Dmitri Shostakovich: The Gadfly Suite, Op. 97A I Georgy Sviridov: Snowstorm by Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra / Saulius Sondeckis / St. Petersburg Camerata / Alexander Titov (CD)

This album is dedicated to two masterpieces of Russian film music. It is also a reminiscence to Saulius Sondeckis, one of the figureheads of the former Soviet Union chamber music scene, who died last year, and to Georgy Sviridov, whose 20th anniversary of death is around the corner next year. The Gadfly Suite. Since his studenthood at the Leningrad Conservatory Dmitri Shostakovich had developed a strong connection to cinema. In the twenties of the last century he earned his living as a pianist at silent movie theatres, and the influence of this new media, which became highly important in the young Soviet Union, went along with the composer for a lifetime testified by an output of nearly 40 film scores. In 1955 Alexander Fainzimmer made a film based on the novel „The Gadfly“ by the English authoress Ethel Lilian Voynich, which was extremely popular and a bestseller in the Soviet Union. It was about the tragic story of a young freedom fighter in 19th-century Italy nicknamed „Gadfly“, who, as an illegitimate son of a cardinal ultimately turned into a rebelling dandy, who was finally executed by a firing squad. Shostakovich was intrigued by the plot and the environment where it took place, since this allowed him to play with Mediterranean musical patterns. Shostakovich’s associate and friend Levon Atovmian condensed the complete score down to a suite, consisting of twelve movements, which were used for this recording. The single titles already give an idea of what the music is about – pure entertainment, characterising the moving pictures by means of the music. A contredanse recalling the 18th century, an Italian tarantella type characterising a funfair, unusual classical instruments such as saxophone and hurdy-gurdy reminiscences during a humorous waltz, a romance, which recalls the famous „Méditation“ from Saint-Saëns „Thaïs“ (easygoing enough to become later the main theme of the British TV series „Reilly, Ace of Spies“) – this is musical mainstream at the highest level making the listening of this colourful and diverse suite a genuine pleasure. Snowstorm. Georgy Sviridov’s roots in Russian folk music made his connection to Alexander Pushkin nearly inevitable. So when in 1964 the film director Vladimir Basov planned a filmization of Pushkin’s Snowstorm, he approached Sviridov, who agreed by return. His musical depiction of the film, based on a short story from Pushkin’s Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, proves his talent and creativeness in folkloristic musical composition, using at the same time romantic stylistic elements, including the large romantic symphony orchestra. The richness of his musical language inspired by the poetic strength of Pushkin’s writing creates a scent of Hollywood flavour, which might not be a coincidence. The last scene from Snowstorm „Winter Road“ was allegedly plagiarized and used as the main theme for the popular video game series „Metal Gear Solid“. The present release comes from the 24 bit /96 khz state-of-the-at recordings out of the CuGate Classics archive. They are carefully remastered by the prestigious Grammy award-winning b-sharp studio Berlin using the original source material.

released December 1, 2019

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