The Ballet Suites were
all arranged from Shostakovich’s stage,
film and ballet works and were edited
for publication in 1949 by Lev Atovmyan.
Interestingly they were originally intended
for radio broadcast. The suites derive
from works such as The Limpid Stream,
The Bolt, The Human Comedy and the Suite
for Jazz Orchestra No.1 and in fact
the third Ballet Suite divides equally
between just two - The Human Comedy
and The Limpid Stream.
Infectiously entertaining
and lighthearted they receive committed
and colourful performances from Yablonsky
and his forces, now well established
on disc as authoritative interpreters
of this kind of repertoire. The winds
bear a weight in such as the Polka (from
The Limpid Stream) of the First but
show their quasi-satiric teeth nicely
whilst the portentous Adagio of the
Second with its reserved cello solo
(Yablonsky again it seems) scores highly.
Trumpeter Tokathev is on top form for
the Sentimental Romance (from The tale
of a priest and His Servant Balda) that
sits at the near heart of the second
suite. Fortunately Yablonsky and his
band don’t overplay things - such as
the Dance of the Third Suite or the
light-but-lovely Waltz; rather beautiful,
this. Whether in waltz or gallop Shostakovich
proves consistently full of verve and
these performances, warmly recorded,
are splendid ones.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Paul Shoemaker
Dmitri Yablonsky (cello)
