The song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry for soloists and piano, Op. 79, by Soviet composer Dmitry Shostakovich is one of the central works of his compositional career. While the cycle has not attained the international celebrity of his superbly crafted and tragically ironic Symphony No. 1, or his artist-as-political-martyr heroism of the Symphony No. 5, or his "is-he-or-isn't-he a dissident" ambiguity of the String Quartet No. 8, From Jewish Folk Poetry is a deep and heartrending work. He wrote From Jewish Folk Poetry in 1948, 20 years after his first condemnation by the Communist government and only a few months after having been condemned a second time. In 1948, Shostakovich not only knew the horrors of Stalin, but the horrors of Nazism: He knew of the Holocaust's Final Solution for European Jewry and he knew that Stalin had conceived a similar Final Solution for Russia's Jews. Thus, Shostakovich's identification with the suffering of the Jews was total, and this song cycle is the product of his identification. The 11 songs of From Jewish Folk Poetry are set for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and piano (Shostakovich later composed a version of the work for chamber orchestra). The songs are impossibly tragic—"The Lament for a Dead Baby"—tremendously sad—"Before a Long Parting"—horribly ironic—"The Abandoned Father"—hideously sarcastic—"The Song of Misery"—and, finally, grotesquely ironic—"The Good Life." Set in the Jewish folk idiom that Shostakovich had first made use of in his Piano Trio No. 2 (1944), the songs' tunes are immediately memorable, their rhythms infectious, and the harmonies both sweet and sour. Needless to say, From Jewish Folk Poetry was not performed in public during Stalin's lifetime, but only in private for close friends of the composer. The first public performance took place on January 15, 1955.

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