Songs and dances of death

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Songs and Dances of Death is a song cycle for voice and piano by Modest Mussorgsky .

The first three songs of the cycle were written in 1875. The fourth song, “Der Feldherr”, was added in 1877. The title “The Songs and Dances of Death” did not appear until after Mussorgsky's death in 1882 in a posthumous publication. Mussorgsky himself speaks, in a letter to Dmitri Stasov , of his "dance of death songs". His attempt to publish the songs in 1877 failed. Originally, the composition of further songs was planned. The text comes from Arseni Golenishchev-Kutuzov (1848–1913), a poet with whom Musorgsky was friends for a while.

In 1962 Dmitri Shostakovich orchestrated the songs for bass and orchestra, and they were first performed in this version on November 12, 1962 in Gorky . In 1984 Kalevi Aho also orchestrated the songs.

The songs in detail

Lullaby (Колыбельная)

A child is dying. While his mother watches over him, death knocks at the door . The mother desperately defends herself against death, but she does not succeed. Death sings its deadly lullaby.

Serenade (Серенада)

On a wonderful spring night a sick woman lies in a room with a high fever and cannot sleep. She listens to the murmur and rustling of the trees. Death steps in front of her window and serenades her in which he pretends to be a knight who wants to free her from life and possess her for himself. Death then withdraws.

Trepak (Трепак)

A drunken peasant wanders through a desolate, empty landscape; death accompanies him and dances with him a little Russian dance, the trepak . He calls the snowstorm and the snow clouds over to give the farmer a resting place. At the end he sings him a lullaby, promises him a good night's sleep and paints him a deceptive picture of summer.

The general (Полководец)

It's war. The battle lasts all day without ending. Only when the night falls does it become quiet. Then death appears. He comes ridden up on a tall, pale steed and moves around the corpses. At the end he, the true general and hero, sings about the dead who have become his prey as corpses.

See also

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