Shostakovich: The Film Album

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
Continuing Riccardo Chailly's topical Shostakovich recordings (he's already visited the composer's jazz-inflected and dance pieces), this collection of music for film offers the series greater heft. The music here is as entangled in politics and pop culture as the jazzy and dancy material, but here the emotions are more complex and the execution more exciting.

The films Shostakovich was scoring somehow sought legitimacy or outright approval from Soviet power regimes, but as in all his music, Shostakovich enacted subtle subversions. The parade-step march cadences of The Counterplan are exaggerated just enough to integrate all kinds of conflicting dark undertows, emphasized coyly by Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The excerpts from Alone are all over the map, spooky and turbulent and bleak in equal measures, in answer to so many mandated bright, blasting musical ventures elsewhere in the Soviet cultural regime. The works continue until 1967, with a twisty waltz from Sofia Perovskaya, which seems more like a distant comment on the notion of a dance piece than music scripted for dance. For its mix of big, lit sweeps and minute, shadowy motions, this is one of the best single-CD Shostakovich sets--themed or not--in print. --Andrew Bartlett

Shostakovich: The Film Album, Music, Dmitry Shostakovich, Riccardo Chailly, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Alexander Kerr, Classical, Classical Music, Classical Soundtrack/Score, Film, Film Music, Orchestral, Orchestral & Symphonic, Suite for Orchestra

Shostakovich: Cheryomushki, The Bolt, The Gadfly (The Dance Album)
Average customer rating:

Disappointed to find out the best piece from GADFLY is not on this disc!!

Sheer delight

very very good and entertaining recording great sound

More Shostakovich Irony

Excellent version, awful cover

Shostakovich: Cheryomushki, The Bolt, The Gadfly (The Dance Album)

Manufacturer: Decca
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Shostakovich: The Film Album

Shostakovich: The Jazz Album

Shostakovich: Waltzes

Jazz Suites 1 & 2

Shostakovich: Ballet Suites Nos. 1-4

ASIN: B0000042F8
Release Date: 1997-04-15

Tracks:

Moscow-Cheryomushki Suite From The Operetta, Op. 105: 1. A Spin Through Moscow
Moscow-Cheryomushki Suite From The Operetta, Op. 105: 2. Waltz
Moscow-Cheryomushki Suite From The Operetta, Op. 105: 3. Dances (Polka - Galop)
Moscow-Cheryomushki Suite From The Operetta, Op. 105: 4. Ballet
The Bolt Suite From The Ballet, Op. 27a: 1. Introduction
The Bolt Suite From The Ballet, Op. 27a: 2. Polka
The Bolt Suite From The Ballet, Op. 27a: 3. Variations
The Bolt Suite From The Ballet, Op. 27a: 4. Tango
The Bolt Suite From The Ballet, Op. 27a: 5. Intermezzo
The Bolt Suite From The Ballet, Op. 27a: 6. Finale
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 1. Overture
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 2. The Cliff
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 3. Youth (Romance)
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 7. The Slap In The Face
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 9. Barrel Organ
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 13. Contredanse
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 14. Galop
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 16. The Market Place
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 17. Escape
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 18. Montanelli
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 19. Finale
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 20. The Austrians
The Gadfly Excerpt From The Film Music, Op. 97: 23. Gemma's Room

Amazon.com

Shostakovich (1906-1975) had two distinct musical personalities: the grim alchemist of the string quartets and symphonies and the happy Soviet of his dance and film scores. These works are of the latter Shostakovich--but don't let that put you off. There is a great deal of good music here, and if some of it is ultimately trivial, who cares? Much of the frenetic dance rhythms come from the 1920s and 1930s era of Stalinist Modernism: happy workers, happy factories, happy collectives. It's still fun (and remember, even Prokofiev had it). This is an excellent recording all the way around. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews:

Disappointed to find out the best piece from GADFLY is not on this disc!!.......2006-08-05

I really liked this CD when I first bought it. GADFLY is one of Shosty's best film scores - very romantic, and one of the more stand-out pieces of writing amidst the 30+ scores he wrote to keep money in his pocket (many of which sound carbon copied from one another).

