Book Reviews 13

Shostakovich in Context

Dmitri Shostakovich New Collected Works in 150 Volumes


13_Shostakovich in Context
amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

Shostakovich in Context, edited by Rosamund Bartlett.
Oxford University Press, 2000.
224 p, 20 illustrations

Out of the Oxford University Press stable lunges yet another fine specimen devoted to matters Shostakovich. Hard on the heels of Fay’s Shostakovich: A Life comes Shostakovich in Context Fay this time being joined by a host of other writers and academics (no synonym there) whose names may be occasionally familiar, often unheard-of.

Un-nameable sources (but highly reliable, this is true) inform me that in the last 10 years OUP have binned two hugely important Shostakovich-related books, both translations from original writings in Russian from Russians still living in Russia (such a novelty these days); one a major collection of letters from the composer and the other a substantial biography of some authority and of enormous potential.

Utterly fine and understandable, if OUP’s guiding force is to avoid flooding the market with definitive biographies and priceless first-hand testimonies…

The Shostakovich world has been plagued sufficiently by endless reviews and opinions pertaining to A Life. Not a surprise then that my wish to do likewise, here, failed to cut much ice with the Journal’s Editor. Suffice it to say that the tomes of Wilson, Hulme and Meyer (happily I read German) will feel little respite from my constant referrings – even after the arrival of the two new pedigrees.

So to Context. What context, and by whom? Two possible rejoinders here – (i) Look back to DSCH Journal number 1 and be plunged into the harsh winter months of Ann Arbor, Michigan 1994. Here, read the reviews and extracts from the conferences held under the banner Shostakovich : The Man and His Age’, or (ii) read on.

OK, well I admit that this is something of an exaggeration – of course OUP’s new compilation contains full texts as well as newly-commissioned articles and translations. (In fact it’s an odds-on bet that many of the six year-old papers have been ‘adjusted’, to a greater or lesser extent, in an attempt to adjust to the context of Shostakovich in 2000. Rosamund Bartlett, the Editor, admits freely that not only were some of these papers from 1994 USA, but that some also appeared in a Russian-language compilation dated 1996, on the 90th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
But enough of then – to now!

First, a fast-flowing but slightly awkward introduction from Bartlett (I picture her staring blankly, over her toast, at the headline ‘But Why 6 Years?’) She then hands over the reins to the senior exponent of revisionist stake-burning, one Richard Taruskin. His essay is entitled ‘Shostakovich and Us’ and sets out initially to spell out the pitfalls of losing sight of the true face of irony, in works by, and about Shostakovich. He takes Glikman to task for his over-insistent commentary style in Letters to a Friend – an argument I, too, find holds water (an English edition of Letters one day, perhaps?) He writhes at Volkov’s commentaries but hails those of the 1980 Fay etc.

In short, he wishes to argue that, whilst he doesn’t deny the use of subtexts in Shostakovich’s work, the final emotional code to unlocking the psyche behind the creative impulsion belongs equally to sender and receiver – “It is always Shostakovich and us.”

That’s only the first part of RT’s paper. Part II argues broadly against the defining of latency in musical content – the categorisation of artistic motivation, the transformation of this latent element in the creative élan vital into the “superfluous”. No prizes for guessing against whose backside the Taruskin whip lands fairly and squarely – one Ian MacDonald, and his The New Shostakovich. (Yes, “travesty” is in there, too – flick to page 12.)

Of the 29 pages allocated to Taruskin, none are more agitated and, may I venture, more contumelious than those in which he examines the role of the Seventh Symphony, along with a trench-full of critique and conjecture from the 40s up to the present day. Same theme, different battleground. Whilst content to cite Virgil Thompson’s 1945 debasement of the Seventh and likewise Haggin’s 1949 hack job, he saves the big guns for IM, in scene reminiscent of Russell’s blood-letting in The Music Lovers. Finally on the Seventh he levels with us that Mazel’s hypotheses aren’t all bad – his “algebraic formula” being deemed to be as good as we’ll get. (NB. “The genetic fallacy remains in place.”)

In more variations on the same theme he turns his attention to the Fourth Symphony and Eighth Quartet (the latter displeases him, being hors cadre, the former bemuses him into drawing thematic parallels of the kind he dismisses elsewhere!)

This is at least readable Taruskin – we’re even spared the pomposity of a great deal of his dictates elsewhere (try to flit your way through Defining Russia Musically and you’ll see…)

That it contributes very much to the picture of Shostakovich many of you may be striving to see, is extremely doubtful.

David Fanning’s pint-sized contribution to the tome errs on the indigestible, musicologically-speaking (for us lesser mortals, I hasten to add), but ultimately reveals some interesting and mindful layers through excavations into Shostakovich’s use of thematic materials, unfolding some of his large-scale works, such as Lady Macbeth.

