WORLD PREMIERE FOR TELEVISION The Complete Symphonies of Shostakovich VALERY GERGIEV MUSICAL DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR THE MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH IN HIS APARTMENT ON KIROV STREET, MOSCOW, AROUND 1947 > Summary Worldwide TV rights ARTHAUS MUSIK proudly presents Introduction P. 4 Shostakovich – Biography and works P. 6 THE COMPLETE Complete cycle of symphonies P. 8 Symphony No.1 (34’28”) Symphony No.2 (21’09”) SYMPHONIES Symphony No.3 (33’43”) Symphony No.4 (65’50”) AND CONCERTI Symphony No.5 (50’12”) Symphony No.6 (36’01”) OF SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.7 (79’05”) Symphony No.8 (72’36”) Symphony No.9 (29’06”) CONDUCTED BY Symphony No.10 (56’42”) VALERY GERGIEV Symphony No.11 (60’32”) Symphony No.12 (41’40”) Symphony No.13 (63’48”) Symphony No.14 (50’49”) ON 8 DVD AND BLU-RAY Symphony No.15 (50’44”) IN A LUXURY BOX. Cycle of concertos P. 15 Piano Concerto No.1 (27’32”) Piano Concerto No.2 (26’08”) Violin Concerto No.1 (43’19”) Violin Concerto No.2 (35’32”) Cello Concerto No.1 (36’31”) Cello Concerto No.2 (45’09”) Don Kent – Filmmaker P. 18 Out Spring 2015 > 3. Anzeige_AHM_Shostakovich_k2.indd 1 30.09.2014 12:41:40 > Introduction Nobody is better suited to undertake such a challenge than Valery Gergiev and his Mariinsky Orchestra. Over a period of a year all 15 sympho­ nies and concertos will be recorded at Salle Pleyel in Paris. What an adventure for television director Don Kent and producer Telmondis! Never before in the history of television has something like this been undertaken including the very first Ring for tele­ vision at Bayreuth. After the success of the complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies Gergiev turned his mind to Shostakovich whose foremost interpreter he is. In Beethoven’s times it was customary that publishers offered new compositions on a subscription bases in order to recoup the cost of printing scores and parts. Telmondis today turns to you, the broadcasters, with a modern times subscription offer for this vast enter­ prise. It will be 25% cheaper for you to acquire the entire cycle instead of cherry picking at your best tariff. Telmondis hereby invites you to help making this truly unique venture possible and provide you Valery Gergiev with an “in association with” credit at the end. General and Artistic Director > 5. > SShostakovich BIOGRAPHY AND WORKS B Dmitri Shostakovich is arguably one first time the subject of violent official of the greatest composers of the attacks. In an article entitled “Muddle 20th century. He graduated from the instead of Music”, probably instigated Leningrad conservatoire under the by Stalin himself, the very successful tutelage of Alexander Glazunov at the opera, which had been hailed as a age of nineteen. His graduation piece brainchild of a true Soviet composer, was the First Symphony which virtually was now denigrated and eventually made him famous overnight. Bruno banned. Shostakovich began to fear Walter performed it in Berlin in 1927 for his life. During the ensuing purges and Leopold Stokowski in Philadelphia he lost many friends and relatives who the following year. Shostakovich had were either murdered or imprisoned. envisaged a dual career as concert pianist and composer and had even Nevertheless the composer finished obtained an “honorable mention” at his Fourth Symphony and rehear­ the very First International Frederic sals were underway when, due Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1927 to pressure or friendly advice, he but then decided to devote himself withdrew his piece. Next came his exclusively to composition while Fifth Symphony, announced by the playing only his own works in public composer as “the creative reply of as long as his health permitted. a Soviet artist to justified criticism”. The always vigilant Composers’ Lenin’s New Economic Policy and the Association did not detect the carefully rather liberal and intellectual Anatoli hidden messages by the composer Lunacharsky, first Commissioner who was partly rehabilitated. for Education and Enlightenment, created a favorable climate for expe­ During the siege of Leningrad CARTOON OF SHOSTAKOVICH – 1955 rimentation and innovation. Western Shostakovich joined the Leningrad avant­garde drama was staged, Conservatoire’s tfighter brigade as Picasso and other leading cubists a volunteer and at the same time as follows: “To me he seemed like a of wonderful chamber music crowned were exhibited and Jazz became a composed the first three movements trapped man, whose only wish was the ailing composer’s output in the sort of popular craze. Intellectuals of his 7th Symphony nicknamed to be left alone, to the peace of his last years of his life. To understand were full of hope and enthusiastic to “Leningrad”. He completed the own art and to the tragic destiny to his music one needs to see it in the