However, I later heard a most achingly beautiful piece of Shostakovich playing the Main Theme from GADFLY on the piano. When I heard it, I said, "That's not from GADFLY!" I put this disc on and listened all the way through to confirm. That's when I discovered that on the other versions of the GADFLY suite, the "INTRODUCTION - PRELUDE" track IS included. Folks, this is the BEST piece of the score! How could Chially leave it out!!

To be fair, Chially seems to include a few pieces here that aren't in the other recordings. I guess you really have to buy BOTH to get the full picture! And the performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra are top notch, as is the engineering. I just hate missing out on that one track!!

Sheer delight.......2006-04-13

Wonderful music all round. Typical light Shostakovich in mixing sweet and fun mood with darker, more nostalgic feelings.

Superbly performed and recorded too.

I first got this in 1997 when it first came out. I have lots of great CDs of light Shostakovich works which overlap somewhat, but this is probably my favourite of them of all.

The Cheryomushki excerpts in particular are so wonderful.

very very good and entertaining recording great sound .......2005-11-24

The sound is really incredible here. The conductor, Chailly, as well as Concertgebouworkest does/do a great job here. Especially the Gadfly i can recommend for its ambiance and genious ways. You will receive much good music for a full price. This recording almost doe not present bad stuff. I think almost everythging is great. Ther are always recommendations though.

More Shostakovich Irony.......2005-07-14

Shostakovich is so well known for his fifteen large-scale symphonies that some of his other orchestral compositions, up until the last twenty years, have fallen by the wayside. Thankfully, however, Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly has helped to correct this oversight with his recordings of the composer's lesser known music. This recording, known as "The Dance Album", focuses on what passes for "dance" music in Shostakovich's oevure--though one mustn't take the term too literally when dealing with a composer who dealt with irony much of his life.

Featured here are the orchestral suites Shostakovich composed for the 1955 movie THE GADFLY, the 1931 ballet THE BOLT, and the 1959 operetta MOSCOW-CHERYOMUSHKI (the latter in a four-movement suite making its first-ever appearance on record). The dance rhythms are very vibrant and very Russian, something like accelerated Tchaikovsky, especially in MOSCOW-CHERYOMUSHKI; and the quirky "Variations" movement in THE BOLT. The GADFLY suite, in the meantime, contains the famous "Romance" that is by far one of Shostakovich's most popular single movements. Each of these works is supposedly very supportive of the Stalin doctrine, though again one can't look too closely at that, given Shostakovich's consistently troubled relation with that tyrant of Iron Curtain political correctness.

On his previous Shostakovich excursions into "Jazz" and "Film" music, Chailly utilized his Concertgebouw Orchestra. On this 1995 London recording, he leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, the world-class ensemble that was very well known for having given many Shostakovich's works their premieres on this side of the Iron Curtain under the tenures of both Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. The orchestra's famed Philadelphia Sound, while it did change under the tenures of Riccardo Muti and Wolfgang Sawallisch, nevertheless remains undiminished, and Chailly makes the most of the orchestra's capabilities.

To many, this is certainly going to be new music, and to others very unfamiliar. But it is very worthwhile to have a recording of a great composer's lesser-known works, especially when the performance is by one of the world's finest orchestras under one of the great conductors of our time.

Excellent version, awful cover.......2001-05-14

This is one of the best versions of The Bolt and The Gadfly I've heard up until now.

The recording is clear and balanced. Track 13 "Contredanse" is very convincing. Erez Ofer's violin is always in control. There is a danger with this very romantic piece to get too shmotzi. Ofer's playing is just about right.

