From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79

Dmitri Shostakovich was not Jewish, but was raised by politically liberal parents who took care that no seeds of anti-Semitism were planted in his upbringing. Born in 1906, he would grow up during the flowering of the Society of Jewish Folk Music. In his memoirs he wrote: “Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it; it is 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….”

After Stalin had launched his terrible campaign against Jewish intellectuals and artists, Shostakovich incorporated Jewish themes into his music at considerable risk to his standing and even his personal safety. Besides the cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, his Piano Trio No. 2 (banned after its premiere performance), his Symphony No. 13 (inspired by Yevtushenko’s poem Babi Yar about the Nazi massacre of Kiev’s Jews), and his Second Cello Concerto, are full of Jewish folk melodies.

From Jewish Folk Poetry is one of Shostakovich’s most beautiful and intimately evocative song cycles. He was inspired by the Russian translation of a collection of Jewish Folk Songs compiled by Yekhezkel Dobrushin. The first eight songs, completed in August 1948 and performed at a private birthday celebration at the composer’s home that September, have been described as “tragic,” reflecting the pain and suffering of the pre-Revolutionary past. They employ Jewish folk melodies, and contain elements of folklore and folk expressions. Political controls tightened soon after, and this might help explain why the work’s final three songs emphasize the good Soviet life and employ a musical language closer to official workers’ song than to art song. From Jewish Folk Poetry received its premiere in 1955, postponed largely because of Stalin’s disfavor for Shostakovich and Soviet anti-Semitism in general.