Performers: Fyodor Kuznetsov (voice), Yuri Serov (piano)
0:00 Сыну (Sir Walter Raleigh to his Sonne)
4:04 В полях (Oh Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast)
6:44 Макферсон перед казнью (Macpherson's Farewell)
8:59 Дженни (Jenny)
10:36 Сонет № 66 (Sonnet 66)
13:29 Королевский поход (The King's Campaign)
Programme notes by James Leonard for AllMusic:
The Soviet Union's war-time alliance with England created many strange bed-fellows but perhaps none more unlikely than Shostakovich's setting of English poems but in Russian.
The Six Romances on Texts of W. Raleigh, R. Burns and W. Shakespeare for bass voice and piano, Op. 62, were composed in the autumn of 1942, that is, after Shostakovich and his family had been evacuated from the besieged city of Leningrad and moved to the safety of the distant city of Kuibyshev. Their evacuation had separated Shostakovich from many of his friends and, given the vicissitudes of war, Shostakovich was unsure where most of them were or even if they were still alive. Thus each of the six songs is dedicated to a different friend except for "In the Fields," which is dedicated to his beloved wife (see below for titles, poets and dedicatees).
Although composed during the same period as Shostakovich's epic Seventh Symphony, the songs share none of the symphony's heroic grandeur. The six songs are for the most part small-scale, inward settings of poems which expressed the composer's most personal feelings. The first song hangs heavy with the threat of death. The second song's rocking sings of Shostakovich's tender love for his wife. The third song is a morbid joke in the face of death. The fourth song is a sweet and innocent setting of Burns' most familiar verse, "Coming through the rye." Shakespeare's sonnet is given the most expansive and profound setting. And the brief final song is a pithy and tart setting of the children's song best known as "The Grand Old Duke of York."
Seemingly light, Shostakovich's Romances on English texts in fact allows him to express deeper feelings without betraying those feelings. Each of the texts is in its way concerned with death: death through hanging in the first song; death through exposure to the elements in the second; death through execution in the third; death deferred in the fourth song; death straight in the eye in the fifth song; and the death of armies in the last song. In their way, the Romances are as death-obsessed as anything Shostakovich ever wrote.
"To my Son" (Raleigh) dedicated to Levon Atovmyan, arranger
"In the Fields" (Burns) dedicated to Nina Shostakovich, Shostakovich's wife
"Macpherson before his Execution" (Burns) dedicated to Isaak Glikman, theater director
"Jenny" (Burns) dedicated to Yuriy Sviridov, composer
"Sonnet 66" (Shakespeare) dedicated to Ivan Sollertinsky, Shostakovich's best friend
"The Royal Campaign" (English folk text) dedicated to Vissarion Shebalin, composer
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