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Hypothetically Murdered

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Label
Signum Classics
Catalogue number
SIGCD 051
EAN / barcode
0635212005125
Release date
31 August 2004
For Shostakovich the six years which span this recording (1931 – 1937) were a period of almost incredibly change and upheaval. It was at this time that the young man faced his first serious political difficulties which culminated in the terrors of 1936. In 1930, the composer met the celebrated vaudeville and pioneer jazz-performer Leonid Utiosov, an astonishing talent who introduced Shostakovich to the world of the theatre. Hypothetically Murdered was written in 1931 to open the Music Hall’s new season. After its initial run, the show was not revived and at some point, probably during the siege of Leningrad, the full-score, parts and libretto disappeared, leaving only a folder with around 40 pages of detailed piano sketches with instrumental indications. The Orchestral Suite Op. 31a, given its world premiere recording on this disc, consists of all the complete surviving orchestral numbers from the folder of sketches, reorchestrated from the composers scribbled notes, and in the style of his surviving theatre music from the period. Nearly six years after Hypotheically Murdered, Shostakovich finished his Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin Op. 46. By this time the composer, and his messages, have profoundly changed. These Romances are music of mature seriousness, and dark with sorrow set against the literary work of the greatest and most humane of all Russian writers. After finishing the Romances, Shostakovich went on to create the Fifth Symphony, using motifs and fragments from the first poem – Rebirth. Thus he was able to hide the words of Pushkin’s passionate poem, a declaration to the power of art to survive barbarism and oppression, beneath the musical argument of his symphonic finale. The fascinating and rarely performed Five Fragments, written in a single sitting in July 1935, are one of Shostakovich’s last experimental works. They prepare the ground for the composition of the massive Fourth Symphony, just as the Romances do for the Fifth. The popular Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 was written early in 1934. This delightful highly ironic music is a continuation of the spirit of laughter and adventure that had earlier led Shostakovich to work with the great Utiosov on Hypothetically Murdered. As with most ‘Soviet Jazz’ of the period there is not much jazz here, more of a feeling of operetta and cabaret music and also of Jewish songs. Despite such jollity there is always an undertone of depth and darkness, of real sadness and foreboding underlying the sentimentality and parody.
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Tracklist

  1. 01 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part I) - Transition to the Field Hospital 01:01
  2. 02 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part I) - Gallop 03:18
  3. 03 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part I) - Transition to the Field 01:04
  4. 04 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part I) - The Field (Landscape) 01:50
  5. 05 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - Introduction 00:13
  6. 06 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - Petrushka (Garmoshka) 01:12
  7. 07 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - Storm 01:01
  8. 08 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - The Arrival of the Lorry 00:18
  9. 09 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - Dance 01:18
  10. 10 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - Transition to the Kitchen (Jugglers and Waitresses) 01:34
  11. 11 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act II - Waitresses 02:20
  12. 12 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act III - Paradise I: The fight of the Cherubim 01:26
  13. 13 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act III - Paradise I: The Flight of the Angels 01:26
  14. 14 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act III - Adagio 02:30
  15. 15 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act III - Bacchanalia of John of Knonstadt and Paraskeva Piatnitsa 01:41
  16. 16 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act III - Waltz 03:33
  17. 17 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act III - The Archangel Gabriel's Number 01:51
  18. 18 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part II) - Polka 01:33
  19. 19 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part II) - March 01:40
  20. 20 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part II) - The River Bed 04:45
  21. 21 Hypothetically Murdered (1931) Orchestral Suite Op. 31A: Act I (Part II) - Finale: Dance of the Temporary Victors 03:51
  22. 22 Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op. 46 for Bass and Chamber Orchestra (1937): I. Rebirth 02:13
  23. 23 Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op. 46 for Bass and Chamber Orchestra (1937): II. Jealousy 01:32
  24. 24 Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op. 46 for Bass and Chamber Orchestra (1937): III. Foreboding 02:50
  25. 25 Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op. 46 for Bass and Chamber Orchestra (1937): IV. Stanzas 05:28
  26. 26 Five Fragments, Op. 42 (1935): I. Moderato 01:24
  27. 27 Five Fragments, Op. 42 (1935): II. Andante 01:17
  28. 28 Five Fragments, Op. 42 (1935): III. Largo 03:44
  29. 29 Five Fragments, Op. 42 (1935): IV. Moderato 02:36
  30. 30 Five Fragments, Op. 42 (1935): V. Allegretto 01:25
  31. 31 Suite No. 1 for Jazz Band, Sans Op. E (1924): I. Waltz 02:46
  32. 32 Suite No. 1 for Jazz Band, Sans Op. E (1924): II. Polka 01:53
  33. 33 Suite No. 1 for Jazz Band, Sans Op. E (1924): III. Foxtrot (Blues) 04:36

Source: MusicBrainz

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