From Jewish Folk Poetry
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From Jewish Folk Poetry (opus 79) is a song cycle for soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich. It uses texts taken from archives of Jewish folk music compiled and translated by Moshe Beregovsky and Y. M. Sokolov.
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" (Wilson p. 235).
Further reading
- Wilson, Elizabeth (1994). Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691044651.