# Yan Abrahamovich Frenkel (1929-1989)



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Yan Frenkel is known because of the song 'Cranes', that is often performed around Victory Day (May 9th). Frenkel even got into trouble because of the content of this song, where soldiers muse about a place 'up there' like where the cranes fly: "There is also place for me". The soldiers thought to return home as cranes. The ideologues smelled something religious into it.

The main reason why I resurrect this Jewish Soviet composer here is the melodious closeness of his compositions to the world famous Shostakovich Waltz no.2. I guess, that Shostakovich' André Rieu popularity will find one day new adherents among these typical Soviet light cinema music composers. (My wife points out, that almost all the patriotic Soviet composers of the Waltz no.2 heydays are of Jewish background.)


----------



## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Interesting composer - I will have to explore, since I have been listening to a lot of Soviet composers recently (Ustvolskaya, Kabalevsky, Rybnikov, Schnittke, Filippenko). Do you know what more Frenkel composed other than Cranes? Is he more than a 'one-hit wonder'? Anyways, thanks for introducing me to this new (to me) music.


----------



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)




----------

