Ballad of the Salon (1968)
Aleksandr Galich. Performed by the author
Description: In memory of Aleksandr Nikolaevich Vertinskii. Nostalgia for the Petersburg culture buried by the the Revolution grew strong in the 1970s. The Silver Age poets Blok, Akhmatova, Mandelshtam and Tsvetaeva were returned to the Russian poetic pantheon; for the bard movement, of which Galich was a leading member, revived the memory of Aleksandr Vertinskii. To them, he was not a cafe singer, but a poet and the first of the bards. Here Galich mixes themes from his famed songs (‘Grey-Eyed King’, ‘Brazilian Cruiser’, ‘The Lilac Negro’, ‘Pani (Madam) Irena’, ‘The Farewell Dinner’) with Greek themes reminiscent of Mandelshtam, to lament the great culture lost, and to establish Vertinskii as the progenitor of the bards.
The Train (1966)
Aleksandr Galich. Performed by the author
Description: In memory of Solomon Mikhoels