Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Film Music Edition
Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Michail Jurowski, James Judd, Leonid Grin
rec. 1988-95, Jesus-Christus Kirche & Deutschlandradio Saal 1, Berlin
Capriccio C7450 [7 CDs: 439]

As well as the concert music for which we chiefly remember him, Shostakovich also wrote a good deal of what I would call commercial music: patriotic cantatas and choruses, socialist realist ballets, occasional overtures, incidental music to plays – and film music. He wrote the scores for some thirty-six films. Nor should we consider all this music hackwork. Some of it undoubtedly is, but he always took his work seriously and turned out a professional product even though, in this field more than most, he had to write what would please his commissioners and the Soviet authorities. He also gave this work opus numbers, which not all composers do with their more commercial output. He is recorded as saying: ‘Personally, I believe that film is more of an industry than an art form; but my own involvement in this industry of national importance has been my salvation on many occasions.’ And Stalin, who had so blighted his career with his condemnation of the opera Lady Macbeth, positively supported Shostakovich as a film composer.

Some of this film music has turned up in various recordings, mostly of select numbers. Some will remember Riccardo Chailly’s Film Album on Decca, a companion to others on dance music and jazz. Chandos began a film music series, but it got no further than three volumes. There is also a number of other single discs. Capriccio brought out a series, which reached seven volumes, which they have now packaged in a box set. This has suites or excerpts from the music for twelve films plus one ringer, the incidental music to a stage production of King Lear, which sits alongside the music for the much later film of the play. Shostakovich completists may well want to find recordings of all his film music, but most of us are happy to settle for a substantial selection and trust that the conductors and producers have chosen the most interesting. Some of them are in the form of suites made from the film scores by Levon Atovmyan, a versatile musician who did a great deal of arranging of Shostakovich’s works and presumably had his approval. I should say that I have not seen any of these films so am having to judge on the music alone.

On the first disc we have the suite from Hamlet. Shostakovich revels in dramatic and sometimes sardonic and strident writing. In this version the Ghost does not appear in person but Shostokovich offers a fine example of spooky writing to take its place. I noted that the Ophelia number used one of the traditional tunes for her songs. On the same disc we also have the suite from The Gadfly. This is a delightful score and the Romance has one of those tunes you seem to have known all your life. Much of the rest is jolly but the opening Overture and the Finale have darker passages.

The music for New Babylon occupies all the second disc and some of the third. This is an early work written when Shostakovich was still able to explore current Western expressionist and neoclassical idioms. The individual numbers are much longer than in most film scores. There is a good deal of raucous and jolly music as well as some which is more reflective, and sudden changes of mood are characteristic of this score. There is also a large number of quotations of other works, including the Marseillaise, the waltz and cancan from Offenbach’s La belle Hélène and a piano piece by Tchaikovsky which is given complete and without any ironic inflections.

Five Days, Five Nights was a film about how Soviet troops saved paintings from the Dresden art gallery. The film was apparently mediocre but the score is anything but, with much moody atmospheric writing, a bitter scherzo, and a quotation of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. This is a very impressive score.

The next disc brings the two versions of music for King Lear, the first being incidental music for a stage production of 1940 while the second was for a film of 1970.  I found the incidental music the more interesting with fanfares, storm music and much martial trumpeting. There is also a number titled Cordelia’s ballad, which intrigued me as there is no such ballad in Shakespeare’s play. I think Shostakovich may have used or even commissioned a text from Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, a poet whose words he occasionally set, but I could find no definite confirmation of this. There is also a set of ten songs for the Fool, based indeed on Shakespeare’s words. The film music for this play I found much less attractive, but this may be because what we have are very short cues, without the benefit of the composer or Levon Atovmyan welding them into a suite.

Zoya was a girl who fought against the Nazis, was caught and hanged. The suite has reordered the material into five movements. This has a promising start and the finale incorporates a tune by Glinka, but much of the rest is rather routine and not particularly characteristic of the composer. The depths of banality are then plumbed in the music from The Fall of Berlin, a propaganda effort glorifying Stalin. There is a good deal of heroic martial music and some quick movements representing battles. Occasionally one can hear the odd phrase which also turns up in one of the symphonies, but overall it is a disheartening experience.

Golden Mountains, on the next disc is far better. The story was again a propaganda one, but this was an early work and the score is full of life. There are six movements in the suite, which Shostakovich himself compiled. The opening is practically a rip-off of the motto theme from Tchakovsky’s fourth symphony, but is none the worse for that. It is followed by a really good waltz, and a very strange fugue, beginning with an organ solo and leading to a very dissonant development. After a quiet intermezzo there is a powerful funeral march. This is a worthwhile score.

Music from the Maxim trilogy is also interesting, if not quite first rate. There is a jolly overture, including a song. Interspersed in the suite are two pieces from a later film, The Unforgettable Year 1919 – it is not clear why this was done. The first of these is a choral Prelude, a heroic and patriotic number. Back then to Maxim with Attack, a sonata-type Allegro, Death of the Old Worker which is a mournful number with an eloquent cello solo, an elegant Waltz, another number from the other film called Demonstration which turns out to be a rather Mahlerian scherzo, a Fight number which is quick and martial and a final Funeral March.  The disc is completed with a lively overture to a film called Vyborg District.

The final disc is given entirely to Alone, another early work for which we get twenty-nine cues, of which four are fragments which it seems were scored up later. There are some jolly marches, several charming and perky numbers, some more lyrical ones often featuring a solo woodwind instrument, particularly the bass clarinet of which Shostakovich seems particularly fond, and a few songs,. But here are also a number of cues which are too short to make much sense out of context. This would really have worked better as a suite at about the half the length we have here.

The performances here are all vigorous and effective, without any particular subtlety, but this is not subtle music. The sound quality is good and the notes are informative about the films. However, we are not given the texts of the occasional songs and choral numbers. It seems that Shostakovich was most interested in writing film music early in his career, which is also when he could be more adventurous than was later possible. But all these discs have something of interest apart from CD5, where Zoya and The Fall of Berlin are really hackwork. All in all, this film music is best heard in selection, but die-hard Shostakovich fans will want this set.

Stephen Barber

Contents
CD1
Suite from Hamlet Op. 163a (1964) arr. Levon Atovmyan
Suite from The Gadfly Op. 97a (1955) arr. Levon Atovmyan
Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Leonid Grin

CD2-3
New Babylon Op. 18 (1928-9)
Suite from Five Days-Five Nights Op. 111a (1961) arr. Levon Atovmyan
Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/James Judd

CD4
King Lear Op. 58a incidental music (1940)
King Lear Op. 137 music to the film (1970)
Jelena Zaremba (mezzo-soprano), Stanislaw Suleimanow (bass), Rundfunkchor Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Michail Jurowski

CD5
Suite from Zoya Op. 64a (1944) arr. Levon Atovmyan
Suite from The Fall of Berlin Op. 82a (1950) arr. Levon Atovmyan
Rias-Kammerchor Berlin, Radio-Symponie-Orchester Berlin/Michail Jurowski

CD6
Suite from Golden Mountains  Op. 30a (1931) arr.composer
Maxim’s Youth Op. 41 (1934-5): Overture
Suite from Maxim film trilogy Op. 50a with two pieces from The Unforgettable Year 1919 Op. 89 (1961)
Vyborg District Op. 50 (1938): Overture
Swetlana Katchur (soprano), Rundfunkchor Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Michail Jurowski

CD7
Alone Op. 26 (1930-1)
Swetlana Katchur (soprano), Wladimir Kazatchouk (tebnor), Mitgleider des Rundfunkchores Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Michail Jurowski

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