Tracks:

The Counterplan, op. 33: Presto
The Counterplan, op. 33: Andante
The Counterplan, op. 33: The Song Of The Counterplan
Alone, Op.26: March. The Street
Alone, Op. 26: Galop
Alone, Op.26: Barrel Organ
Alone, Op.26: March
Alone, Op.26: Altai
Alone, Op.26: In Kuzmina's Hut
Alone, Op.26: School Children
Alone, Op.26: Storm Scene: Storm Breaks
Alone, Op.26: Storm Scene: Snow Storm
Alone, Op.26: Storm Scene: Calm After The Storm
The Tale Of The Silly Little Mouse, Op. 56: The Tale Of The Silly Little Mouse
Hamlet, Op.116: Introduction
Hamlet, Op.116: Palace Music
Hamlet, Op.116: Ball At The Castle
Hamlet, Op.116: Ball
Hamlet, Op.116: In The Garden
Hamlet, Op.116: Military Music
Hamlet, Op.116: Scene Of The Poisoning
The Great Citizen, Op.55: Funeral March
Sofia Perovskaya, Op.132: Waltz
Pirogov, Op.76A: Scherzo
The Gadfly, Op.97: Romance
Pirogov, Op.76A: Finale

Amazon.com essential recording

Continuing Riccardo Chailly's topical Shostakovich recordings (he's already visited the composer's jazz-inflected and dance pieces), this collection of music for film offers the series greater heft. The music here is as entangled in politics and pop culture as the jazzy and dancy material, but here the emotions are more complex and the execution more exciting.

The films Shostakovich was scoring somehow sought legitimacy or outright approval from Soviet power regimes, but as in all his music, Shostakovich enacted subtle subversions. The parade-step march cadences of The Counterplan are exaggerated just enough to integrate all kinds of conflicting dark undertows, emphasized coyly by Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The excerpts from Alone are all over the map, spooky and turbulent and bleak in equal measures, in answer to so many mandated bright, blasting musical ventures elsewhere in the Soviet cultural regime. The works continue until 1967, with a twisty waltz from Sofia Perovskaya, which seems more like a distant comment on the notion of a dance piece than music scripted for dance. For its mix of big, lit sweeps and minute, shadowy motions, this is one of the best single-CD Shostakovich sets--themed or not--in print. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews:

recording of ligfhter music by Shos the heavy composer .......2005-11-24

This recording is excellent. The works are rather light so one does not notice at first that the recording is that good. After some listebning I notice and i Am sure you will do too. Pirogorov and Sofia Petrovskaja i like best. Great recording.

yep, i'd agree.......2004-12-29

This is the perfect album for anyone who believes Shostakovich was only capable of writing music that expressed his inner turmoil.
Here is an album of the composer just doing his job (writing soundtracks for propaganda films) and showing he's capable of playing the field like a consummate pro.
Many of the melodies may sound vaguely familiar, and it's no wonder; they were often pilfered by other assembly line arrangers for Hollywood musicals and other upbeat entertainment.
I'd have to agree with the previous reviewer, who thinks track 25 is the best. It's the Romance from "The Gadfly", which is arguably Shostakovich's greatest melody, played here with perfection; the "lazy" pizzicato and slightly staggered fourth beat in the measure is something I haven't heard before on this piece, and it works very nicely for these ears.

A Unique Collection of Works.......2000-11-25

The film scores of Dmitri Shostakovich are certainly not his best works, but they are definetly worth a look. There is a great range of music on this CD, from the joyful 'Tale of the Silly Little Mouse' to the harshness of 'Hamlet', and Chailly and his players give solid performances throughout. I wouldn't really recommend this as an introduction to Shostakovich's works, but if you're a fan, then it would make a great addition to your collection.

Track 25 is the best.......1999-06-17

Shostakivich wrote some 'heavy' music, but in his better moments he wrote some beautiful melodies (e.g. The Jazz Suite) and film themes including The Tale of the silly little mouse'. What a pity that you have to wait until track 25 for the best piece - the Romance from the 'Gadfly' (Theme music from the BBC series 'Reilly, ace of spies'). The definitive recording of this piece was the version by the USSR Cinema Symphony Orchestra, with Khatchaturian conducting, but the version on this recording is also excellent.

Average customer rating:

Let's Dance

Manufacturer: Analekta
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00003OSWL
Release Date: 2007-04-06

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Danses Populaires Roumaines/ Romanian Folkdances
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Danse Espagnole/ Country Dance
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