Fanning proceeds to tackle certain academically renowned writers such as Eckart Kröplin and Richard Longman through their misreading of harmonic and tonal language within certain key passages of Shostakovich’s substantial works. In looking at certain aspects of study into the structures of the Tenth Symphony, he is clearly on home territory (cf Fanning’s monograph on the Tenth Symphony, The Breath of the Symphonist).

Fanning’s assertion that under-research into composers’ exploitation of “the intersection between mode and major-minor tonality” limits our understanding of how we “experience” Shostakovich’s music as compared with what we often read about it, is a fascinating one.

In the second part of his offering, Fanning concentrates more on the potential for differing interpretative views of the music’s character. He employs contrasting (and to some extent contradictory) examples of approaches to the Ninth Symphony – notably Kondrashin’s dark-canvassed finale pitched against Haitink’s light and carefree allure.

I find Fanning to be frank and open in this essay. He freely quotes, commends and slams the Taruskin and MacDonald clans with equanimity, attributing accurate insights into Shostakovich’s musical psyche to both players. Has Fanning taken the musico-philosophical corner here? His closing words – “By all means let us continue uncovering ideological, autobiographical, and documentary ‘subtexts’, but let us also not forget that musical meaning is just as important a part of the meaning of Shostakovich’s music.”

Carry on, David, we’re listening!

In ‘Shostakovich’s Literary Style’ author Svetlana Savenko labours her examination of the composer’s differing ‘methods’ within the written domain, drawing largely upon the Glikman letters. She takes us on a mini-journey through ‘telegraphic’, ‘plain’, ‘Zoshchenko’, ‘tautological’ and ‘enumerative’ styles before landing at the vital possibility of a connection between the language Shostakovich used for written correspondence and that which finds its way into his musical oeuvre.

Whilst much of the material may be familiar to the well-read Shostakovich fan, I bow to the originality of this topic and hope that the writer may have further opportunities to elaborate upon her thesis.

A brief point of order here – and a niggling editorial blunder.
You will all have gathered by now that the Michigan conferences were held in 1994, the St Petersburg book was published in 1996 and ‘Context’ in 2000. How eccentric, then, to find Savenko referring to Shostakovich’s death as having occurred “a mere twenty years ago or so” AND to a letter to Glikman, “quoted earlier in this volume”. Not very meticulous, OUP. And, sadly, this isn’t an isolated occurrence.

Onto a paper based on the 1994 talk given in Michigan by Laurel Fay, entitled ‘Shostakovich, LASM, and Asafiev’. (If you didn’t know your LASMs from your ASMs from your RAPMs you certainly will by the end of her piece.)

I found this chapter to be one of the most interesting of the book. Fay painstakingly plots the rises and falls of such vital institutions as the ‘Leningrad Association of Contemporary Music’ (LASM) in the context of the emergence of Shostakovich’s first mature works, most notably the First Symphony. She employs letters sent to Boleslav Yavorsky, a Moscow theorist and evident mentor of Shostakovich during the 1920s. They bear witness to the composer’s alarm at what he perceived as an ever-present stranglehold in establishments such as the Leningrad Conservatoire. (These letters are not yet published in their entirety in Russian, let alone English). Inherently implicated was Boris Asafiev, also founding brother of LASM (although elected to the ‘artistic council’ whereas Shostakovich was sidelined).

In short – rare insights into musical life in the Russia of the 1920s linked to glimpses of the personal and musical intrigue that constituted daily life for the country’s artists.

The second part of the article deals with Shostakovich’s fluctuating relations with Asafiev, an immensely prominent figure within the musical establishment until his death in 1949. Fay describes with compelling precision the manner in which Asafiev lent the 19 year-old Leningrader his support, along with Nikolai Malko, for a first performance of his First Symphony. As Fay puts it ‘the honeymoon came to an end on 12 May 1926 when Asafiev failed to attend the première…’ The story ends very far from there, however, as Fay draws upon many sources, including, of all documents, Testimony (more precisely the picture Volkov himself chooses to paint of Asafiev) to paint a tableau of a Shostakovich who “bristled” at the very mention of Asafiev’s name.

A picture of two artists simply unable to find a professional or personal common ground, and as Fay concludes, “I think we will find that the issue of Asafiev’s constructive role in Shostakovich’s development, and perhaps in the history of Soviet music as a whole, has been carefully mythologised as so much else in Shostakovich’s biography.”

Another non-Michigan contribution is without doubt one of the more startling. Ludmilla Mikheyeva-Sollertinsky is the daughter of Ivan, Shostakovich’s so-dear friend and confidant. A hundred and fifty of the composer’s letters have survived, and here the present author titillates the readership with a small selection of correspondence from the 1920s and 30s.

