Wikipedia
From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79, is a song cycle for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich. It uses texts taken from the collection Jewish folk songs, compiled by I. Dobrushin and A. Yuditsky, edited by Y. M. Sokolov (Goslitizdat, 1947).[1]
The piece was composed in the autumn of 1948, after Shostakovich's denunciation in the Zhdanov decree of that year. The composer's situation and the official anti-Semitism of the time made a public premiere impossible until January 15, 1955, when it was performed by Shostakovich himself with Nina L'vovna Dorliak, Zara Dolukhanova and Alec Maslennikov. Before the premiere the work received a number of private performances.
The cycle is just one of many works by Shostakovich to incorporate elements of Jewish music; he said that he was attracted by "a jolly melody on sad intonations".[2]
The cycle consists of 11 songs:
- The Lament for the Dead Child. Russian translation by T. Spendiarova (1 August 1948)[3]
- The Thoughtful Mother and Aunt. Russian translation by A. Globa (5 August 1948)
- Lullaby. Russian translation by V. Zvyagintseva (10 August 1948)
- Before a Long Parting. Russian translation by A. Globa (15 August 1948)
- A Warning. Russian translation by N. Ushakov (20 August 1948)
- The Abandoned Father. Russian translation by S. Mar (25 August 1948)
- The Song of Misery. Text by B. Shafir. Russian translation by B. Semyonov (29 August 1948)
- Winter. Russian translation by B. Semyonov (29 August 1948)
- A Good Life. Russian translation by S. Olender (10 October 1948)
- The Young Girl's Song. Russian translation by S. Olender (16 October 1948)
- Happiness. Russian translation by L. Dligach (24 October 1948)
Texts
1. Плач об умершем младенце
Based on a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Zun mit a regn". Jewish folk poetry.
Russian translation by T. Spendiarova
|
Плач об умершем младенце |
Lament over the dead baby |
2. Заботливые мама и тётя
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Shlof, shlof, shlof!"
Jewish folk poetry.
Бай, бай, бай,
В село, татуня, поезжай!
Привези нам яблочко,
Чтоб не болеть глазочкам!
Бай.
Бай, бай, бай,
В село, татуня, поезжай!
Привези нам курочку,
Чтоб не болеть зубочкам!
Бай.
Бай, бай, бай,
В село, татуня, поезжай!
Привези нам уточку,
Чтоб не болеть грудочке!
Бай.
Бай, бай, бай,
В село, татуня, поезжай!
Привези нам гусочку,
Чтоб не болеть пузочку!
Бай.
Бай, бай, бай,
В село, татуня, поезжай!
Привези нам семечек,
Чтоб не болеть темечку!
Бай.
Бай, бай, бай,
В село, татуня, поезжай!
Привези нам зайчика,
Чтоб не болеть пальчикам!
Бай.
3. Колыбельная
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Shlof mayn kind, mayn kind, mayn sheyner",
Jewish folk poetry.
Мой сынок всех краше в мире -
Огонёк во тьме.
Твой отец в цепях в Сибири,
Держит царь его в тюрьме!
Спи, лю-лю, лю-лю!
Колыбель твою качая,
Мама слёзы льёт.
Сам поймёшь ты подрастая,
Что ей сердце жжёт.
Твой отец в Сибири дальней,
Я нужду терплю.
Спи покуда беспечально, а,
Лю-лю, лю-лю, лю-лю!
Скорбь моя чернее ночи,
Спи, а я не сплю.
Спи, хороший, спи, сыночек, спи,
Лю-лю, лю-лю, лю-лю.
4. Перед долгой разлукой
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Oy, Avrom, ich ken on dir nit zayn!"
Jewish folk poetry.
Сопрано:
Ой, Абрам, как без тебя мне жить!
Я без тебя, ты без меня -
Как нам в разлуке жить?
Тенор:
А помнишь, в воротах со мной стояла -
Что по секрету ты мне сказала?
Ой, ой, Ривочка, дай твой ротик, девочка!
Сопрано:
Ой, Абрам, как мне жить теперь?
Я без тебя, ты без меня, -
Ой, как без ручки дверь!
Тенор:
А помнишь, гуляли с тобой мы в паре -
Что мне сказала ты на бульваре?
