Shostakovich

CHAN 10378 Shostakovich Symphony No. 9 Piano Concerto No. 1 The Adventures of Korzinkina Suite Two Choruses Russian State Symphonic Cappella Russian State Symphony Orchestra Valeri Polyansky under Valeri Polyansky 28 29 CCHANHAN 1103780378 BBook.inddook.indd 228-298-29 222/8/062/8/06 110:50:190:50:19 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Symphony No. 9, Op. 70 26:30 in E fl at major • in Es-Dur • en mi bémol majeur 1 I Allegro 5:17 2 II Moderato 7:57 3 III Presto – 2:54 4 IV Largo – 3:56 Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library 5 V Allegretto 6:26 Valeri Popov bassoon Two Choruses after A. Davidenko, Op. 124* 8:27 For chorus and orchestra 6 At ten versts from the capital 4:20 7 The street is in turmoil 4:07 Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 21:59 For Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra in C minor • in c-Moll • en ut mineur 8 I Allegro moderato 5:54 9 II Lento 7:28 10 III Moderato – 1:25 11 IV Allegro brio 7:12 Tatiana Polyanskaya piano Vladimir Goncharov trumpet Dmitri Shostakovich 3 CCHANHAN 1103780378 BBook.inddook.indd 22-3-3 222/8/062/8/06 110:50:120:50:12 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 etc The Adventures of Korzinkina, Op. 59 9:07 Symphony No. 9 in E fl at major, Op. 70 distortion. The breathless fi rst movement Suite from music to the fi lm With the end of Soviet Russia’s ‘Great seems to be in constant danger of running Patriotic War’ in 1945 came Shostakovich’s out of control. The extraordinary collapses 12 1 Overture 0:33 Ninth Symphony – a ninth such as his great and dark, gritty, bitonal harmonies of the 13 2 March 2:01 nineteenth-century predecessors, dogged second movement – a melancholy barcarolle 14 3 The Chase 2:43 as they were by the supreme challenge with sinister infl ections – are pointed up by 15 4 Music at the restaurant 2:13 of Beethoven’s Ninth, could never have a falsely sweet climax that is pure saccharin. 16 5 Finale (Yanya)* 1:37 dreamed of. For all its light, ‘Haydnish’ The third movement has something of the Tatiana Polyanskaya piano surface features, it can be taken as perhaps nervy, menacing instability of the scherzo of Elena Adamovich piano one of the most caustic utterances to be the Second Piano Trio: collapse is the best TT 66:28 encountered in the whole of Shostakovich’s word to describe what happens at the end output. Although its conception is that of the wild tarantella as it slides into the Russian State Symphonic Cappella* of a symphonie burlesque– and as such it ominous brass and bassoon antiphons of Russian State Symphony Orchestra marks a long-delayed return to the spirit of the fourth movement. Indeed, with the solo Symphony No. 1’s fi rst two movements – it bassoon recitative already anticipating the under Valeri Polyansky plays an altogether subtler game of fractured twisted smile of the theme that launches the self-identity and parody of its models. Cast fi nale – anything but an Ode to Joy – and in fi ve-movement form (as with its towering echoing the cor anglais recitative at the predecessor, the last three movements play re-transition of the Eighth Symphony’s continuously), its scherzando-like facade is fi rst movement, we may take the whole constantly betrayed by slithers into darkness passage as a deliberate subversion of the and a kind of desperate sense of panic and message of Beethoven’s Ninth. The scoring despair. Shostakovich was a master of the cleverly matches the parodistic element long range accelerando – he had already in of the symphony – a normal classical-size the Sixth constructed a whole symphony built orchestra enlarged to include four horns, on this principle – and here is a work whose trombones, tuba and ‘extra’ percussion. As two outer movements, but more especially in the case of every one of the fi fteen, the the fi nale, subject the device to parodistic ‘little’ Ninth – the shortest of the composer’s 4 5 CCHANHAN 1103780378 BBook.inddook.indd 44-5-5 222/8/062/8/06 110:50:130:50:13 purely instrumental symphonies – has its own Razin – is grounded in a genre peculiar to full of joie-de-vivre. This I wanted to convey in break into a sonata-rondo fi nale reminiscent utterly distinctive sound world, occupying a the Russian operatic tradition, as his opera my concerto. of Haydn in which a concluding C major place in the Shostakovich canon comparable Lady Macbeth and the choral perorations of Its all-inclusive ethos of ‘Bach to Offenbach’ galop is approached via a long and hectic to that of Beethoven’s Eighth, with its own his early Second and Third symphonies had was something the young Shostakovich had cadenza for the pianist. Incidentally, the playful agenda. previously shown. According to biographer learned from his friendship with Sollertinsky, banal trumpet tune that appears just before Laurel Fay, the composer was attracted to the a brilliant Marxist-Leninist pamphleteer the recapitulation had originally served Two Choruses (Davidenko), Op. 124 choruses when he fi rst heard them performed and lecturer, who much admired this same as