The letters plot, broadly speaking, the rise and fall of the composer’s fortunes, reflected in the contrasting tone and colour of contents such as:

“…the concert (my performance anyhow) was a great success. I got a lot of applause and played three encores. In tails I look like an elegant footman. Several times I caught myself saying: ‘May I help you, sir?’ instead of ‘Good evening’ or ‘Good bye’, just like Court Counsellor Lakeyich (look up Chekhov’s story Romance with a Double Bass…)”

– with

“… I absolutely count on you not to abandon me at this exceptionally difficult time in my life, because if there is one person whose friendship I treasure like the apple of my eye it is you. So please for God’s sake write.”

The first extract emanates from 1930, during a concert tour and the second at the latter end of 1935 during rehearsals for the doomed Limpid Stream ballet (targeted in February 1936 in the wake of the ‘Muddle instead of Music’ article.)

The most significant line in the entire book, perhaps, is LM-Sollertinsky’s final – ‘They [the letters] will be published in full at a future date.’ Anyone with an interest in Shostakovich’s life and music must hope that this date is not too distant, for these letters promise to be far and away the most significant to emerge since the composer’s death.

Following on in an obediently chronological fashion, the Fifth Symphony – or more precisely, opus 47’s final movement is singled out for a contextual examination. Moscow-based Inna Barsov goes part of the way to tackling a goodly number of the learned hypotheses that have risen up in recent times. Here ‘codes’ and ‘masks’ abound, in arguments that occasionally smack of the circumstantial (cf. the parallels with a cluster of other composers’ works, including Berlioz and Strauss) but the arguments ultimately impress upon the reader the “tightrope Shostakovich had to walk in the 1930s between ‘social demands’ (the public) and ‘grand passions’ (the private)… at the same time placating Stalin’ [quote from Bartlett’s introduction].

Many musical examples are offered, as are textual exhibits from the contemporary Soviet press of 1934 and from Shaporina’s diary of 1937 [see page 11 of this edition of the Journal] Barsova’s analysis of both sets of evidence leans heavily towards the view that the Symphony was written in a deliberately equivocal fashion : “It is as if the finale somehow eluded the control of self-censorship and wrote itself. In any case, it was the art of music, in which even the tiniest material elements ‘are devoid of finite meanings’, in contrast to words, which gave Shostakovich secret freedom in the 1930s, and the chance to tell the truth about himself and his times.”

In ‘Shostakovich and Kruchonykh’ Russian harpsichordist and scholar Olga Komok tells the tale of two neighbours – Shostakovich and one Alexei Yeliseyevich Kruchonykh,
futurist, bibliographer and literary collector.

The pair were thrown together in 1943, during Shostakovich’s Moscow separation from his family (a well-documented episode appearing in his letters to Glikman). Komok investigates the likelihood that their paths had crossed earlier, in the 1920s through, significantly, the revelation that Kruchonykh had written a poem inspired by a filmed version of Leskov’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in 1927 (directed by C. Sabinsky).

Komok generously includes the poem in its entirety, illustrating with absolute perfection its creator’s style:

Sergey the horny bull
Sipping tea from a dish
Drinks away the flogging
He got from grandpa,
Ogles Katerina,
As she, plump and stupid, blushes…

Komok also reveals the existence, in Kruchonykh’s collection, of Shostakovich’s sketches for his Second Piano Sonata and his Ninth Symphony, and examines the differences from their final, published editions.

Ultimately Komok’s article has little new to contribute to studies of Shostakovich’s world-view in the early 1940s, but its well-documented, whimsical character makes for stimulating reading nonetheless.

I shan’t linger over David Haas’ meticulously formulated ‘Shostakovich’s Eighth – C minor against the grain’ – suffice it to say that you’ll need to be equipped not only with the score of the Eighth, but also that of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (the C minor connection). Haas’ argument for disciples of Shostakovich’s great war-time symphony to immerse themselves in the musical notation of this symphony (rather than within the realms of its might-be inspirational sources) might seem a little fanciful, but he does construct a certain number of highly convincing contextual arguments (by pointing out in equal measures the convergent and divergent elements in his chosen subjects) – put a rainy afternoon aside to see how.

At last! The definitive overview of Rayok – Shostakovich’s most infamous posthumous opus. The specialist at hand is Manashir Yakubov, chief archivist at the Shostakovich Archive and family home in Moscow. No more, the hesitations over the work’s first light of day – very definitely 1948, and probably from May onwards (texts employed by Zhdanov, and taken up by Shostakovich, appeared in Sovetskaya Muzika on 17th April).

