John Klier 2009
Thursday 11th June
An evening of Russian music and poetry
with
Robert Service
Polina Shepherd – voice and piano
Merlin Shepherd – clarinet
Elena Katz – readings
Helen Beer
John Klier
(1944 – 2007)
John Klier taught in the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department at UCL from
1989 until his sudden and untimely death in September 2007. He was one of the
most innovative and influential historians of East European Jewry and enjoyed an
extraordinary degree of respect and affection among his colleagues the world
over. Deeply committed to his department and the college more generally, he
was well known to many colleagues right across UCL. Not least, he was a loyal
supporter of the ASCR and served for many years on its committee. In the light
of John's keen interest in various forms of music, the committee has decided to
commemorate John's contribution, and his life and achievements more generally,
with an annual music event.
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Programme
We should be grateful if you would save your applause until the end of each part.
Part I
Robert Service
Introduction
Merlin Shepherd
Russian folk music
Polina Shepherd
Merlin Shepherd
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, ‘Uzh vecher…’, from The Queen of Spades,
Polina Shepherd
Mikahil Ivanovich Glinka, ‘Romance: Ya pomnu chudnoe Mgnovenye’
Nature at evening: the sun’s last rays shine, leaves tremble in
the night …
The wondrous moment of our meeting...
I well remember you appearing
Before me like a fleeting vision,
Beauty's angel pure and clear.
In hopeless ennui surrounding
The worldly bustle, to my ear
For long your tender voice kept sounding,
For long in dreams came features dear.
Time passed. Unruly storms confounded
Old dreams, and I from year to year
Forgot how tender you had sounded,
Your heavenly features once so dear.
My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet Dull fence around, dark vault above Devoid of God and uninspired,
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love.
Sleep from my soul began retreating,
And here you once again appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty's angel pure and clear.
In ecstasy the heart is beating,
Old joys for it anew revive;
Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting
The fire, and tears, and love alive.
Alexander Pushkin
translated by Genia Gurarie
Elena Katz
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov - Two poems
‘Two Giants’
‘No. 46: Meditation’
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Polina Shepherd
Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky, ‘Mne grustno’ – ‘I am sad…’
I am disconsolate, because I love you so,
Because the wicked world, unscrupulous and low,
Will crush your bloom, inflicting pain and torment.
You'll pay with misery for every tender moment,
For every happy day, for every joy on earth;
I am disconsolate.... because I see your mirth.
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
translated by Anatoly Liberman
Polina Shepherd Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, ‘V krovi gorit ogon’ zhelanya’
– 'In my blood the fire of desire is burning'
In my blood the fire of desire is burning
my soul is completely taken by you
Your caresses are sweeter than wine and myrrh.
Lean your head on me and I will fall asleep untroubled
until the happy day has passed
And the shadow of the night arrives
Alexander Pushkin
translated by Polina Shepherd

5-minute break

Part II
Merlin Shepherd
Doina
Elena Katz
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, ‘Babi Yar’
Merlin Shepherd
Polina Shepherd
Folk music
‘Lapti’
Refrain
Sandals and sandals, sandals mine
Oh sandals, sandals and sandals mine
Oh sandals of mine, bast sandals of lime
Don't be scared, off you go,
Dad will weave you some new!
Oh, now! Pfui!
It was in the village of Olkhovka
There lived a lad, Andreyashka
He fell in love with Parashka
He kept bringing her expensive gifts
Gingerbread and bagels
But Papa forbade him to marry...
Oh, then our Andreyashka burst into tears
And Parashka started sobbing too
translated by Charles Prescott
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‘Oy so vechora …’ – ‘Since evening and beyond midnight!’
