'English lessons' (Уроки английского) for voice and string quartet

The Nobel prize-winning Russian author Boris Pasternak published his poem "English lessons" (Uroki anglijskogo) in My sister, life (Sestra moya — zhizn`). Published in 1922 but inseparably connected with the tumultous revolutionary events of 1917, this first collection of Pasternak’s was his literary breakthrough. "English lessons" demonstrates both the musicality of his verse (in his early years, Pasternak had been a budding composer of considerable talent) and his affinity for Shakespeare, whom he would later go on to translate to great critical acclaim. In the present setting for voice and string quartet, the characters of Desdemona and Ophelia are combined in the principal theme heard in the instrumental introduction - a composite of the falling third of the Italian word ‘Salce' of Desdemona's famous "Willow Song" prior to her murder in Act IV of Verdi's Otello with a reference to a haunting recurrent motif taken from La Mort d'Ophélie by Hector Berlioz.

The first performance of English lessons was given on March 20, 2025 by the bass-baritone Bertrand Grunenwald and the Quatuor Lontano at the Paris home of the late Jacqueline de Proyart (1927-2019), who was personally entrusted by Boris Pasternak with a typescript of his novel Doctor Zhivago and translated it into French. In attendance at the concert was the author's great grand-daughter Assia Pasternak.