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 the collection Jewish folk songs, compiled by I. Dobrushin and A. Yuditsky, edited by Y. M. Sokolov (Goslitizdat, 1947).
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".
Read more about From Jewish Folk Poetry: Structure
Famous quotes containing the words jewish, folk and/or poetry:
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)
“If there’s no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)