Айра Гершвин

[birdwatcher]

Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
From the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark.

Or the slightest provocation,
May I fondly introduce,
For your mental delectation,
The names that always give me a concussion,
The names of those composers known as Russian.

There's Malichevsky, Rubinstein, Arensky, and Tschaikowsky,
Sapelnikoff, Dimitrieff, Tscherepnin, Kryjanowsky,
Godowsky, Arteiboucheff, Moniuszko, Akimenko,
Solovieff, Prokofieff, Tiomkin, Korestchenko.

There's Glinka, Winkler, Bortniansky, Rebikoff, Ilyinsky,
There's Medtner, Balakireff, Zolotareff, and Kvoschinsky.
And Sokoloff and Kopyloff, Dukelsky, and Klenowsky,
And Shostakovitsch, Borodine, Glière, and Nowakofski.

There's Liadoff and Karganoff, Markievitch, Pantschenko
And Dargomyzski, Stcherbatcheff, Scriabine, Vassilenko,
Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mussorgsky, and Gretchaninoff
And Glazounoff and Caesar Cui, Kalinikoff, Rachmaninoff,

Stravinsky and Gretchnaninoff,
Rumshinsky and Rachmaninoff,
I really have to stop, the subject has been dwelt upon enough!
He'd better stop because we feel we all have undergone enough!


cf. Миша, Яша, Тоша, Саша.