Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Incidental Music
The Shot op. 24 after Alexander Bezymensky (1929)
The Human Comedy op. 37 after Balzac (1934)
The Nose op. 15 (opera music: discarded versions of two interludes and opening of Act III) (1935)
The Vyborg Side (film) op. 50 (1938)
Tor Lind (tenor); Kenny Staskus Laersen (flute); Allan Sjølin (balalaika); Jesper Sivbaek (balalaika); Edward Stewart (balalaika)
Malmö Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Mark Fitz-Gerald
rec 2024, Malmö Opera House, Sweden
Naxos 8.574590 [56]
Naxos have only recently issued a well-crafted and generously stacked box of Shostakovich’s film music. This stands as a blue plaque and celebratory pennant for Norman del Mar pupil and Henze associate, Mark Fitz-Gerald. He – together with the ever-industrious Adriano – have done so much for the Cinderella world of Shostakovich’s film music. These must have been a hard academic, editorial and musicianly slog spanning many years. It should not be forgotten that Naxos has not been alone in its labours to produce boxed sets or volumed series of these obscure scores: viz Capriccio and BMG-RCA (Serebrier) and three separates from Chandos (vol 1 vol 2 vol 3). I say ‘obscure’ but some have risen to popular prominence such as the ‘Romance’ from The Gadfly (TV series Reilly ‘Ace of Spies’ and the Hollywood-esque Assault on Beautiful Gorky, The latter is an OTT pocket piano concerto often encountered on a Classics for Pleasure CD with Dmitri Alexeev/ECO/Maksymiuk. For that Gorky piece think in terms of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto, the Warsaw Concerto (Addinsell) and the Cornish Rhapsody (Bath).
As to the present disc, it stands alone from the seven-disc Naxos box. Perhaps there will be more of these stand-alones. This one encompasses 43 tracks across its 56 minutes playing time. There you have it: a stream of musical mosaic pieces. The Shostakovich fanatic – and there are many – is catered for supremely well. They will probably not have heard these miniatures and will have wondered. This halting cavalcade of short pieces is grouped film by film. The music stands roughly at the other extreme from the likes of Odna and Hamlet which have their shivering profundities. Although there are some emotionally ambitious moments here, this collection of theatre, opera and film music is often drawn ‘consumer’ material. That’s right: ephemera written to a ruthlessly exacting timetable.
Across two sets of music for theatrical productions everything is sharply etched and lustily sung when it comes to the vocal tracks; try tr. 9: ‘The Bored Workers’ Song of Protest’. Much the same can be said of the piano and choir ‘Students’ Song’. Across the whole disc the orchestra is luminously rendered in acid and chummy terms by players and audio engineers. Highlights are there for balalaika, saxophone, blurted raspberries from brass, piano enchantments à la Chopin (tr. 21) and dissolute salvoes for the percussion. Boastfully absurd little marches abound and these seem to have stridden out of the pages of The Good Soldier Svejk. Bleakly tragic pictures (e.g. tr. 10) and pizzicato jollity (tr. 28) can also be found. Those three pieces from The Nose are sure to impress and were, it seems, rescued from the cutting room floor. They comprise a Gothic ‘horror’-organ Entr’acte, a vinegary-sour Prelude and a Grand Guignol episode from Act II. ‘The March of the Anarchists’ (transcribed from the 1938 soundtrack for The Vyborg Side film) is riddled with sour bombast and cynicism. It is in the style we have come to associate with Weill, Dessau and Brecht. It’s quite a patchwork quilt experience but with satisfactions aplenty. Sometimes you find yourself wishing that the music went on for longer.
The booklet boasts Gerard McBurney’s extended essays around the films and their music, artist profiles and the words for the sung tracks for The Shot and The Human Comedy.
Rob Barnett
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