Ой, ой, Ривочка, дай твой ротик, девочка!
[Сопрано:
[ Ой, Абрам, как мне жить теперь?
[ Я без тебя, ты без меня, -
[ Как нам без счастья жить?
[
[Тенор:
[ Ой, Ривочка, как без тебя мне жить!
[ Я без тебя, ты без меня, -
[ Как нам без счастья жить?
Сопрано:
Ты помнишь, я красную юбку носила?
Ой, как тогда я была красива!
[ Ой, Абрам! Ой, Абрам!
[
[Тенор:
[ Ой, ой, Ривочка, дай твой ротик, девочка!
5. Предостережение
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Her zhe, Khasia",
Jewish folk poetry.
Слушай, Хася!
Нельзя гулять,
Не смей гулять,
С любым гулять,
Опасайся, опасайся!
Пойдёшь гулять,
До утра гулять, ой,
Потом наплачешься,
Хася! Слушай! Хася!
6. Брошенный отец
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Elie der shenker zitst in khalat",
Jewish folk poetry.
Альт:
Эле-старьевщик, надел халат.
К приставу дочка ушла, говорят
Тенор:
Цирелэ, дочка, вернись к отцу,
Дам тебе платьев нарядных к венцу.
Цирелэ, дочка,
Серьги и кольца куплю тебе сам.
Цирелэ, дочка,
И на придачу красавчика дам.
Цирелэ, дочка!
Альт:
Не надо мне нарядов,
Не надо мне колец,
Лишь с господином приставом
Пойду я под венец.
[ Господин пристав,
[ Прошу вас, скорее
[ Гоните в шею
[ Старого еврея.
[
[Тенор:
[ Цирелэ, дочка! Вернись к отцу!
[ Цирелэ, дочка! Вернись к отцу!
Вернись ко отцу, вернись к отцу...
Цирелэ, дочка!
7. Песня о нужде
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Af dem boydem shlaft der dakh",
Jewish folk poetry.
Крыша спит на чердаке
Под соломой сладким сном.
В колыбельке спит дитя
Без пелёнок, нагишом.
Гоп, гоп, выше!
Ест коза солому с крыши.
Гоп, гоп, выше!
Есть коза солому с крыши, ой!
Колыбель на чердаке,
Паучок в ней ткёт беду.
Радость мою сосёт,
Мне оставив лишь нужду.
Гоп, гоп, выше!...
Петушок на чердаке,
Ярко-красный гребешок.
Ой, жена займи для деток
Хлеба черствого кусок.
Гоп, гоп, выше!...
8. Зима
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Es ligt in bet Sheyndl, mayn Sheyndl",
Jewish folk poetry.
Лежит моя Шейндл в кровати,
И с нею ребёнок больной.
Ни щепки в нетопленой хате,
А ветер гудит за стеной.
А....
Вернулись и стужа, и ветер,
Нет силы терпеть и молчать.
Кричите же, плачьте же, дети,
Зима воротилась опять.
А....
9. Хорошая жизнь
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs)
title 1: "Vegn rokhves fun felder", Jewish folk poetry.
О поле просторном, друзья дорогие,
Песен не пел я в годы глухие.
Не для меня поля расцветали,
Не для меня росинки стекали.
В тесном подвале во тьме сырой
Жил я когда-то, измучен нуждой.
И грустная песня неслась из подвала
О горе, о муке моей небывалой.
Колхозная речка, струись веселее;
Друзьям передай мой поклон поскорее.
Скажи, что в колхозе теперь мой дом,
Цветущее дерево стоит под окном.
Теперь для меня поля расцветают,
Меня молоком и мёдом питают.
Я счастлив, а ты расскажи моим братьям:
Колхозным полям буду песни слагать я!
10. Песня девушки
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs),
title 1: "Af a lonke ba dem veldl",
Jewish folk poetry.
На лужайке, возле леса,
Что задумчив так всегда,
Мы пасём с утра до ночи,
Колхозные стада.
И сижу я на пригорке,
С дудочкой сижу своей.
Не могу я наглядеться
На красу страны моей.
В яркой зелени деревья
И красивы, и стройны
А в полях цветут колосья,
Прелести полны.
Ой, ой, лю-лю!