Documents, including Glikman’s letters, are solid enough proof of this fact. Next to the late 1950s, and the composer’s own parodying preface entitled ‘From The Publisher’, initially conceived, along the lines of Musorgsky’s Rayok, for solo voice. And so it was that the chorus emerged along with ‘Comrade Troikin’ (‘Number Three’), provoked (or inspired) by one D.T. Shepilov’s mispronunciation of Rimsky-Korsakov’s name (“Rimsky-KorsÁkov”) during the Soviet Composers’ Congress of 1957.

Yakubov briefly mentions (and dismisses) Lebedinsky’s claim to authorship of the text to Rayok, principally through archive material in Shostakovich’s own hand, exposing (if the evidence is conclusive) several flaws in Lebedinsky’s pretensions.

That Shostakovich fully expected to have the work performed in the early part of the 1960s may well come as a surprise to the averagely well-informed Shostakovich disciple. He did, but in the wake of new ‘artistic campaigns’ and, more seriously, following the Thirteenth Symphony near-débacle, the work was once more confined to the drawer.

Well not quite. Not for the first time in his creative career, Shostakovich fed upon the disheartening situation, providing himself with the required inspirational impetus to append a ‘new’ ending to the work, although, fascinatingly, the final moments appear still to be unresolved, as Yakubov surmises, “consistent with the notion of an unfinished work still in a rough state supposed to have been found in a drawer.”

The second part of Yakubov’s study focuses in on the variety of musical sources to be found carefully, and not so carefully knitted into Shostakovich’s score for Rayok. From the ‘DSCH’ motive, through Suliko, Lezginka, Moscow, Cheryomushki, to Tikhon Khrennikov’s song “We’ll tell you the story of how we sat down”. Plenty of musical examples make for rich pickings.

The final block of this sometimes over-dense, yet eminently accessible essay concerns itself with the historical and textual input into the work’s raison d’être. He leads us through the darkened corridors of the St Petersburg Conservatoire of Musorgsky’s days, when accusations of “harmonicide” were levelled against the so-called New Russian School (or ‘The Mighty Handful’) by figures such as Zaremba, Rostislav and Serov. Indeed, it was in this context that Musorgsky conceived and composed his Rayok, parodying in the process much of the musical establishment, in his ‘theatre of pictures’.

Yakubov also traces Shostakovich’s probable fascination with the rayoshniki in the Petrograd of the early 1920s, leading him towards the period in which his own brand of musical satire emerged from the catastrophe of 1948 (and later.) Yakubov’s intensely thorough journey across the fine print of Shostakovich’s libretto will not necessary appeal to the non-aficionados, such is the degree of detail (who said “pedantry”?), but the essay does shed light on many of the odder moments of this astonishing piece.

Once again access to the full score, whilst not being essential, adds a layer of appreciation to Yakubov’s investigative style, which I found too straying at times.

(Oh, and if you’re a student of Russian, you’re likely to come across a few new, rather “interesting” words in here…)

Elmira Nazirova: a name that will forever rhyme with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony.

David Fanning came the closest to unlocking the mystery to the laden horn theme in the third movement, a theme interplaying, with wanton alacrity alongside his ‘one and only’ DSCH theme. But it took several letters of impassioned forthrightness from He to She beginning in April 1953 for the light finally to shine on his infatuation with Nazirova, a musician from the distant climes of Baku, who had studied in Shostakovich’s class in 1947. The story is well known enough, the Journal [No 1, Summer 1994, pp 24-25] having already covered the circumstances behind the appearance of the mysterious ‘E-A-E-D-A’ theme.

Allusions to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (idée fixe to boot) are raised, in addition. However, what in fact makes Kravetz’s chapter in this book of special importance is the inclusion of an extended interview she undertook with Shostakovich’s erstwhile correspondent. Nazirova was initially unwilling to talk, we are told, and continued to refuse to show Kravetz more than a handful of the 34 letters she still had in her possession.

Nazirova plots their first meetings, in the 1940s, in Moscow, through further encounters in Baku in 1952 before finally witnessing the first performance of ‘their’ Symphony (my quotes) in 1953. Her testimony is at times awkward, she was clearly nervous, but she is simultaneously brimming with warm memories for this man for whom she became the embodiment of a supreme, yet intangible passion.

Uninspiring meets factual and historical in Lyudmila Kovnatskaya’s paper entitled ‘Shostakovich and Britten: Some Parallels.’ Which pretty well sums up the fifteen pages devoted to this subject – straightforward, lacking in much
originality.

Beginning with an overview of the formative periods of their respective careers and a study of the differing genres in which the two composers worked, Kovnatskaya plods through the musical life-stories of each man, singling out connective highlights here, painting the odd inspirational landscape there, but with an application bordering on the over-earnest.