Since evening and beyond midnight
Since evening and beyond midnight
My poor head is hurting me badly
My poor head is hurting me badly
Head to toe all this time, I’ve been aching
Head to toe all this time, I’ve been aching
To be free is what I long for
To be free is what I long for
Taking a walk, yes that’s all I wish for
Taking a walk, yes that’s all I wish for
Through the green hills I love so dearly
Through the green hills I love so dearly
From a maple I"ll cut some branches
From a maple I"ll cut some branches
Yes cut branches, sweet a-cutting
Yes cut branches, sweet a-cutting
From these branches, a harp I will make, yes
From these branches, a harp I will make, yes
I will make, oh sweet a-making
I will make, oh sweet a-making
I’ll play my harp with bow on strings, yes
I’ll play my harp with bow on strings, yes
Bow on strings, oh sweet a-bowing, oooooooh!
Bow on strings, oh sweet a-bowing, oooooooh!
translated by Talushka Thompson
‘Steppe’
O broad steppe,
Steppe unbounded,
Widely, mother, have you embraced.
Oh, the eagle of the steppe
Does not rise.
Oh, then the Don Cossack will be on the loose.
Oh, do not fly, eagle,
Low to the ground.
Oh, do not wander, cossack, close to the bank.
translated by Charles Prescott
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Biographical notes
ROBERT SERVICE
Robert Service is Professor of Russian History at Oxford. Following degrees in Russian
and classical Greek and politics he opted for historical research. He went on an exchange
scholarship to Leningrad before appointments at Keele University and the London School
of Slavonic and East European Studies.
His books and articles, dealing principally with twentieth-century Russian history,
cover social and cultural as well as political aspects. He has always connected this work
with the analysis of contemporary Russia. He broadcasts and writes for the press more
than is good for his sanity. He is a frequent visitor to Russia and a survivor of its hotels
and institutional planning. He likes hill-walking, singing and strumming. His latest book
is a world history of communism, which took him out of purely Russian affairs. He is
curently engaged on a biographical study of Leon Trotsky.
Main publications: The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organisational
Change (1979), Lenin: A Political Life (in three volumes: 1986, 1991 and 1995), The
Russian Revolution, 1900-1927 (1986; third, revised edition, 1999), A History of
Twentieth Century Russia (1997; second, expanded edition appears as A History of
Modern Russia, 2001), Lenin: A Biography (2000), Russia: Experiment with a People,
From 1991 to the Present (2002), Stalin: A Biography (2004) and Comrades.
Communism: A World History (2007).
POLINA SHEPHERD
Polina Shepherd (www.polinashepherd.co.uk) grew up in a home where songs were
frequently sung at table after eating borsht and drinking homemade wine. Her
grandfather, a veteran of World War II, played the bayan (button) accordion and her
mother, a professional singer, would often sing for hours while Polina listened with the
hungry ears of a child, learning deeply rooted traditions throughout her childhood years.
As she grew up and learned the repertoire and trade, she was chosen by her mother to
be her accompanist, often taking overnight trains to far reaches of the Steppes, to play to
dark theatres with wildly responsive audiences.
Polina’s Russian Song repertoire covers Russian romances from the nineteenth
century – Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Alabyev – to folk: lyric and epic songs, ritual calendar
songs for pagan holidays, exorcism and sibylline song, circle dances, wedding songs,
weeping songs, all with correct attention to history and style. Her training at Kazan State
Conservatory gave her an academic perspective and the skills to arrange Russian folk
song for classical choir (SATB). She has sung her arrangements of Russian folk songs all
over the Former Soviet Union, Europe and the Americas. She also works as a Russian
singer with remix artist Max Pashm and is constantly looking for new ways to present her
deeply rooted traditional music.
Polina is a highly experienced song workshop leader. She has taught for
Glyndebourne Education and the Natural Voice Practitioners Network in the UK and
internationally, at seminars in London, St Petersburg, Paris, Kiev, Kazan and many other
European cities. She regularly teaches in Brighton and is an Artist representative for the
Brighton Sacred Music Festival. She has led the Brighton & Hove Russian Choir since
2008.