То мне ветка улыбнётся
Колосок вдруг подмигнёт, -
Чувство радости великой
В сердце искрою сверкнёт.
Пой же, дудочка простая!
Так легко нам петь вдвоём!
Слышат горы и долины,
Как мы радостно поём!
Только, дудочка не плакать!
Прошлую забудь печаль.
И пускай твои напевы
Мчатся в ласковую даль.
Ой, ой, лю-лю!
Я в своём колхозе счастлива.
Слышишь, жизнь моя полна!
Веселее, веселее, дудочка,
Ты петь должна!
11. Счастье
Based on
a text in Yiddish (יידיש) from Volkslieder (Folksongs),
title 1: "Ikh hob mayn man genumen unter hant",
Jewish folk poetry.
Я мужа смело под руку взяла,
Пусть я стара, и стар мой кавалер.
Его с собой в театр повела,
И взяли два билета мы в партер.
До поздней ночи с мужем сидя там,
Всё предавались радостным мечтам, -
Какими благами окружена
Еврейского сапожника жена.
И всей стране хочу поведать я,
Про радостный и светлый жребий мой:
Врачами, наши стали сыновья -
Звезда горит над нашей головой!
Elizabeth Wilson: Shostakovich, A Life Remembered
The intonations of Jewish folk music appealed to the composer. As Shostakovich explained: "The distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations. Why does a man strike up a jolly song? Because he is sad at heart." [from private interview with Rafail Matveievich Khozak (1928-1993)]
Gerard McBurney: The Story
After his fearsome 1948 condemnation at the hands of the Union of Composers and Stalin’s ‘cultural’ henchman Andrey Zhdanov, Shostakovich was understandably careful about what he composed next and what he revealed in public. His position was undoubtedly dangerous. In the autumn of the same year he compiled a strikingly unusual song-cycle for three singers and piano: the texts were taken from a collection of Russian translations of Jewish lyrics, mostly originally in Yiddish but one or two Hebrew or Russian; the melodies he created were original but closely related to the style of ‘klezmer’ music which Shostakovich knew and loved. The ensemble of three singers gives almost the feeling of a chamber opera.
In their simple folksy musical idiom, these songs were not offensively ‘difficult’ or ‘modern’. But they had a problem: the obvious Jewishness of their text and melody, and also their clear address to the horrific fate of the Jews in Europe. Although this could most obviously have been taken to refer to the Holocaust which had only just ended three years before, the late 1940s were a time when Stalin was once again malevolently stirring the pot of Russian and Soviet anti-semitism. Arrests, state-sanctioned murders, harrassments and threats were all around. So these songs took on a doubly intense quality of political pathos and moral outrage. They could have been thought to refer to Nazi Germany but they applied as much to the Soviet situation. The musical result is one of Shostakovich’s most touching, unusual and melancholy works, whether performed in his original for voices and piano, or in the orchestral version he made afterwards. The political result was something else. Inevitably and correctly, 1948 was thought not a good time to perform such a piece. Although the work was briefly tried through in 1948, its official first performance had to wait to less oppressive times in 1955.
Solomon Volkov. Testimony
I remember when, in 1955, my parents returned in great excitement from a chamber concert: Shostakovich and several singers had performed his "Jewish Cycle" for the first time. In a country that had just been lashed[4] by a vicious wave of anti-Semitism, a prominent composer had dared publicity to present a work that spoke of the Jews with pity and compassion. This was both a musical and public event. (Dmitri Shostakovich, Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, Solomon Volkov, ed. Faber & Faber, London/Boston 1979/81, p. xi)
...Other compositions became widely known later. Among them are several major works (the First Violin Concerto, the vocal Cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, the Fourth Quartet) in which Shostakovich speaks, using echhoes of Yiddish folklore, with compassion about the fate of Jews—exiled on the brink of extinction who miraculously survived. This theme blended into an autobiographical motif: the lone individual against the raging stupid mob.*
*Shostakovich came out openly against anti-Semitism in his Thirteenth Symphony. It was 1962 then Khrushchev was in power, not Stalin, bur the official attitude toward Jews was, as always, hostile[5]. The moralizing Thirteenth (which incorporated Yevgeny Yevtushenko's famous poem "Babi Yar") was the cause of the kast sharp and well-known conflict between Soviet power and the composer. (ibid p. xxxvii)
Eight Quartet... And there is also the Jewish theme from the Piano Trio in this Quartet. I think, if we speak of musical impressions, that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it’s multifaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It’s almost always laughter through tears.