Later in the article we are treated to some bona fide path-crossing as Shostakovich refers to Britten in 1968 (“Britten’s works affect me powerfully. From the operas and the War Requiem to the quartets and the Pushkin songs”) just as the English composer had singled out Shostakovich in 1935. Fans of the Russian Funeral March (as utilised by Shostakovich in the Eleventh Symphony) will be suitably appeased at the writer’s multiple references to this early piece by Britten, others might be simply bemused…

The penultimate contribution emanates from Caryl Emerson, of Princeton University, and enjoys the splendid title of ‘Shostakovich, Tsvetayeva, Pushkin, Musorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death and Survival’.

Emerson sets out initially to compare Musorgsky’s choice and treatment of Golenishchev-Kutuzov’s famous cycle of poems to the Tsvetayeva verses selected by Shostakovich for his opus 143. In doing so she aims to compare Musorgsky’s (the “unforgiving realist”) view of death – “there were no survivors to remember the deceased, no poets left alive to round out the story or bow to the audience”, to Shostakovich, the survival-seeker, bordering, even, on the optimistic through Tsvetayeva’s “fate of the poet” thematic strand.

The writer stealthily investigates the composer’s choice of verses, arguing for a ‘poets’ motif and sketching Tsvetayeva, Pushkin and Akhmatova’s as well Shostakovich’s own voice as they radiate out from the tragic Russian poet’s lines.

In short, Emerson’s essay is an illuminating study of Tsvetayeva’s work, through which Shostakovich’s settings allow the “fates of all poets [to] fuse” and which she considers as having been considered, by Shostakovich, as “a perfect twentieth-century poet to prolong in music.”

From Shostakovich and Tsvetayeva, to Shostakovich and Anton Chekhov, and editor Rosamund Bartlett’s chosen theme for a three-part paper. In it, she explores with gentle expertise the very great admiration Shostakovich held for the prose writer and dramatist’s work, in particular view of his completion of Fleishman’s opera Rothschild’s Violin and, more significantly, of his planned operatic project based on The Black Monk.

The latter was never to be achieved, Shostakovich’s death in August of the same year effectively ending his forty-five year project for an operatic adaptation of Chekhov’s “story about death and a waste of life.” (He had originally suggested to Fleishman that his young protégé base his first major project on The Black Monk).

If Bartlett sets out (as she informs us) to “examine the importance of Chekhov as a figure of moral integrity during the bleakest years of Shostakovich’s life, and the nature of Shostakovich’s identification with the writer”, in my view she only partly succeeds.

Probably too restricted by the limited space available to her, and perhaps the reduced academic nature of the contributions to the book (preach, then practice?)

In a not insignificant gesture, Bartlett deigns to acknowledge Testimony’s “enigmatic comment” pertaining to The Black Monk’s relevance to the Fifteenth Symphony, accepting that “one may make some conjectures.”

Finally, Bartlett concludes with the theme ‘Shostakovich as literary critic’, postulating his “sensitivity to the musical qualities inherent in Chekhov’s methods of narrative construction, and his contention that a type of sonata form can be detected in The Black Monk”, to illustrate just how deeply Shostakovich felt intrinsically drawn to the writer’s methods of narrative construction, and of the story’s central and hallucinatory idée fixe motifs.

A fitting end to the book, and an appropriate moment to recall that Shostakovich asked his wife to read another of Chekhov’s works, Gusev, to him the night he died.

So, to buy or not to buy? For the average reader (whoever he or she might be), £45 pounds represents a great deal of cash to hand across for one book. And a 200+ page book to boot. True, a certain quantity of the documentary material here is unique, bordering on the indispensable and is well catalogued; on the other hand second hand and reworked material abounds here too.

A good buy at a half of the cover price – better to get down to your library.

Nigel Papworth
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13_collectedwork

Dmitri Shostakovich New Collected Works in 150 Volumes

“A unique project in contemporary music.”

Publishing house DSCH announces the first issues of the 150 volume New Collected Works of Shostakovich.

The New Collected Works adds to and updates the 42-volume Collected Works of Shostakovich, (published between 1970 and 1980). The new collection offers a vastly more comprehensive content, in presenting the veritable ‘complete musical heritage of the composer’, including every work composed by Shostakovich in addition to the majority of his arrangements of other composers’ music.

Among the works not included in the previous edition are the American and English Folk Songs, Anti-Formalist Rayok, a Waltz suite for symphony orchestra in eight movements, the composer’s version of Six Romances on verses of English Poets for bass and full symphony orchestra Opus 62a, Poem of the Motherland Opus 74, Two Pieces (Elegy and Polka) for string quartet, Moderato for cello and piano and several marches for a brass band composed between 1940 and 1960.
Scores to the ballets The Golden Age and The Bolt will be published for the first time as will the first edition of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1932), symphonic sketches from 1934, the Review Conditionally Killed, suites from Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in three movements (1932), five interludes from the opera Katerina Izmailova, ‘Suite for Jazz N°. 2’ in three movements (1938) and suites for small symphony orchestra in eight movements (‘Suite for Jazz Orchestra N° 2’ – second version); previously unknown chamber works (for example – two scherzos, the Theme and Variations in B minor, Fugues for piano from the 1930s, Allegretto for string quartet, Preludes for string quartet, piano and trumpet; also, unpublished music for the cinema and theatre, Shostakovich’s arrangements of his own symphonies and quartets in addition to the orchestration of works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Braga, Strauss, Youmans, Schumann, Fleishman and Tishchenko as well as piano arrangements of Stravinsky and Honegger symphonies – and many others.

