is steel its important component, because without studying the totality of phenomena it is impossible to create an objective and complete picture of history.