The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #95032   Message #1844466
Posted By: Charlie Baum
27-Sep-06 - 05:21 PM
Thread Name: BS: Babi Yar
Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar
Shostakovich set Yevtushenko's poem to music. His Symphony #13 is basically a cantata of five Yevtushenko poems.

I had a chance to perform Shostakovich's Symphony #13 with the Yale Russian Chorus and the New Haven Symphony in 1981, and when the Yale Russian Chorus went to the Soviet Union in June 1982, I brought a copy of the vocal score with me. Our tour included a trip to Kiev, adn while there, a group of us sang an a cappella version of the first movement (the "Babi Yar" poem) at the Babi Yar monument that then existed (though not at the accurately historical site, nor did it mention Jews). The design of that monument was about, of, for, and against anti-semitism, all simultaneously.

--Charlie Baum