Russian Melodies Emil Decameron and his Orchestra

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00:00 Russian Sher • 03:10 Do Not Go, Gregory • 06:25 Red Sarafan • 10:30 Fireflies • 13:18 Where Is The Village? • 16:55 Meadowland • 20:24 The Village Peddler • 23:19 The Birch Tree • 26:24 From Border To Border • 29:14 Bright Shines The Moon • 31:45 Dark Eyes • 34:52 Moscow My Moscow • 37:00 The Volga Boat Song • 40:41 Stenka Razin • 43:52 Tachanka • The melodies brought together on this record and given glowing orchestral color come from one of the world’s most widely known and popular bodies of folk music, that of Russia. Some of the songs derive from ancient times and others from more recent periods like the eighteenth century when, on the great estates, many of them in desolate regions far from the cities with their glittering social life, the main entertainment of the aristocracy was provided by the songs and folk dramas of serfs and peasants. The great age of discovery of this music was the nineteenth century. Many folk songs like The Red Sarafan were popularized in symphonic dress by composers like Tchaikowsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Others, like Dark Eyes, came to be widely known throughout Europe in performance by Gypsy bands. Still others, such as the Volga Boat Song, were featured on the programs of great opera and concert singers like Chaliapin. And the songs on this program include some that carry the lusty strains of the old folk and popular tradition into modern times, like Meadowland and From Border to Border. • To convey the atmosphere of these songs, there is no better way than to quote one of the great writers who brought into literature the same sympathetic discovery of peasant speech and ways of life that lay behind the awakening in music to the national qualities of folk song. Such a writer was Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852). In 1831 an anonymous book appeared, subtitled “Tales of a Bee-Keeper,” in which Gogol pretended for the most part to be a peasant who had acquired literacy. Following are some excerpts: • “At the time of the year when you see no cranes in the sky nor pears on the trees there is sure to be a light burning somewhere at the end of the hamlet as soon as evening comes on; you can hear in the distance laughter and singing, a balalaika playing and at times a fiddle, talk and noise. Those are our evening parties! They are like a ball, although not altogether so, I must say. If you go to a ball, it is to prance about or yawn with your hand over your mouth; while with us the girls gather to gether in one cottage, not for a ball, but with their distaffs and carding-combs. And you may say they do work at first: the distaffs hum, there is a constant flow of song, and no one looks up from her work; but as soon as the lads burst into the cottage with the fiddler, there is noise and bustle, the fun begins, they break into a dance, and I could not tell you all the pranks that are played. But best of all is when they crowd together and start to guess riddles or simply talk. Heavens what stories they tell!” • In will come a blind musician. “A crowd had gathered round an old bandura player and had been listening for hours to the blind man’s playing. No bandura player sang so well and such marvellous songs. First he sang of the rule of the Hetmans in the old days. Times were different then, the Cossacks were at the height of their glory, they trampled their foes underfoot and no one dared mock at them. The old man sang merry songs too, and looked about the crowd as though his eyes could see, and his fingers with little plates of bone fixed on them danced like flies over the strings, and it seemed that the strings themselves were playing; and the crowd, the old people looking down and the young staring at the singer, dared not even whisper among themselves. ‘Stay,’ said the old man, ‘I will sing to you of what happened long ago.’ The people pressed closer and the blind man sang.”

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