This quality of Jewish folk music is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express despair in dance music.
All folk music is lovely but I can say that Jewish folk music is unique. Many composers listened to it, including Russian composers, Mussorgsky, for instance. He carefully set down Jewish folk songs. Many of my works reflect my impressions of Jewish music.
This is not a purely musical issue, it is also a moral issue. I often test a person by his attitude toward Jews. In our day and age, any person with pretensions of decency cannot be anti-Semitic. This seems so obvious that it does't need saying, but I've had to argue the point for at least thirty years. Once after the war I was passing a bookstore ans saw a volume with Jewish songs. I was always interested in Jewish folklore, and I thought the book would give the melodies, but it contained only the texts. It seemed to me that if I picked out several texts and set them to music, I would be able to tell about the fate of the Jewish people. It seemed an important thing to do, because I could see anti-Semitism growing all around me. But I couldn't have the cycle performed then, it was played for the first time much later, and later still I did an orchestral version of the work.
My parents considered anti-Semitism a shameful superstition, and in that sense I was given a singular upbringing. In my youth I came across anti-Semitism among my peers, who thought that Jews were getting preferential treatment[6]. They didn’t remember the pogroms, the ghettos or Jews with a mocking laugh. It was a kind of opposition to the authorities.
I never condoned an anti-Semitic tone even then, and didn’t repeat anti-Semitic jokes that were popular then. But I was much gentler about this unworthy trait than I am now. Later I broke with even good friends if I saw that they had any anti-Semitic tendencies.
But even before the war, the attitude toward Jews had changed drastically. It turned out that we had far to go to achieve brotherhood. The Jews became the most persecuted and defenceless people of Europe. It was a return to the Middle Ages. Jews became a symbol for me. All of man’s defencelessness was concentrated in them. After the war, I tried to convey that feeling in my music. It was a bad time for the Jews then. In fact, it’s always a bad time for them.
Despite all the Jews who perished in the camps, all I heard people saying was, “The kikes went to Tashkent to fight.” And if they saw a Jew with military decorations, they called after him, “Kike, where did you buy the medals?” That’s when I wrote the Violin Concerto, the Jewish Cycle, and the Fourth Quartet. (ibid p. 156-7).
...I also know that Akhmatova expressed her displeasure over the "weak words" I used for the vocal cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. I don't want to argue with the famous poetess, but I think she didn't understand the music in this instance, or rather, she didn't understand how the music was connected to the word. (ibid p. 273-4).
Jascha Nemtsov • “The Scandal Was Perfect”
In Eastern Europe, it was above all Dmitrii Shostakovich who recognised the symbolic nature of Jewish music at that time and used it in an entire series of works. An extended passage of Shostakovich’s memoirs, as compiled by Solomon Volkov, provides insight into the composer’s relationship to Jewish music:
Love of Jewish music alone does not explain why Shostakovich made such extensive use of its elements in a certain phase of his work, or why he used these elements at all. In his compositional technique, he was not at all reliant on folk music. It is in fact most untypical for his personal musical language.39 However, Jewish music was for him not just a “purely musical issue”, but above all “a moral issue”.
On 13 January 1953, a leading article entitled “Murderers – Doctors” appeared in the Soviet daily Pravda. A group of predominantly Jewish doctors was accused of planning to murder leading Soviet officials. According to Stalin’s scenario, the conviction and subsequent public execution of the alleged conspirators was to have provided justification for the mass deportation of the Soviet Union’s Jews to Siberia, in order to “protect them from the anger of the people”. The death of the dictator several weeks later foiled these plans, however.
