Six Romances on Verses by Raleigh, Burns and Shakespeare

Walter Raleigh, Robert Burns, William Shakespeare translated by Boris Pasternak and Samuil Marschak (R)

1 The Wood, the Weed, the Wag (Raleigh)
2 O, Wert thou in the Cauld Blast (Burns)
3 Macpherson before his Execution (Burns)
4 Jenny (Burns)
5 Sonnet 66 (Shakespeare)
6 The Grand Old Duke of York


Shostakovich twice orchestrated his 1942 cycle, a powerful sequence of settings of English and Scottish poetry by Walter Raleigh, Robert Burns, and Shakespeare, and ending with a popular nursery rhyme. The first orchestration, op.62a for full orchestra, dates from 1943. This second one, which he numbered separately as op.140,  is for chamber orchestra, and deliberately more spare and bleak than the first version. The new orchestration emphasises even more the sharp sarcasm and despair of these songs, while at the same time making them more intimate.


Note by Gerard McBurney