The text to “The Goldfish’s Song” appears initially in Mikhail Lermontov’s poem Mtsyri, which translates from Georgian as “a monk who does not serve.” This 1839 poem tells the story of a boy taken prisoner from his village in the Caucasus and left to recover from grave illness at a monastery. As a young adult, he escapes from the monastery into the surrounding wilderness in an attempt to return home. In this quintessentially Romantic quest, he is captivated by a local Georgian woman, fights off a leopard, and comes to rest on a riverbank, where a goldfish sings to him.

The river, with its constant and predictable flow that carries schools of fish, serves as a metaphor for life in the monastery, where one is sheltered and safe, but deprived of all freedoms. The fish tempts the man with respite from his journey and a place to heal, just as the monks had when he was a child. He is ultimately found and brought back to die in the arms of an elderly monk, where he expresses his one regret—that he never returned to his homeland—and his only wish: to be buried outside the walls of the monastery amid the beautiful landscape.

Balakirev followed in the footsteps of Mikhail Glinka in the search for a uniquely Russian style of music, and was the presiding member of the Mighty Five (a group of composers that included Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and Cui). His setting of Lermontov’s text is unassuming, but conveys the narrative well. The babble of the river is instantly recognizable in the piano accompaniment, and the fish’s persuasion is carried by the seductive lilt and slight chromaticism of the melody. The vocal line peaks in the final stanza, with the highest note of the song on the word “life,” highlighting the paradox at the heart of the poem: the monks give life to the boy, but it is a meaningless one for him, and he is willing to throw it away for a taste of freedom.

Program Notes by Jack Slavin.
Slavin is a pianist, music educator, and arts professional based in New York City.