Songs of Dances and Death is a song cycle for voice (usually bass or bass-baritone) and piano by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in the mid-1870s, to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer. Each song deals with death in a poetic manner although the depictions are realistic in that they reflect experiences not uncommon in 19th century Russia: child death, death in youth, drunken misadventure and war. The song cycle is considered Mussorgsky's masterpiece in the genre.
"Trepak" deals with the death of a drunken peasant.
"Forests and fields, and the coud-rack sweeping, Darkness and storm and the pale drifts heaping, Snow-flakes lightly hovering weaves a spotless covering, Fit for a stainless childhood, round this poor clod sleeping...Rest, rest, poor friend, slumber, happy fellow, Dream that the summer is bright, the harvest yellow! The sun shines, the sickles swing, Hear the skylark singing."
"What is thy portion by work and sorrow? Rest here, poor peasant, until tomorrow. See, a coverlet so white and warm I've found you; Rest and watch the dancing snow-flakes whirl around you. Soft as the swan's down, the bed where you lie! Hey! Sing good-night, fierce gale, as you fly. Sing, wild wind, his hush-song, through the long dark night, Let the weary worker sleep till morning light. "
"Now he invited him to dance the Trepak; Sings him a song fair and pleasant; "Ho, my poor worker so bent and grey, Drunken with vodka, and wandering astray; By the snow-fiend blinded, led by fitful shadows, Through the pathless forest, over the trackless meadows".
"Still is the forest, no soul is in sight...Winds are lamenting and howling...Far away yonder where dark falls the night Something uncanny is prowling. See! Over there! where the shades gather black Death has waylaid some poor peasant."
Boris Christoff (May 18, 1914, Plovdiv, Bulgaria – June 28, 1993, Rome, Italy) was a Bulgarian opera singer, one of the greatest basses of the 20th century
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