In his 22-minute song cycle Black Sun, Alexander Raskatov sets seven poems by Ossip Mandelstam – haunting miniatures full of existential fear, metaphysical darkness and fleeting hope. Raskatov dedicated the work to Irina Shostakovich, the widow of Dmitri Shostakovich, with whom he had a long-standing personal friendship: „How often did she recite poems to me on the telephone, including those by Mandelstam, by heart?"

The chosen texts range through extreme emotional registers: from the nightmarish Pomogi, gospo to the grotesquely distorted Scherzo Ni gomori nikomu to the almost mystical enlightenment in O, kak zhe ja hochu. The finale, Zhil Alexander Herzovich, is a simple song line – and at the same time a hasidic dance in which everything seems to disappear.

Raskatov's musical realisation demands the utmost virtuosity, vocal flexibility and breadth of expression from the dramatic soprano voice. The piano part also oscillates between motoric energy and fine-nerved transparency - a duo of radical intensity.

The premiere took place on June 29, 2024 as part of the Internationale Schostakowitsch Tage Gohrisch: with Elena Vassilieva (soprano) and Nathalia Milstein (piano).

I. Помоги, Господь / Pomogi, Gospod’
full of nightmare

II. Не говори никому / Ni govori nikomu
a sort of ‘trembling’ scherzo

III. Твоим узким плечам / Tvoim uzkim plecham
the poet compares himself with a black candle

IV. О небо, небо / O nebo, nebo
full of metaphysical melancholy

V. Кама / Kama
the poet describes how he was transferred by a boat to the prison in the town called Cherdyn. I feel a real horror through the prism of Russian folklore.

VI. О, как же я хочу / O, kak zhe ja hochu
a sudden light. Desire of the poet who flies after a ray to disappear in light, and not to be seen by anybody.

VII. Жил Александр Герцович / Zhil Alexander Gerzovich
Finally all vanishes into a simple song, at the same time a kind of a Hasidic dance.