The Ukranian Christian poet Irina Ratushinskaya was arrested on 17 September 1982 and charged with 'anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda'. On 3 March 1983, one day before her 29th birthday, she was sentenced to seven years' hard labour and five years' internal exile.
Most of the poems I have chosen were written during her time in prison, and smuggled out on tiny scraps of paper. She was released on 9 October 1986, on the eve of the Reykjavik Summit, and left the Soviet Union for the West in December 1986.
I have chosen six poems and alternated them with five instrumental 'interludes'. The opening nocturne-like music reoccurs throughout in varied forms, returning in its original version at the end as the background for the last poem.
In the score I have called the poems 'songs', as, although not sung, they are accompanied very much in the manner of songs. The fifth 'song' was suggested to me by Irina's description of a bizarre meeting with a man from the neighbouring criminal zone, who asked for copies of her poems as he had a friend who played the guitar.
This is a Western response to Irina's poems, and although there are some slight references to Ukranian folk and church music, the language is my own.
Sally Beamish
Premiere details
The work was comissioned by Mark Stephenson for the London Musici with funds provided by Greater London Arts, and first performed in St John's Smith Square, London, on January 12th 1989 by the London Musici; with Hilary Tones (narrator) and John Anderson (oboe), conducted by Mark Stephenson.