Songs by Bulat Okudzhava

About Okudzhava

Performers of Okudzhava's songs should be advised not to approach the written notation as a rigid dogma. It should be viewed as a more or less general scheme, permitting various individual interpretations. It is possible to vary the tempo, the rhythmic pattern, the melodic line, the harmony, or the style of guitar accompaniment. A true understanding of Okudzhava's poetry, and a sense of its style and the author's intonation, along with personal taste - all these will help the performer to recognize the bounds of permissibility in improvising and varying the songs.

Many professional singers have attempted to perform my songs, and they have done it, of course, very correctly and professionally. They have good voices and good training, but they didn't take one thing into account: that these were not just songs, but poems, plus accompaniment, plus intonation. They robbed my songs of my intonation and the genre was lost. I think that in this genre intonation plays a very important role. Sometimes, therefore, the serious listener forgives the performer's ineptness in playing and the not-so-good, perhaps, melody - if there is intonation; if only human fate can be felt in a song. Only then does it appear as an object of art. - B. S. Okudzhava