Burnt by the Sun

dedicated to Mrs. Woudt

I'm a lover of Tango music and one of my favourites is the Soviet tango "Burnt by the Sun (Utomlennoe Solnce)" from 1936 of Polish origin. The melody is written by the Polish musician Jerzy Peterburgsky originally called: To ostatnia niedziela (That last sunday). The Russian text comes from Josef Alvek. The title became famous because of the movie (1994) of Nikita Michalkov.

My first acquintance with what they called Soviet Jazz and Estrada was when I visited Mrs. Woudt, teacher of Russian conversation at the Russian Department of Amsterdam University. She is a native Moskovitian who married a Dutch guy who took her to the Netherlands. I could copy some Russian discs and my old cassettes are still a treasure for me, although it's easy to find the music now on CD or in the internet. She told me how in the (political dark) Thirties the people in Russia loved to listen to this music and dance on it. Even a "serious" composer like Dmitry Shostakovich composed Jazz music. His second walz became very popular by the Strauss Orchestra of Andre Rieu. From 1939 this music disappeared more and more because of political pressure. Famous singers as Vadim Kozin and Pyotr Leshchenko were arrested and put into the Gulag.

We danced on it at our wedding in 2000 and they played once my tape in a typical Milonga of Buenos Aires "El viejo Correo".