"Victorious Spring". Music for a theatrical programme.

Two Songs

on Verses by Mikhail Svetlov

Op. 72

Two Songs on Verses by Mikhail Svetlov—‘Lullaby’ and ‘Song of the Lantern’—were written in 1945.

The music was intended for the theatre production Victorious Spring of the NKVD Song and Dance Ensemble at the Dzerzhinsky Central Club.

The premiere of the performance with Shostakovich’s music, Victorious Spring, which included the two songs on verses by Mikhail Svetlov, was held on 8 May 1946 at the Moscow Dzerzhinsky Central Club. S.I. Yutkevich, who was chief director of the NKVD Ensemble in 1939-1946, staged the production.

In the premiere performance, Shostakovich’s two songs were performed by soloists (soprano and tenor), female choir (wordless) and orchestra. Later both items, arranged by the author for solo voice and piano, comprised Op. 72, Two Songs on Verses by Mikhail Svetlov.

The whereabouts of the handwritten piano scores of both songs and the author’s manuscript of the score of ‘Lullaby’ are unknown. The score of ‘Song of the Lantern’ is kept in Karen Khachaturian’s personal archive.

The first editions of the two songs on Svetlov’s verses were issued using the collotype technique in 1946 and in the form of a piano score (Muzfond). The following year, the Union of Composers issued the score of the songs for solo voice and choir accompanied by piano (Moscow, 1947).

There are several recordings of the songs, Op. 72. The ‘Song of the Lantern’ was more popular; it existed as an independent stage miniature and was recorded several times. The first recording was done in 1946 by Vladimir Bunchikov and the Variety Orchestra of All-Union Radio under the baton of Viktor Knushevitsky.