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MERLIN SHEPHERD
Merlin Shepherd (www.merlinshepherd.co.uk) is an internationally acclaimed performer,
composer and educator, whose special method of teaching Jewish instrumentalists by ear
has influenced teachers throughout the world. He has been Musical Director for The
Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre,
London. He was also Klezmer Advisor for the Royal Shakespeare Company for their 1992
production of Anski’s The Dybbuk.
One of the world’s leading players of traditional East European Klezmer Clarinet
style, he works as Music Co-ordinator for KlezKamp, KlezFest London and taught at
KlezFest St Petersburg, KlezFest Ukraine and KlezKanada. Apart from his own ensembles
– Merlin Shepherd Klezmer Trio, Merlin Shepherd Kapelye and Merlin Shepherd Quartet –
he has worked and toured throughout Britain and Europe with Budowitz, Frank London's
Klezmer Brass Allstars and the Burning Bush, and he performed the world première of
‘Kol Simcha’ by Adam Gorb for London Musici. He has composed scores for numerous
dance and theatre companies.
Merlin also works with Polina Shepherd as The Sound & Light Cinematic Duo,
playing to the Yuri Morozov Archive of B&W silent Jewish films made in Kiev from 19081945. He is currently working on a new remix CD of his latest compositions, featuring
Smadj, Mercan Dede, Dj ClicK, DJ Shazam and many other world leading remixers.
ELENA KATZ
Elena Katz obtained her first degree in history from the Moldavian State University in
Kishinev. She embarked on postgraduate Jewish studies at Oxford, then received her
Masters with distinction in Modern Jewish studies at Leeds, followed by her PhD at
Southampton. She was awarded an Academic Jewish Studies in Europe Fellowship at
UCL where she, as a Hanadiv Research Fellow, worked with John Klier who was her
research project director. They together designed and taught a course on
representations of the Jews in Eastern European literature. Elena was the Max Hayward
Fellow in Russian Literature at St Antony's Oxford. She is the author of Neither with
Them, Nor without Them. The Russian Writer and the Jew in the Age of Realism (2008).
Elena’s research focuses on the perceptions of the ethnic, social, national and
cultural 'other' in Russian literature and culture. She is also interested in issues of
Russian identity, examining how Russians assess 'what it is to be Russian' while
answering 'what is it to be the other'. Her current research on the women in Russian
penitentiary system is conducted within the ESRC-funded project 'Space and Gender in
Russia's Geography of Punishment'. This collaborative project is run by Oxford,
Birmingham and Strathclyde universities, and the Academy of Law and Penal
Management in the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Elena is also Tutor in
the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education and Senior Member of St
Antony's College.
HELEN BEER
Helen Beer, a native Yiddish speaker, was born in Melbourne, Australia. She is Lecturer
in Yiddish at UCL and Departmental Tutor. She teaches and lectures extensively in
Britain and Europe and has participated in numerous Yiddish summer programmes in
Oxford, Brussels, Paris. Her main research interests are modern Yiddish literature and
Yiddish folklore, Yiddish literature in Poland between the wars, and Romanian Yiddish
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literature. She has published various articles about Yiddish literature, and also works as
a translator from Yiddish to English and from English to Yiddish.
She is active in Yiddish theatre and music projects. In 2002 she produced a major
Yiddish theatre piece at the Bloomsbury Theatre (the first to be seen in London for about
50 years) of Aron Tzeitlin’s Jacob Jacobson, a staff–student production, which John Klier,
as Head of Department at the time, supported unreservedly. She has also produced a
CD of Yiddish ballads with Israeli jazz musicians The Livnat Brothers.
In 2007 she was one of the first recipients of the Provost’s Teach Awards at UCL.
For the last decade Helen Beer has produced an annual staff–student Yiddish Purim Shpil
within the department (based on the Biblical story of Esther). John always played the
part of the King who ruled over 127 lands stretching from India to Ethiopia. Since John’s
death, Helen cannot countenance casting anyone else in his role and for the last two
years she has written her own Purim Shpils in rhymed verse. In both of these texts the
King is absent, spoken of while inspecting his many lands…
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