The “Doctors Plot” became the climax and symbol of an antisemitic campaign that had already been underway in the Soviet Union for several years. This was the historical context in which Shostakovich’s “Jewish” works were composed. The first was the 2nd Piano Trio (1944), which is dedicated to the memory of Ivan Sollertinskii (1904–1944), a musicologist and close friend of Shostakovich. At the same time, this work, which has an unmistakable Jewish feel in its finale, also has another level of meaning as a reaction to antisemitic persecution and foreboding of impending disaster. Personal suffering and mourning is thus identified with universal horror. Just how meaningful this “Jewish” finale was for Shostakovich is evidenced by the fact that he used its main theme many years later in his autobiographical 8th String Quartet (1960). Most of the “Jewish” works by Shostakovich were written in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when antisemitism assumed openly macabre traits in the Soviet Union. However, the antisemitic campaign was simply channelling tendencies that had been developing in Soviet society over many years:
Laurel E. Fay: The Composer Was Courageous, But Not As Much As In Myth
The argument about whether Dmitri Shostakovich was really a secret musical dissident has been raging for over 20 years, and now a new book is restoking the flames of controversy
The New York Times 14 April 1996 (Section 2, pp. 27, 32)
Nineteen forty-eight was the worst year of Dmitri Shostakovich's life. The crisis surfaced on Feb. 10, with the infamous resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party indicting Shostakovich and other leading Soviet composers as "formalists", enemies of the people. Official displeasure over a new opera by the sycophantic hack Vano Muradeli quickly escalated into wholesale intervention by the party into all aspects of musical life, directed by Stalin's cultural henchman Andrei Zhdanov.
Forced to swallow torrents of abuse and recrimination, Shostakovich publicly recanted his sins. The orgy of degradation climaxed in April, during the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Composers, but Shostakovich's tribulations did not end there. He would be fired from his professorships at both the Leningrad and Moscow Conservatories, lose his livelihood, see his works banned and be a target of continuing vilification and hate mail. What was his creative response to all of this? Within weeks of the conclusion of the Composers' Congress, Shostakovich was asking for help in pronouncing Yiddish words. That August he set eight texts from "Jewish Folk Poetry" - a collection of Yiddish folk poems published the year before in Russian translation - for soprano, alto, tenor, and piano. In October he set three more poems from the same collection, rounding out the cycle that became known as "From Jewish Folk Poetry". Not until 1955, two years after Stalin's death, would the work receive its public premiere. Shostakovich's orchestration of the cycle will be given its New York Philharmonic premiere on Thursday evening, conducted by Valery Gergiyev at Avery Fisher Hall. Hindsight is prescient. Memory is fickle. In retrospect, events often acquire resonances that could not have been imagined at the time. "From Jewish Folk Poetry" has come to occupy a hallowed place. It was written, after all, by a composer in mortal disgrace, not just at the height of the cultural purges but also in the early stages of an official anti-Semitic crusade of Stalin's late years. The opening salvo is routinely traced to the murder of the acclaimed actor and head of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee Solomon Mikhoels, in Minsk in January 1948.
In light of the surfeit of madness and atrocity that anti-Semitic cause encompassed by the time of its ultimate travesty - the exposure in January 1953 of a trumped-up conspiracy to murder Stalin by a group of predominantly Jewish doctors - it's hard not to be awed by Shostakovich's audacity and selfless courage. His setting of Jewish folk texts at a time when his own survival stood in manifest jeopardy seems to display his principled solidarity with the persecuted Soviet Jews. It is generally accepted that Shostakovich's innate survival instinct dictated that the protest remained private: thus the myth that he composed his cycle of Jewish songs "for the drawer."
But in fact Shostakovich made no apparent attempt to conceal the existence of "From Jewish Folk Poetry". After completing the first eight songs, he played them to the soprano Nina Dorliak and her husband, the pianist Sviatoslav Richter. At the composer's suggestion, Ms. Dorliak recruited two more singers, and they performed the songs for an appreciative gathering of relatives and friends at Shostakovich's birthday party on Sept. 25, 1948. The song cycle was tried out several more times in succeeding months.
Something does not add up here. Shostakovich was petrified with fear. His bag was packed in anticipation of imminent arrest. He had ample inducement to contemplate suicide, but surely courting martyrdom by means of his music would have been an unnecessarily gruesome way to go about it. In reality, he perceived no special risk either while he composed "From Jewish Folk Poetry" or when he shared it openly with those whose opinions he valued. Nor, it seems, did singers in 1948 balk at the very idea of performing this music, as more than one musician would do under much less parlous circumstances in 1962, when Shostakovich produced his 13th Symphony, with its setting of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's controversial poem "Babi Yar." Since "From Jewish Folk Poetry" kind already been performed repeatedly, it is clear that when Shostakovich wrote a former student in January 1949 that he was expecting to "demonstrate" his Jewish songs in 10 days, he intended to submit them to the peer-review process at the Composers Union, a necessary precondition to public performance.
