Shostakovich Incidental Music For King Lear
Incidental music to Shakespeare's tragedy for mezzo. And repressive, Shostakovich's music – even his theatre music – grew darker. Apr 16, 1989 - Two CD's from RCA (6003-2 and 7763-2) generously hold five of Shostakovich's film suites and the incidental music to the film 'King Lear.
April 16, 1989, Page 002029 The New York Times ArchivesDmitri Shostakovich, our chief symphonist of the mid-20th century, seems doomed to wear the somber laurels of his Leningrad symphony. Few today remember his reworking of 'Tea for Two,' and his lifelong work in film has disappeared with the flickering images on screen.Shostakovich wrote 36 film scores and was much sought after by film makers.
Other Soviet composers like Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Kabalevsky had a few successes (Eisenstein's 'Ivan the Terrible' and Dovzhenko's 'Aerograd,' respectively) and then withdrew from the field. Shostakovich, an avid filmgoer, as a young man played the piano for silent films, hoping some day to write for stage and screen. The opera stage did not work out. Pravda was vicious in its 1936 review of his opera 'Lady Macbeth of the District of Mtsensk.' 'The cinema was Shostakovich's workshop for high drama and long sweet melodies, elements which in the symphonies became meditation and grandeur and the short angular line. Film could also be great fun, often with lively dance scenes and usually an upbeat scherzo - Shostakovich's favorite movement.Soviet film studios offered Shostakovich carte blanche in terms of the orchestra's size and composition. Like his counterparts at M-G-M, he would ask for and get 125 players, including five Hawaiian guitars, though in the Soviet Union he had months to think and plan, since film editing took that long.
He did not let leitmotifs wander across the soundtrack like Hollywood scores, but used traditional forms like the fugue and sonata and at least one good waltz. AdvertisementTwo CD's from RCA (6003-2 and 7763-2) generously hold five of Shostakovich's film suites and the incidental music to the film 'King Lear.' ' Jose Serebrier conducts the Belgian Radio Symphony Orchestra with dramatic flair. Shostakovich's assistants edited the five suites for concert performance, and Mr.
Serebrier has done the same for 'Lear.' ' This means, Mr. Serebrier said in an interview, that filler phrases of 40 seconds or less have been removed. The 1970 music for 'King Lear' resembles Shostakovich's 1940 stage music and has yet to be performed in concert. The 1964 film suite from 'Hamlet' has no relation to the music he wrote earlier for a stage performance of the play. RCA's selections span the period from 1947 to 1970 - from the heyday of Stalinist heroism to the less restrictive yet still cautious socialist realism of the 1960's. In 1947, Shostakovich's film music had a few dissonant chords and relentless, brief melodies.
Then in 1948 Pravda delivered another strong rebuke to his music. The composer, a shy and deeply self-critical man, fell into a writing slump. But by 1955 Stalin was dead, and Shostakovich reached out again to mass audiences with direct statements that average two and a half minutes in length. The films 'Pirogov' (1947) and 'The Gadfly' (1955) suited Stalin's idea of national heroism. In the first, a dedicated doctor saves lives in Sevastopol during the Crimean War, and in the second an Italian revolutionary fights the Austrians who have invaded his homeland. Inspiring war stories were also encouraged. 'Five Days - Five Nights' (1960) shows the Russian soldiers who saved the famous paintings from Dresden's art gallery.
Throughout these films Shostakovich's music bolsters socialist realism. In 'Pirogov' the exemplary doctor appears in a trumpet solo that quickly grows to epic proportions. But the high point in the suite is a playful and dizzyingly fast scherzo.Shostakovich's music in 'The Gadfly' doubles the number of movements, each less varied than in 'Pirogov.' ' Overall, the effect is that of a well-crafted pops score. There are hints of Tchaikovsky, light French dances and a melting solo for violin.Shostakovich serves up similar dramatic goulash in 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear.' ' Grigori Kozinstev directed these acceptably literary films, stressing the social realism in Shakespeare. In Shostakovich's music we get several long (six-minute) movements on a grand scale, and there is a long public duel with a superb layering of orchestral harmonies.
'Hamlet' has brilliant nonmelodic writing, especially in the poisoning scene. The dance music sounds like something from Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet,' and Ophelia takes center stage with simple, bright solos for violin and bell lyra.' 'King Lear' is in Shostakovich's late mature style. Unfortunately, each of the brief nine movements is as terse as an epigram, except for the generous vocalize by a lamenting chorus.
The disk ends with the suite from 'Five Days - Five Nights,' music that rapidly changes moods in each movement and briefly quotes Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy.' ' All performances are clean and sometimes electric, with both bold and delicate passages sounding just right. But the earlier compact disk - with 'The Gadfly' and 'Pirogov' - has background hiss and poorly separated channels, faults that were corrected in the excellent, second CD.
Andris Nelsons – Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7; Incidental Music to “King Lear” (2019)FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz Time – 02:11:59 minutes 2,15 GB Genre: ClassicalStudio Master, Official Digital Download Digital Booklet, Front Cover © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)Following upon their previous Grammy-winning releases on Deutsche Grammophon of Shostakovich’s symphonies 5, 8, 9, and 10, this new, two-disc “Under Stalin’s Shadow” set from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra pairs live performances of the SYMPHONY NO. 7, “LENINGRAD,” from 1941, representing the resistance of the Russian people to the Nazi siege of that city, and the rarely heard, multi-faceted SYMPHONY NO. 6, from 1939.Filling out the set are the composer’s celebratory “Festive Overture,” Op.
96, and a suite from his incidental music to a 1940 Leningrad production of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”Tracklist:1. 6 in B Minor, Op. Largo (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 19:392. 6 in B Minor, Op. Allegro (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 06:243. 6 in B Minor, Op.
Presto (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 07:114. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Introduction and Ballad of Cordelia (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 04:345.
Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Fanfare No. 1 (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 00:216. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Return from the Hunt (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 00:547.
Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Fanfare No. 4 (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 00:138. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W.
Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Approach of the Storm (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 01:279. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op.
58a: Scene on the Steppe (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 02:0110. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Fanfare No.
2 (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 00:1511. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W.
Shakespeare, Op. 58a: The Blinding of Gloucester (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 01:0012. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op.
58a: The Military Camp (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 01:3813. Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: Fanfare No. 5 (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 00:1714.
Incidental Music to the Tragedy „King Lear” by W. Shakespeare, Op. 58a: March (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 01:2915. Festive Overture, Op. 96 (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 06:1516. 7 in C Major, Op.
60 “Leningrad”: 1. Allegretto (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 27:2117. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 “Leningrad”: 2. Moderato (poco allegretto) (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 11:3918.
Shostakovich Incidental Music For King Lear Movie
7 in C Major, Op. 60 “Leningrad”: 3. Adagio (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 20:3319. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 “Leningrad”: 4. Allegro non troppo (Live at Symphony Hall, Boston / 2017) 18:52Personnel:Boston Symphony OrchestraAndris Nelsons, conductorDownload.