For the first time, signed facsimiles of numerous sketches and drafts by Shostakovich will be published, of particular importance to those studying his creative work.

Each volume is accompanied by written commentaries, in addition to an article containing detailed information on the history of the works included, the composer’s own comments on his works, information on the concert or stage history, first performances and performers, dedications, publication dates, text (lyrics) sources as well as the various arrangements made for performing use.

The New Collected Works of Shostakovich will be published in two languages : Russian and English. Texts employed in the works will be published in the original language and accompanied by a Cyrillic transliteration and an accurate, word-for-word translation into English.

The new publication will be organised on a “one work (symphony, concerto, etc.) – one volume” basis (excepting works such as piano miniatures and other short pieces).

The New Collected Works are divided up into 15 categories according to genre: symphonies, theatre music, concertos, instrumental (chamber) ensembles, piano music, etc.

The publication will be realised in accordance with modern graphical standards, in hard-back with golden embossments and will be published as a limited edition [500 – Ed].

Subscriptions will be available for the complete set of the New Collected Works or for individual series or volumes. The first volumes are now available – contact the Centre Chostakovitch for more details:

Emmanuel Utwiller / Tatyana Maximov
19bis, rue des Saints Peres
75006 Paris
téléphone : (+33) (0)1 47 03 90 43
fax : (+33) (0)1 47 03 90 23
email : emmanuel.utwiller@chostakovitch.org

NEW COLLECTED WORKS OF DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

§ Published for the first time.
§§ Published in full for the first time.

I Series

SYMPHONIES

Volume 1. Symphony No. 1. opus 10. Score.
Volume 2. Symphony No. 2. opus 14. Score.
Volume 3. Symphony No. 3. opus 20. Score.
Adagio (Fragment from Symphony of 1934). Sans opus Score. §
Volume 4. Symphony No. 4. opus 43. Score.
Volume 5. Symphony No. 5. opus 47. Score.
Volume 6. Symphony No. 6. opus 54. Score.
Volume 7. Symphony No. 7. opus 60. Score.
Volume 8. Symphony No. 8. opus 65. Score.
Volume 9. Symphony No. 9. opus 70. Score.
Volume 10. Symphony No. 10. opus 93. Score.
Volume 11. Symphony No. 11. opus 103. Score.
Volume 12. Symphony No. 12. opus 112. Score.
Volume 13. Symphony No. 13. opus 113. Score
Volume 14. Symphony No. 14. opus 135. Score.
Volume 15. Symphony No. 15. opus 141. Score.
Volume 16. Symphony No. 1. opus 10. Arranged for piano.
Volume 17. Symphony No. 2. opus 14. Author’s arrangement for voice and piano. §
Volume 18. Symphony No. 3. opus 20. Author’s arrangement for voice and piano. §
Volume 19. Symphony No. 4. opus 43. Author’s arrangement for piano. §
Volume 20. Symphony No 5. opus 47. Arranged for piano.
Volume 21. Symphony No. 6. opus 54. Author’s arrangement for piano. §
Volume 22. Symphony No. 7. opus 60. Arranged for piano.
Volume 23. Symphony No. 8. opus 65. Arranged for piano.
Volume 24. Symphony No. 9. opus 70. Author’s arrangement for piano. §
Volume 25. Symphony No. 10. opus 93. Author’s arrangement for piano.
Volume 26. Symphony No 11. opus 103. Author’s arrangement for piano.
Volume 27. Symphony No. 12. opus 112. Arranged for piano.
Volume 28. Symphony No. 13. opus 113. Author’s arrangement for voice and piano.
Volume 29. Symphony No. 14. opus 135. Author’s arrangement for voice and piano.
Volume 30. Symphony No. 15. opus 141. Author’s arrangement for piano.