If Stalin's minions were already implementing their scheme for the eventual containment or eradication of Soviet Jewry, Shostakovich and the vast majority of his compatriots were obviously not privy to the plan. By the autumn of 1948, they could have had received few hints. Mikhoels was reported to have died in a car accident, and his passing was mourned with glowing tributes. The true circumstances of his murder, let alone its pivotal significance, eluded even suspicious family members for some time.
Anti-Semitism played no conspicuous role in Zhdanov's scenario for the purge of the musicians. Indeed, of the composers indicted as ringleaders of the formalist, "anti-people" gang in the Central Committee resolution - Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, Vissarion Shebalin, Gavriil Popov and Nikolai Miaskovsky - not one was Jewish. Yet they were all stigmatized as "cosmopolitan", signifying that they had succumbed to Western influence.
While Shostakovich was practicing his Yiddish in May 1948, Stalin was publicly upstaging Truman by making the Soviet Union the first country to grant de jure, not merely de facto, recognition to the nascent State of Israel. A front-page editorial in Pravda touted equality and mutual respect for the ethnic cultures of all of the Soviet Union's constituent nationalities, great and small, as the country's special and unique strength. Early in September, Golda Meir arrived in Moscow to become Israel's first ambassador to the U.S.S.R. An estimated 50,000 Soviet Jews turned out to greet her and the other members of the Israeli mission at the Moscow Synagogue on Rosh ha Shanah, just as Shostakovich was finishing the final three songs of his cycle.
Shostakovich had more specific encouragement in his decision to tackle settings of Jewish folk poetry in the example of a young friend and protégé, the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (Moisei Vainberg). Before the shrill exhortations of the Composers' Congress had faded, Weinberg submitted his new Sinfonietta, audibly saturated with Jewish themes, to the scrutiny of his peers at the Composers' Union. The reception was gratifying. Those in attendance, Shostakovich included, praised the work's tuneful, optimistic, "realistic" style. The most indignant reaction came from a composer who thought Weinberg's musical language a primitive distortion of genuine Jewish music. His objections were quashed by fervent supporters. When another major conclave of Soviet composers was summoned at the end of the year to assess the headway made since the Composers' Congress, Weinberg's Sinfonietta received pride of place in the opening concert. It was vaunted by the general secretary of the Composers' Union, Tikhon Khrennikov, as shining proof of the benefits to be reaped by shunning the ruinous influences of modernism, turning to folk sources and following the path of realism.
Kowtowing to the Composers' Congress back in April, Shostakovich had enumerated the steps he planned to take to rehabilitate himself. He pledged above all to place melody at the heart of his work, melody steeped in the bountiful heritage of national cultures. He conceded the utility of programs, stories and literary images to engage the listener actively in the musical experience. He promised to produce the songs and romances he had previously avoided. He promised to produce the music demanded by the party.
When Shostakovich chose to compose songs on Jewish folk texts for his first major work in the aftermath of Zhdanov's purge, he was making a good faith effort to redeem his well-publicized pledges. As Joachim Braun, the leading authority on the "Jewish" facet in Shostakovich's music, has pointed out, "From Jewish Folk Poetry" is an example of stylized urban folk art. It uses genuine folk texts. Its melodic and harmonic style is simple and highly accessible. Everything is in complete accord with the esthetic [sic] precepts handed down by the Central Committee and ratified at the Composers' Congress.
Shostakovich's interest in Jewish music was neither casual nor academic. It had already found expression in works like his Second Piano Trio, of 1944, and his First Violin Concerto, of 1948. If he was now required to prostrate himself before the indigenous wellsprings of Soviet art, it was only natural that he should turn to ethnic sources that genuinely stimulated his creative imagination. No one ever ordered him to write bad music. And if there was ever a genius at turning repressive strictures to consummate artistic advantage, it was Shostakovich. He did what was required of him. It was his rotten luck that of all the available nationalities, great and small, he just happened to pick the wrong "folk" as his inspiration. In late November the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee was ordered disbanded. By the end of the year the mass arrests of Jewish intellectuals had begun.
