Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Suite for Jazz Orchestra No.1 (1934)
Suite from The Age of Gold Op.22a (1930 rev. 1935)
Suite from The Limpid Stream Op.39a (1935 arr. 1945)
Suite for Variety Orchestra (1950s)
Tahiti Trot (1927)
Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Litton
rec. 2019, Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore
Reviewed as downloaded from press preview
BIS BIS-2472 SACD [69]
This disc could with some validity be subtitled “The Lighter Shostakovich”, which is also the header of Andrew Huth’s informative liner notes. He points out that the composer in his twenties poured out loads of lighter music, film- and theatre music, sandwiched with serious symphonies, ballets and operas. He was also interested in exploring Western popular music and jazz. What he achieved in that field was hardly jazz in the proper meaning of the word – the jazz suite No. 1 contains a waltz, a polka and as finale a foxtrot, the latter could with some justification be called jazz influenced, if one bends the rules. This period of frivolity came to an abrupt full stop in 1936 when Stalin (anonymously) in the infamous article “Muddle instead of Music” in Pravda condemned his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. After that the communist party held Shostakovich in strict reins until the ice break after Stalin’s death. Then he could again recycle some of the material from 25 years back and get it performed. On the present disc we are treated to some of his “sins of his youth”.
The Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 from 1934, which is quite frequently heard today, is contemporaneous with Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and was the result of a competition which aimed at making jazz more respectable. As I’ve already said, it’s far from jazz, but obviously Shostakovich enjoyed the sounds of a jazz band with three saxophones, two trumpets, trombone, banjo, Hawaiian guitar, piano, percussion, violin and double bass. His somewhat burlesque humour is much in evidence here, and he instructs the trombonist to make hilarious glissandi in the foxtrot. He also had a very personal melodic vein, and the tunes are catchy. Especially the waltz sticks, and he returned to that melody more than once, as we can hear on this disc. The suite from the ballet The Age of Gold, which was composed as early as 1930, is full of contrasts. The Introduction is modernistically chaotic, while the long Adagio is serious and melancholy. The Polka is often heard on its own and it is great fun with its surprising instrumentation. The same goes for the concluding Dance.
The last of his three socialist ballets – the Bolt is not represented on this disc – The Limpid Stream from 1935, opens with the waltz we’ve already heard in the Suite for jazz orchestra, albeit in new orchestral garb. It is followed by a joyous Russian Popular Dance and a Gallop that is a kind of perpetuum mobile. The Adagio with cello solo, excellently played by Ng Pei-Sian, is calm and beautiful, and finally a short and airy Pizzicato played with great precision.
The eight-piece Suite for Variety Orchestra, compiled in the 1950s from various sources, is a misnomer. A variety orchestra was a fairly small orchestra that could be found in most Russian cities, even small ones. But this suite is orchestrated for a much bigger ensemble: ten woodwind (four of them saxophones), ten brass, plenty of percussion and a full body of strings. We don’t know whether Shostakovich compiled the suite himself or if some of his assistants did the job under his guidance, but we know that any of the moments could be played and in whatever order.
The music is utterly entertaining. The opening March is marked Giocoso and it is truly joyous. The two following dances are stirring and fun, Little polka is exiting – Shostakovich’s polkas always are – and three waltzes in a row seems too much of a good thing, but they are very different. Waltz No. 1 is Viennese (Strauss II is the godfather) and Waltz No. 2 is by now a good old friend: we’ve already heard it twice. The speedy finale ends the suite in high spirits, and one is tempted to play the suite all over again. But first we have to savour the encore. In 1925 Vincent Youmans had a hit with the musical No, no, Nanette on Broadway as well as London’s West End. The song that became an international hit was Tea for Two, and it spread also to the Soviet Union. One evening in 1927 the internationally famous conductor Nikolai Malko bet Shostakovich that he couldn’t write a full score arrangement of it in one hour. Shostakovich did it in less than 45 minutes, and it was later inserted in The Age of Gold as the entr’acte to act III. A left-hand job maybe, but it holds its own to this very day.
The choice of Singapore Symphony Orchestra for this programme of Soviet-Russian music may seem odd, but they are a splendid band, and with USA-born Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Litton at the helm – and pianist in the Suite for Jazz Orchestra – they are in safe hands. This may be “light music”, but it is light music by a genius, who also happens to be one of the great symphonists of the 20th century. There is nothing cheap about this disc – it’s only entertaining.
Göran Forsling
Previous review: Nick Barnard
