Song Of The Forests
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his oratorio The Song of the Forests, Op. 81, in the summer of 1949. It was written to celebrate the forestation of the Russian steppes following the end of World War II. Premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 15 December 1949, the work was well received by the government, earning the composer a Stalin Prize the following year.
The oratorio is notorious for lines praising Joseph Stalin as the "great gardener", although its later performances have normally omitted them.
Read more about Song Of The Forests: Structure, Instrumentation, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words song of, song and/or forests:
“With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger and dirt
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt.””
—Thomas Hood (1799–1845)
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 2:10-13.
“There are enough fagots and waste wood of all kinds in the forests of most of our towns to support many fires, but which at present warm none, and, some think, hinder the growth of the young wood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)