Re: Art songs to Yiddish lyrics

[nrmpiano <nrmpiano...>]

>From the liner notes of AUS JUDISCHER VOLKSPOESIER, Op. 79:
 
Shostakovich wrote his song cycle entitled From Jewish Folk Poetry in 1948, the 
year of the infamous Communist Party resolution condeming contemporary music 
trends. The work was doubtless intended as subtle protest against anti-Semetic 
trends engendered by Stalin's paranoia.  It was not published or premiered 
until 1955.  In 1962 he adapted it for orchestra, most likely in connection 
with his 13th Symphony based on poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, whose first 
movement deals with the mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis at Babi-Yar in 
the Ukraine.
 
Shostakovich drew on the Russian translation of Hebrew and Yiddish Folk songs, 
which he had found in a collection without melodies.  Here as in other works, 
he employed Jewish intonations, since he sensed an affinity between his own 
earthly experience and stance and that which forms the basis for this musical 
language.  'It may appear joyful and yet in reality be profoundly tragic' 
(Shostakovich quoted by Solomon Volkov).

Nancy
 


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