Cherry Orchard music

[Robert A. Rothstein]

Alexander Brookes wrote:

> The song is called "Sprjatalsja mesjac za tuchku".  According to one 
> web page, the music is by an E. Peterburgskij.

       The second stanza of this song does include lines similar to 
those sung by Epikhodov (Chto nam do shumnogo sveta,/Chto nam druz'ia i 
vragi;/Bylo by serdtse sogreto/Zharom vzaimnoi liubvi.). He sings "Chto 
mne do shumnogo sveta..." But the text is by an unknown author; E. 
Petersburgskij = Jerzy Petersburski, the Polish-Jewish composer of 
popular songs. His "Tango Milonga," for example, with words by Andrzej 
Wlast, was a runaway success in Poland in 1929. With new German words by 
Fritz Löhner-Beda and a new title, "Oh, Donna Clara," it became an 
international hit, the only Polish popular song to achieve that 
distinction. Irving Caesar provided an English text, and Al Jolson 
introduced it on Broadway in 1931 in _The Wonder Bar_. In the Soviet 
Union, where he spent the war years, Petersburski was best known for 
writing the music to "Sinii platochek." Another of his Polish hits, "To 
ostatnia niedziela," was transformed into "Utomlennoe solntse," the song 
played by the brass band at the beginning of the film _Utomlennoe solntsem_.
       "Spriatalsia mesiac" was published in various versions in the 
1880s and 1890s, including one with the lines "Kogda zh ia uvizhu 
mogilu,/V kotoroi ty budesh' lezhat',/Ia stanu pred nei na koleni/I budu 
mogilu lobzat'."  It was one of the romances alluded to by Mayakovsky in 
his screenplay "Pozabud' pro kamin." When the steel worker kisses the 
hand of the barber's daughter, he says "Pozvol'te mne beluiu ruchku/k 
krasnomu serdtsu pirzhat'!" (In the original: "Daite zhe mne vashu 
ruchku/K pylkomu serdtsu prizhat'.")  A parody recorded by the 
folklorist Iakov Gudoshnikov in 1945 contained the lines "Pozvol'te mne 
pravuiu ruchku/K levomu serdtsu prizhat'."

Bob Rothstein

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