Re: Art songs to Yiddish lyrics

[Judith Pinnolis <pinnolis...>]

Shostakovich was definitely not Jewish.
Judy
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Blumenthal" <xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 2:20 PM
Subject: Art songs to Yiddish lyrics


> 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

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+