Satires: Five romances

Sascha Tschorny (R)

Sascha Tschorny's unsparing, sharp-witted and grotesque satires, including a series of political poems, were very popular with the population and gave the censors cause to intervene on more than one occasion. In 1905, for example, the publication of Tschorny's poems in the magazine ‘Zuschauer’ was banned. These reprisals, however, encouraged Chorny to resist and spurred him on to take action against philistinism and mindlessness with poetic exposures. It was understandable that Dmitri Shostakovich, who himself had suffered reprisals, particularly at the hands of the Stalin regime, should develop a close relationship with a poet like Sasha Chorny. He deliberately lent the sharp-tongued satire ‘To the Critic’ a theatrical flavour and used his rich repertoire of grotesque musical means. The premiere of ‘Bilder der Vergangenheit’ took place on 22 February 1961. In 1983, the singer Irina Bogatschowa asked the composer Boris Tischtschenko for an orchestration. (Helmut Peters)