Any illusions Shostakovich still harbored about how his Jewish songs might be greeted must have been dispelled by the virulent propaganda campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" that erupted in late January 1949. He thought better of submitting his songs to peer review and quietly shelved them. Soon he embarked on a more sure-fire, if more cynical, route to political and creative rehabilitation, the composition of a rousing paean to Stalin's "great plan" for the country's afforestation, the "Song of the Forests" of 1949.
The myriad subversive subtexts and chilling ironies that engraved themselves in the score of "From Jewish Folk Poetry" during the years it languished unperformed are no less actual for being authored more by Stalin than by Shostakovich. What started as a diligent attempt to respond to the imperatives of Socialist Realism was transformed by the ravages of history into a heart-rending musical monument to the end of the Stalinist era.
Примечания
- ↑ Wilson, Elizabeth (2006). Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-22050-9, p. 267.
- ↑ Wilson (2006): p. 268.
- ↑ The dates of composition are taken from the autographs as printed in the score:Shostakovich, Collected Works, vol. 32. Romances and Songs, "Muzyka" Moscow, 1982
- ↑ Lash — to strike or beat with a whip or stick / захлёстнуть.
- ↑ Hostile — враждебный; неприязненный; недобрый; критикующий; презирающий; угрюмый; недоброжелательный.
- ↑ were getting preferential treatment — на привилегированном положении.
See also
<poem>
Translator is unknown:
1) Lament For A Dead Child
Sun and rain, shine and mist, the fog has descended, the moon has grown dim. Whom did she give birth to? To a boy, to a boy. And how did they name him? Moyshele, Moyshele. And in what did they rock Moyshele? In a cradle. And what did they feed him with? With bread and onions. And where did they bury him? In a grave. Oy, little boy in the grave, in the grave, Moyshele in the grave.
Shostakovich was influenced not only by Jewish poetry but by Jewish klezmer music. This influence can be heard in many of his compositions and especially in this song cycle.
2) The Thoughtful Mother And Aunt
Bye, bye, bye, to the village, Daddy go!
Bring us an apple, so our eyes won’t hurt! Bye…
Bye, bye, bye, to the village, Daddy, go!
Bring us a chicken, so our teeth won’t hurt! Bye…
Bye, bye, bye, to the village, Daddy, go!
Bring us a duck, so our chest won’t hurt! Bye…
Bye, bye, bye, to the village, Daddy, go!
Bring us a goose, so our stomach won’t hurt! Bye…
Bye, bye, bye, to the village, Daddy, go!
Bring us some seeds, so our crown won’t hurt! Bye…
Bye, bye, bye, to the village, Daddy, go!
Bring us a rabbit, so our fingers won't hurt! Bye…
3) Lullaby My son who is the most beautiful in the world, sleep, but I’m not sleeping. Your father is in chains in Siberia, The Tsar holds him in prison, Sleep, lu-lu-lu, lu-lu. Rocking your cradle, your mother sheds tears. Later you will understand yourself what grieves her heart. Your father is in far Siberia, and I suffer in misery. Sleep while you’re still carefree, and lu-lu-lu, lu-lu-lu. My grief is darker than the night, sleep, but I’m not sleeping. Sleep, my beautiful, sleep, my son, sleep, lu-lu-lu, lu-lu-lu.
4) Before A Long Parting Soprano: Oy, Abram, how will I live without you? Me without you, you without me, how will we live apart?
Tenor: Do you remember when we were under the porch, what you told me in secret? Oy, oy, Rivochka, let me kiss your lips, my darling!
Soprano: Oy, Abram, how will we live now? Me without you, you without me, oy, such a door without latch.
Tenor: Do you remember when we were walking hand in hand, what you told me on the boulevard? Oy, oy, Rivochka, let me kiss your lips, my darling!
Soprano: Oy, Abram, how will we live now? Me without you, you without me, How will we live without happiness? Tenor: Oy, Rivochka, how will I live without you? Me without you, you without me, How will we live without happiness?
