Poem of struggle
Das Poem des Kampfes op.12 is a work for orchestra and choir by Dmitri Borissowitsch Kabalewski from 1931.
plant
The Poem of Struggle was written in 1930/31, shortly after Kabalewski finished his studies with Nikolai Yakovlevich Mjaskowski at the Moscow Conservatory . The work is an early composition and one of the first major that Kabalewski wrote. In it he processed revolutionary topics, the text is based on the poem of the same name by A. Zharow. The work premiered on November 6, 1931 and was broadcast on the radio at the same time. The piece has a performance length of approx. 9 minutes. At the beginning fanfares and marching rhythms appear , at the end the choir kicks in.
text
The text of the choir reads:
- It doesn't matter: twenty-five or ten;
- whether thunderstorms rage in October or May;
- it doesn't matter: soon we will
- make October every month!
- Today the storm is raging
- in the autumnal circle of the aspen forests,
- to excited and angry Berlin.
- Today there is gunfire in Dresden
- crashing off rusty roofs, and tomorrow
- let's storm to Paris and Warsaw.
- We're sailing from London to New York
- under the banner of storms!
- But this circle will soon be too small
- and we will turn to the Far East!
- We know: every month will be soon
- in another country it will be October!
source
- Anastasia Belina (2008): CD supplement Naxos 8.557794 (Kabalevsky: Poem of Struggle (inter alia), D. Yablonski (cond.), Gnesin Academy Chorus, Russian Philh. Orch.).