the musical portrait of an American in Alexander Davidenko (1899–1934) was in 1959, reviving in him a sense of nostalgia quality in the music of Mahler. Here are some additional music commissioned from a prominent member of a group of young for the revolutionary enthusiasm of his youth. fl eeting allusions to Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Shostakovich for a Leningrad production composers fi red by revolutionary enthusiasm The arrangements were fi rst performed in Mahler, Rachmaninov and popular song of Erwin Dressel’s satirical opera The Poor who in 1925 formed themselves into Moscow on 24 February 1964. and jazz idioms, in a style, at once serious Columbus in 1929. PROKOLL (Production Collective of Student and comic, that deliberately plays on sharp, composers). In celebration of the tenth Piano Concerto No. 1 (Concerto for Piano, unexpected contrasts. In addition, the Suite from ‘The Adventures of Korzinkina’, anniversary of the October Revolution, Trumpet and String Orchestra), Op. 35 infl uence of contemporary Western neo- Op. 59 eight of them produced a work for narrator, Shostakovich started work on his First Piano classicism – Prokofi ev, Stravinsky, Poulenc, This comedy fi lm with music by Shostakovich soloists, chorus, orchestra and stamping Concerto on 6 March 1933 – the very day Ravel, Hindemith – is strong. The piano was fi rst shown in 1940. Of the original feet, called The Path to October, from which preparations for the staging of his ill-fated texture is predominantly spare and sinewy, score, now presumed lost, ten numbers these two choruses are taken. Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth began at the Maly eschewing lush harmonic effects. The ascetic are preserved in the family archives from orchestral arrangement of them (August Theatre in Leningrad. Although ‘Socialist orchestration (strings and solo trumpet) which Gennady Rozhdestvensky assembled 1963) forms a characteristic response to Realism’ had already been proclaimed in challenges the full orchestra of the Romantic this suite. According to the composer’s the spirit of the two contrasted poems. a resolution of the Central Committee in concerto tradition although, paradoxically, biographer, Sofi a Khentova, the fi lm script Originally set for unaccompanied chorus, the April 1932, Stalin’s stultifying conservatism nineteenth-century pianism (Chopin and concerns the adventures of its female (E fl at minor) bleakness, pity and menace and puritanical distaste for ‘bourgeois Liszt) is not entirely banished from the play heroine, a Don Quixote-like fi gure whose of the one are offset by the wild (C major) formalism’ had yet to strike out at the of opposites. These disconcerting collisions readiness to come to people’s aid results in jubilation of the other. Images of mass youthful, innovatory spirit of art, theatre and are offset by a compensating overall balance some astonishing episodes. The fi lm made execution, of haunted places whose ghosts music in Soviet Russia. Relaxing from the of mood and clarity of form. Thus, after a use of circus stylisations – and this held demand vengeance from the living, had sustained creative effort of his large-scale terse sonata-allegro, there follows a Boston considerable appeal for Shostakovich, whose already been vividly evoked by the composer opera-tragedy, Shostakovich set out to waltz (muted strings) whose return on score included quotes from well-known music in his Eleventh (1957) and Thirteenth (1962) make the concerto popular, light-hearted muted solo trumpet is delayed by a middle by Tchaikovsky and Gounod, a concertina symphonies. And Shostakovich’s relish in and optimistic in tone. Not unmindful of the section that rises to an impassioned climax. tune borrowed from the Leningrad Circus and his handling of crowd scenes – shortly to Central Committee’s message, he wrote: The short, improvisatory third movement, a ‘straight’ orchestration of Mussorgsky’s reach its zenith in The Execution of Stepan I see our age as heroic, cheerful, exceptionally serious and refl ective in tone, leads without a Song of the Flea (not used in the fi lm) which 6 7 CCHANHAN 1103780378 BBook.inddook.indd 66-7-7 222/8/062/8/06 110:50:130:50:13 has survived. The music of this high-spirited The Russian State Symphony Orchestra was including Iceland, Finland, Turkey and the Far numerous artistic achievements have been suite certainly contains more than a whiff founded in 1962. Gennady Rozhdestvensky East. Under his direction their repertoire has critically acclaimed performances of Eugene of the circus, as the ‘oompah’ style of the became Principal Conductor in 1981 and been extended to embrace music from the Onegin at the Gothenburg Musical Theatre March and ‘The Chase’ – let alone the vulgar his energy and commitment paved the way baroque era through to that of contemporary and his appointment as Principal Conductor tuba contributions to the Restaurant Music forward for a vital new burst of creativity composers of many nationalities.

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