Soprano: Do you remember when I was wearing a red skirt? Oy, as I was beautiful then! Oy, Abram ,! Oy, Abram! Tenor: Oy, oy, Rivochka, let me kiss your lips, my darling!
5) A Warning Listen, Khasya, You must not go out, Do not adventure out, Don’t date anyone, Take care, take care!
If you go out, and if you walk until morning, oy, Then you will weep bitterly, Khasya! Hear! Khasya!
6) The Abandoned Father Mezzo-soprano: Heleh the old man put on his coat. His daughter ran off with a policeman.
Tenor: Tsirélé, girl! Come back to your father, I will give you a beautiful dress for your wedding. Tsirélé, girl! I will buy you earrings and rings for your fingers. Tsirélé, girl! And a fine young man, a young man I will give you also. Tsirélé, girl!
Mezzo-soprano: I do not need clothes, I do not need rings. I will marry my policeman. Mr. Policeman Please, hurry, hurry up and drive This old Jew away! Tenor: Tsirélé, girl! Come back to me! Tsirélé, girl! Come back to me! Oy, come back to me, come back to me. Tsirélé, girl!
7) The Song of Misery The roof sleeps sweetly in the attic under the straw. In the cradle sleeps a child without swaddling, all naked.
Hop, hop, higher, higher! A goat eats straw from the roof! Hop, hop, higher, higher! A goat eats straw from the roof, oy!
The cradle is in the attic, In it a spider weaves misfortune. It sucks away my happiness, Leaving me only misery.
Hop, hop, higher, higher! A goat eats straw from the roof! Hop, hop, higher, higher! A goat eats straw from the roof, oy!
A rooster is in the attic, With a bright red comb. Oy, wife, borrow for the children A piece of stale bread.
Hop, hop, higher, higher! A goat eats straw from the roof! Hop, hop, higher, higher! A goat eats straw from the roof, oy!
8) Winter My Sheyndl is lying on the bed, with a sick child. There is not a branch to warm the cottage, and the wind howls around the walls. Ah ...
The cold and the wind have returned, There is no strength to suffer in silence. Cry and weep, my children, winter has returned. Ah ...
9) A Good Life Of wide fields, dear friends, I did not sing songs long ago. Not for me did the fields bloom, Not for me did dew-drops flow down.
In a narrow cellar, in humid darkness, Lived I once, worn out by misery. And a sad song ascended from the cellar, Of grief, of my unparalleled suffering.
Kolkhoz river, flow joyfully, Quickly give my regards to my friends. Tell them that my home is now in the kolkhoz. A blossoming tree stands under my window.
Now the fields bloom for me, They feed me with milk and honey. I’m happy, and you tell my brothers: I’ll write songs to the kolkhoz fields.
10) The Young Girl's Song In a meadow near the forest, from dawn to dusk, we keep the kolkhoz herd. And I'm sitting there on a hill, with my little flute, and I can’t stop to watch enough the beauty of my country. Trees covered in bright foliage stand so gracefully and so delicately, in the fields wheat ripens full of goodness and delight. Oy, oy, Lyou-Lyou!
Now a branch smiles at me, and then a wink, and a feeling of great joy lights a spark in my heart. Then sings my little flute! Together we sing quietly! Mountains and valleys listen to our song full of joy. But do not cry, my flute! Forget the sorrows of the past, and let your tunes flow gracefully into the country. Oy, oy, Lyou-Lyou!
The kolkhoz makes me happy, do you hear? My life is so full! More cheerfully, more cheerfully, my flute, you must sing!
11) Happiness I boldly took my husband’s arm, So what if I’m old and my date is old, too! I took him with me to the theatre, And we bought two tickets to the pit.
Sitting there with my husband late into the night, Everyone succumbed to the happy thoughts About what wealth surrounds The Jewish shoemaker’s wife.
Oy, oy, oy, oy, what wealth surrounds The Jewish shoemaker’s wife. Oy!
And to the whole country will I tell About my happy and bright lot! Doctors, doctors, have become our sons – A star shines above our heads!
Oy, oy, oy, oy, a star shines, A star shines, A star shines above our heads! Doctors, doctors, Have become our sons! A star shines Above our heads. Oy!
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