and character No portrait of Vedel has survived, but he was described by friends as being gentle, calm, friendly, and with "beautiful radiant eyes, burning with a special fire of great spiritual nobility and inspiration". His letters to Turchaninov reveal a care for oppressed people—reflected in his choice of themes for his concertos—as well as an opposition towards serfdom, which had been established in Ukraine by Catherine the Great. Music Compositions Vedel was almost entirely a liturgical composer of the a cappella choral music sung in Orthodox churches. , more than 80 of his compositions have been identified, including 31 choral concertos and six trios, two liturgies, an all-night vigil, and three irmos cycles. An edition of Vedel's works was published by Mykola Hodbych and Tetiana Husarchuk in 2007. Many of Vedel's works have been lost. The V.I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine holds the only existing autograph score by the composer, the Score of Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom and Other Compositions. The score consists of 12 choral concertos (composed between 1794 and 1798), and the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. The ink varies in colour, which suggests that Vedel worked on the compositions at different times. It was acquired by Askochensky, who bequeathed it to the Kyiv Academy. Musical style The musicologists Ihor Sonevytsky and Marko Robert Stech consider Vedel to be the archetypal composer of Ukrainian music from the Baroque era. An outstanding tenor singer, he was one of the best choral conductors of his time. He helped to raise the standard of choral singing in Ukraine to previously unknown levels. Vedel was considered during his lifetime to be a traditional and conservative composer, in contrast to his older contemporaries Berezovsky and Bortniansky. Unlike Vedel, they composed secular, non-spiritual works. He was a famous violinist, but no music by Vedel for the violin is documented. His works, perhaps even more than those of Berezovsky or Bortnyansky, represented a development in Ukrainian musical culture. According to Koshetz, Vedel's music was based on Ukrainian folk melodies. Vedel's music was written at a time when Western music had largely emerged from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. The style of his compositions reflected two contrasting traditions. He was strongly influenced by the baroque traditions of the Ukrainian hetman culture, with its religious-mystical music linked with ideas about spiritual enlightenment, but was also influenced by developments in new operatic and instrumental