II Series

ORCHESTRAL COMPOSITIONS

Volume 31. Scherzo. opus 1. Theme and Variations. opus 3. Scherzo. opus 7. Overture and Finale for Erwin Dressel’s Opera ‘Armer Columbus’. opus 23. Five Fragments for Orchestra. opus 42. Score.
Volume 32. Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1. Sans opus ‘Tahiti Trot’. opus 16. Two Scarlatti Pieces. Transcribed for wind orchestra. opus 17 § Ceremonial March. For wind orchestra (composed in 1941. Sans opus).
German March. For wind orchestra (from the film “Warmongers”). Sans opus § March of the Soviet Militia. For wind orchestra. opus 139. Score.
Volume 33. Suite for Jazz (Variety) Orchestra No. 2 in eight parts. Sans opus Score. §
Volume 34. Waltzes. Suite for symphony orchestra in eight parts. Sans opus Score.
Volume 35. Festive Overture. opus 96. Overture on Russian and Kirghiz Folk-songs. opus 115. Score.
Volume 36. ‘Novorossiisk Chimes’. Sans opus Funeral-Triumphal Prelude in Memory of the Fallen Heroes of Stalingrad. opus 130. Symphonic Poem “October”. opus 131. Score.
Volume 37. Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1. Sans opus § Festive Overture. opus 96. ‘Novorossiisk Chimes’. Sans opus Symphonic Poem ‘October’. opus 131. Piano score.

III Series

INSTRUMENTAL CONCERTOS

Volume 38. Piano Concerto No. 1. opus 35. Score.
Volume 39. Piano Concerto No. 1. opus 35. Piano score.
Volume 40. Piano Concerto No. 2. opus 102. Score.
Volume 41. Piano Concerto No. 2. opus 102. Piano score.
Volume 42. Violin Concerto No. 1. opus 77. Score.
Volume 43. Violin Concerto No. 1. opus 77. Piano score.
Volume 44. Violin Concerto No. 2. opus 129. Score.
Volume 45. Violin Concerto No. 2. opus 129. Piano score.
Volume 46. Cello Concerto No. 1. opus 107. Score.
Volume 47. Cello Concerto No. 1. opus 107. Piano score.
Volume 48. Cello Concerto No. 2. opus 126. Score.
Volume 49. Cello Concerto No. 2. opus 126. Piano score.

IV Series

COMPOSITIONS FOR THE STAGE

Volume 50. ‘The Nose’. opus 15. Opera. Score.
Volume 51. ‘The Nose’. opus 15. Opera. Piano score.
Volume 52. ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District’. opus 29. Opera. Score
Volume 53. ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District’. opus 29. Opera. Piano score.
Volume 54. ‘The Gypsies’. Sans opus Opera (Fragments) § ‘The Great Lightning’. Sans opus ‘Conditionally Killed’. opus 31. (Instrumentation by Gerard McBurney.) Music to the stage revue § Score.
Volume 55. ‘The Gypsies’. Sans opus Opera (Fragments). ‘The Story of the Silly Baby Mouse’. opus 56. Children’s opera. ‘The Great Lightning’. Sans opus ‘Conditionally Killed’. opus 31. Music to the stage revue. Piano score.
Volume 56. ‘The Gamblers’. Sans opus Opera. Score.
Volume 57. ‘The Gamblers’. Sans opus Opera. Piano score.
Volume 58. ‘Katerina Izmailova’. opus 29/114. Opera. Score.
Volume 59. ‘Katerina Izmailova’. opus 29/114. Opera. Piano score.
Volume 60. ‘The Golden Age’. opus 22. Ballet. Score. §
Volume 61. ‘The Golden Age’. opus 22. Ballet. Piano score.
Volume 62. ‘The Bolt’. opus 27. Ballet. Score. §
Volume 63. ‘The Bolt’. opus 27. Ballet. Piano score.
Volume 64. ‘The Limpid Stream’. opus 39. Ballet. Score. §
Volume 65. ‘The Limpid Stream’. opus 39. Ballet. Piano score.
Volume 66. ‘Moscow., Cheryomushki’. opus 105. Operetta. Score.
Volume 67. ‘Moscow, Cheryomushki’. opus 105. Operetta. Author’s piano score. §

V Series

SUITES FROM OPERAS AND BALLETS

Volume 68. Suite from the Opera ‘The Nose’. opus 15(a). Score.
Volume 69. Five Interludes from the Opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District’ (‘Katerina Izmailova’). opus 114(a). Score. §
Volume 70. Suite from the Ballet ‘The Golden Age’. opus 22(a). Score.
Volume 71. Suite from the Ballet ‘The Bolt’. opus 27(a). Score.
Volume 72. Suite from the Ballet ‘The Limpid Stream’. opus 39(a). Score.

