Art songs to Yiddish lyrics

[Fred Blumenthal <xd2fabl...>]

Sylvie Braitman is looking for art songs set to Yiddish lyrics, and I 
wonder if anyone has mentioned the Shostakovitch "From Jewish Folk Poetry" 
op. 79 yet.  These are remarkable for several reasons.  Of course, Dmitri 
Shostakovitch wasn't Jewish, and one wonders why the usually anti-semitic 
Soviet regime would have permitted their publication, but apparently they, 
like the Prokofiev treatment of Jewish melodies, were sufficiently "of the 
people."  Next, Shostakovitch found texts to existing folk songs, but only 
the lyrics, and so composed his own melodies.  (Insert this into the 
discussion of folk song vs. art song.)  The recording I'm finding at 
http://store.yahoo.com/arsisaudio/dvorvocwor.html is for 3 voices and 
piano, and I wonder if that's how Shostakovitch wrote them and intended 
for them to be performed.  Another site 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000005Z6J/inktomi-musicasin-20/ref%3Dnosim/002-6565042-0970404)
 
lists an orchestrated version.  And 
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/shostakovich.html describes his Symphony No. 13 
as " . . . his most outspokenly critical 
work, incorporating a setting of words that attack anti-semitism."  At 
least I was pretty sure he wasn't Jewish.

Fred Blumenthal
xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com