Yes, My Darling Daughter
Yes, My Darling Daughter is a 1941 song by Jack Lawrence first introduced by Dinah Shore on Eddie Cantor's radio program, as well as Shore's first record. The music used by Lawrence is based on a Ukrainian folk-song "Oj ne khody Hrytsju", often ascribed to the Ukrainian songstress Marusia Churai. It first appeared in the 1812 vaudeville "The Cossack-Poet" by Catterino Cavos. This melody is unknown before Cavos, and is suggested that it was written by him.
The text of the Ukrainian folk song "Oi ne khody Hrytsiu" was first published in English translation in London in 1816. A Polish translation first appeared in 1822 in Lviv and a German translation appeared in 1848. Evidence exists to the songs popularity in France (1830's), Czech, Slovak lands, Belgium and the United States where it equally well known was the song "Ikhav kozak za Dunai" (the Cossack rode beyond the Danube; music and words by Semen Klymovsky).
In Classical Music
Israeli musicologist Yakov Soroker states that the end of the first melodic phrase of "Oi ne khody Hrytsiu" (Yes my Darling Daughter) contains a "signature" melody common in Ukrainian songs in general which he calls the "Hryts sequence" and gives a list of hundreds of Ukrainian folk songs from the Carpathians to the Kuban that contain this particular sequence. His estimation, after studying Z. Lysko's collection of 9,077 Ukrainian melodies was that 6% of Ukrainian folk songs contain the sequence.[1]
Other scholars have also addressed the unique character and expressiveness of the Hryts sequence such as Alexander Serov, who stated that "the refrain exudes a spirit of freedom that transports the listener to the steppes and is mixed with the sorrow of some unexpected tragedy.[2]"
Soroker states that the Hryts signature was used by composers: Joseph Haydn (String Quartet no. 20, op. 9, no. 2; String quartet no. 25, op. 17, no 1; The Saviour's Seven last Words on the Cross, the Rondo of the D major Piano Concerto (composed 1795), Andante and variations for piano (1793)), Luigi Boccherini (duet no. 2), Wolfgang A. Mozart (Symphonia concertante K. 364), L. van Beethoven, J. N. Hummel, Carl Maria von Weber, Franz Liszt (Ballade d'Ukraine), Felix Petyrek, Ivan Khandoshkin, and others.[3]
Notable recordings
It was also recorded by:
- Adelaide Hall
- Anne Shelton
- Bob Chester & his Orchestra
- Barry Sisters (United States), Jewish version "Yuh, mein Liebe Tochter"
- Benny Goodman
- Caterina Valente
- Dinah Shore
- Dorothy Collins & Geraldo & his Orchestra
- Eydie Gorme
- Gene Krupa
- Glenn Miller
- Helen Forrest
- Jody Miller
- Marion Hutton
- Nat Gonella
- Sandie Shaw
- Stanley Black
- The Andrews Sisters
- Yuri (Mexican singer), Spanish version "Si mi hijita linda"