co­operate with the new leadership symphony in Kuibeshev to which he which he, like most of his countrymen, context of his life, his social envi­ in reconstructing the country. An and his family were evacuated. His has been forced to resign himself.” ronment, the political situation, the artist of the stature of Malevich even next symphonies were grudgingly Only after Stalin’s death and the unbelievable brutality with which the compared Lenin to Christ in an ode. accepted be the authorities until following cultural thaw initiated by Communist Party enforced its ideolo­ In post­revolutionary Russia the 1948 a Party Resolution condemned Nikita Khrushchev did he surprise gical credo and the subtle ways with symphony was understood to serve Shostakovich and other prominent the public with his Tenth Symphony. which Shostakovich succeeded in as a public statement reflecting the Soviet composers for “formalistic combining his innermost thoughts with new spirit. Artists were supposed to distortions and anti­democratic Khrushchev forced him to join the the demands of Socialist Realism. deliver recognizable human content tendencies alien to the Soviet people”. Communist Party in order to have in a strong and optimistic tone. him appointed First Secretary of the He was a man of many faces Shostakovich lost his teaching assi­ Russian Chapter of the Composers’ as we shall see when we look at It is in this context that one has to gnments and most of his privileges. Union, an honour Shostakovich his symphonies in more detail, see Shostakovich’s Symphonies no. 2 He began to compose mainly for the could have happily done without and a master of hidden messages and 3.They also show the composer’s drawer while living on film music and as we can gather from his corres­ in order to outwit censorship, a high sense of civic duty combined with rare commissions. As his international pondence with Isaak Glikman. With Russian tradition that goes back an ability to express personal thoughts reputation had been steadily growing the Thirteenth Symphony, Babiy Yar’ at least to the times of Pushkin. and feelings. Inspired by Meyerhold Stalin did not hesitate to send him to Shostakovich aroused new contro­ he took to writing incidental music NY for a Peace Conference in 1949. The versy, this time not so much with his Influenced by Mahler, Stravinsky, for plays and created a worldwide ailing and aging composer was forced music as with Evtushenko’s poem, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Tchaikovsky, success with his opera “Lady Macbeth to become part of Stalin’s propa­ which gave the symphony its title. inspired by folklore and Jewish of the Mtsensk District” in 1934. Only ganda machine. Nicolas Nabokov, themes, one might call Schostakovich two years later, with Stalin firmly in an eyewitness at the time, summed Two more symphonies, the second eclectic, but at the same time he power, Shostakovich became for the up his impression of the composer Violin and Cello Concertos and a string was a genius in arousing emotions. > 6. > 7. > Complete cycle of symphonies First Symphony Second Symphony Fourth Symphony in C minor, Fifth Symphony in D minor, in F minor, ‘To October’ in B major, op. 43 (1936) op. 47 (1937) op. 10 (1924/25) op. 14 (1927) Inspite of the violent attacks Composed from April 18th until July Shostakovich underwent in 1936 he 20th 1937 in Leningrad this symphony Written as the graduation piece from Commissioned by the State completed his Fourth Symphony in was intended to rehabilitate the the Leningrad Conservatoire it made Publishing House to comme­ 1936 but had to withdraw it before composer after his fall from favour the 19 year old Shostakovich famous morate the 10th anniversary of its Leningrad première probably in 1936. Nonetheless the composer’s overnight. Here was a new voice out of the October Revolution this due to pressure from the Secretary announcement was full of irony for Russia. The piece is strongly influenced symphony, subtitled “To October”, of the Composers’ Union who those who knew him when he stated by Prokofjev’s “Classical Symphony” combines in a witty way modern attended rehearsals with Stiedry it to be “the creative reply of a Soviet and Stravinsky’s “Petrushka”. It was idiom and Marxist ideology. and the Leningrad Philharmonic. artist to justified criticism”. And creative premièred by Nikolai Malko, the then it was indeed, wrapping up criticism chief conductor of the Leningrad The one movement piece consists In fact the symphony only saw the light of Stalin and the suffering he brought Philharmonic. It bursts with theatri­ of two parts, the latter being of day 25 years after it was composed, to the Soviet people in accessible cality and reveals a young man with a choral finale set to words by on December 30th, 1961, at the Great sounding music. Shostakovich himself little or no self­doubt: “ the narrative Alexander Besymenski.