Re: Art songs to Yiddish lyrics

[Sylvie Braitman <curlySylvie...>]

Five years ago, before performing the Shostakovitch's Jewish songs, I went to 
YIVO looking for their origins. Khana Mlotek pointed toward Joachim Braun's 
essay. And there is also the movie made on Shostakovitch and his relation to 
his Jewish student (or colleague) who inspired him very much. Anybody knows the 
title of the movie, and the name of the other musician?

Sylvie



"Dimitri Shostakovitch's interest in Jewish matters is without precedent in the 
history of Russian or Soviet music. Elements of a Jewish musical idiom can be 
found in at least ten of his major works. Unlike the use of a pseudo-Jewish 
melodic idiom by ninetieth-century Russian composers which reflected interest 
in everything Eastern, Shostakovitch appropriation of a Jewish idiom cannot be 
related to the folklorist concerns of Mussorgsky or Rimsky Korsakov.

In the Soviet union of Shostakovitch, Jewish culture held a controversial 
position: the idea of a distinct Jewish people was scientifically untenable. 
Jewish culture existed on the border line between the permitted and the 
undesirable. For Shostakovitch, it meant his exploration of Jewish idiom was 
loaded with risk and potentially explosive.

The vocal cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry" is a masterpiece of folk idiom 
stylization. In 1948, Shostakovitch was harshly criticized and blamed for that 
work.

His inspiration came from a collection of folk poems he read. The collection 
was a Russian translation of Yiddish poems. To be politically correct, 
Shostakovitch had to make some adjustments. In the Lullaby, the original 
Yiddish reads: "Your father is in Siberia." This becomes: "Your Father is in 
Siberia, The Czar holds him in prison." The whole work is full of such 
occurrences." From Joachim Braun's essay.


Braun found the original Yiddish texts that Shostakovitch's cycle is based on 
and set them to the music It was Shostakovitch 's wish to have these songs 
performed in Yiddish. He was actually fond of the language and probably did not 
use Yiddish because that would have put his career -- his life?--in danger. The 
work was not performed until after Stalin's death.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: nrmpiano 
  To: World music from a Jewish slant 
  Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 12:27 PM
  Subject: Re: Art songs to Yiddish lyrics


  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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