Nikolai Myaskovsky's Kremlin by Night Cantata-Nocturne (1947) will be performed for the first time in Yekaterinburg on March 9, 2021. The cantata was written to the poem by symbolist Sergei Vasiliev and published in the Literaturnaya Gazeta No. 19 (2334) (May 9, 1947). For the curious, we present it in full.
Sergei Vasiliev, Kremlin by Night
The rumble of the day is gone. The stone of the slabs is cooling.
Silence.
Moscow fell asleep.
Only the Kremlin is awake.
All adorned with lights
Arrow-shaped fortress.
Nineteen formidable towers
are guarding the time.
Along the stone crenellation
As a light draft
runs without looking back
the barefoot wind.
That on the top of the tower
the weather vane moves,
it will go down to the Tsar Cannon,
count the kernels.
Then it’d start a dashing motive
Tuning to new songs,
then it’d stand on tiptoe
and accidentally peek
into the depths of the chambers.
And the Kremlin chambers
are concealing miracles.
Wizard Apparatuses
stand on the tables.
Through amazing wiring
along the straight paths
Chukotka is talking to the Kremlin
The Crimea answers.
For the vigorous polemics
at night to the palace
the old academician is summoned,
a marshal and a blacksmith.
People of plan and dexterity
came to the report.
Connoisseurs of casting and forging,
masters of the earth.
They brought the details with them
pictures, drawings,
black ingots of steel,
ripe rye grains.
Decrees are approved,
figures for urgent estimates.
To the two great powers at once
the answer is written.
The urgent work
drives the slumber away.
And all the time await for someone
the Borovitsky gate,
pushing the night apart.
The heat of the night work is long ...
Finally, dozing
the milky canopy of the stellar Kremlin
is fading away.
They go out quietly one after another
The chandeliers of all chambers.
And the cars fly in a tandem
up the hill, to the Arbat!
... The eye of the entry sign fades.
The Kremlin fell silent again.
But, having listened, however,
one can hear:
someone, somewhere very sullen
rang out in the night.
That’s the history-old woman
Is taking out the keys.
She immediately takes out the bundle
Of the big forged keys
and walks with a bundle of those
past the sentries.
Opens quietly the doors
with a secret lock.
For her every exit here,
And every entrance is familiar.
Past the colorful patterns
under a faceted vault,
straight to Stalin’s office
she is coming.
She appears at the doorstep
And pronounces aloud:
- Why don’t you have a little rest,
Get out from the desk.
How much can this go on, really,
People have been sleeping for a long time! ..
And the dawn is just barely
whitewashed the window.
The night millet of the late stars
the wind blew from the sky.
The first swift swept obliquely
Cutting sharp the dreams.
Over the Moskva River
everything has become already visible,
and the fog unsaddled
its weary horses.
