• Title: Lullaby
  • Instrumentation: : for string orchestra
  • Year: 2008
  • Duration: 10′
  • Commissioner:  —
  • Premiere: 13th March 2009, National Philharmonic, Kyiv, UA
  • First performer: Kyiv Camerata
  • Genre & Subgenre: Orchestra, String orchestra
  • Scoring: str
  • Buy Score: Donemus Publishing

PROGRAM NOTE

It is, as the composer himself writes, a ‘hymn to life’. He explains: “There is an African tribe with a wonderful tradition. When two lovers decide to have a child, they listen to the silence. They do this until they hear the song of the child that is about to be born on this earth. This song will accompany the child throughout its life. That is why you should think of the lullaby as a hymn to life.”

Shalygin captures this in music by slowly repeating and building up one and the same melody. A bass player plucks a slow and stubborn walking bass line. The strings repeat the same melody over and over. This begins with a single string instrument, but one by one more string players join the growing canon. Finally, the bass player stops his walking bass line and plays the melody in a lower register. This is how Shalygin’s own lullaby is born.