VI Series

COMPOSITIONS FOR CHOIR AND ORCHESTRA
(WITH OR WITHOUT SOLOISTS)

Volume 73. ‘Native Leningrad’. opus 63. Vocal-symphonic suite in four parts. Score.
Volume 74. ‘Poem of the Motherland’. opus 74. For soloists, choir and orchestra. Score.
Volume 75. ‘Anti-Formalist Rayok’. Sans opus.
Volume 76. ‘The Song of the Forests’. opus 81. Oratorio. Score.
Volume 77. ‘The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland’. opus 90. Cantata. Score.
Volume 78. ‘The Execution of Stepan Razin’. opus 119. Cantata for bass soloist, mixed choir and orchestra. Score.
Volume 79. ‘Native Leningrad’. opus 63. Vocal-symphonic suite. Piano score.
Volume 80. ‘Poem of the Motherland’. opus 74. For soloists, choir and orchestra. Piano score. §
Volume 81. ‘The Song of the Forests’. opus 81. Piano score.
Volume 82. ‘The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland’. opus 90. Cantata. Piano score.
Volume 83. ‘The Execution of Stepan Razin’. opus 119. Cantata for bass soloist, mixed choir and orchestra. Piano score.

VII Series

UNACCOMPANIED CHORAL COMPOSITIONS.
ARRANGEMENTS OF RUSSIAN FOLKSONGS

Volume 84. Ten Poems on Texts by Revolutionary Poets. opus 88. For mixed choir a cappella.
Volume 85. Two Russian Folksongs. opus 104. Adaptation for mixed choir a cappella. Ten Russian Folksongs. Adaptation for solo voices, mixed choir and piano (composed in 1951).
Volume 86. ‘Loyalty’. Eight ballads for male choir a cappella. opus 136. Unaccompanied Choirs and Songs: ‘The Motherland Hears’, ‘How Long Will My Heart Ache and Moan?’, Vocalise from the Film ‘The Friends’, Vocalise from the Film ‘The Fall of Berlin’, ‘My Rowan-Tree’ from the Film ‘Belinsky’, ‘People’s Lamentation’ from the Film ‘King Lear’.

VIII Series

COMPOSITIONS FOR SOLO VOICE(S) WITH
ORCHESTRA

Volume 87. Two Fables by Ivan Krylov. opus 4. For mezzo-soprano soloist or choir and orchestra. Six Romances on Japanese Poems. opus 21. For tenor soloist and orchestra. Three Romances on Poems by Alexander Pushkin. opus 46(a). For bass soloist and chamber orchestra.
Volume 88. Six Romances on Verses by W. Raleigh, R. Burns and W. Shakespeare. opus 62(a). For bass soloist and symphony orchestra § Six Romances on Verses by W. Raleigh, R. Burns and W. Shakespeare. opus 62/140. For bass soloist and chamber orchestra.
Volume 89. ‘From Jewish Folk Poetry’. opus 79(a). Song cycle for soprano, contralto and tenor soloists and orchestra. Six Songs on Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva. opus 143(a). For contralto soloist and chamber orchestra.
Volume 90. Suite on Verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti. opus 145(a). For bass soloist and chamber orchestra.

IX Series

CHAMBER COMPOSITIONS FOR VOICE AND SONGS

Volume 91. ‘From Jewish Folk Poetry’. opus 79. For soprano, contralto and tenor soloists. ‘Satires’ (‘Pictures of the Past’) on Verses by Sasha Chorny. opus 109. For voice and piano. Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok. opus 127. For soprano soloist, violin, cello and piano.
Volume 92. Two Fables by Ivan Krylov. opus 4.
Two Romances on Verses by Mikhail Lermontov. opus 84. Spanish Songs. opus 100. Six Songs on Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva. opus 143. Greek Songs. Sans opus For mezzo-soprano soloist and piano. Joan Smith. ‘Bird of Peace’. Sans opus Adaptation for voice and piano.
Volume 93. Six Romances on Japanese Poems. opus 21. Two Songs on Verses by Mikhail Svetlov (‘Lullaby’, ‘Song of the Lantern’). opus 72. Four Romances on Verses by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. opus 86. Two Madrigals. For tenor soloist and piano. Sans opus. §
Volume 94. Four Romances on Poems by Alexander Pushkin. opus 46. Four Monologues on Verses by Alexander Pushkin. opus 91. ‘Spring, Spring …’ Words by Alexander Pushkin. opus 128. For bass soloist and piano.
Volume 95. Six Romances on Verses by W. Raleigh, R. Burns and W. Shakespeare. opus 62. Five Romances on Verses by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. opus 98. ‘There Were Kisses’. Words by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. Sans opus For bass soloist and piano.
Volume 96. Five Romances on Texts from the ‘Krokodil’.
opus 121.

Preface to the Complete Collection of My Works and a Brief Reflection A propos This Preface. Words and music by Dmitri Shostakovich. opus 123. Suite on Verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti. opus 145. Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin. opus 146. For bass soloist and piano.
Volume 97. Songs.

X Series

CHAMBER INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLES

Volume 98. Trio No. 1. opus 8.
Volume 99. Quintet. opus 57. Preludes from the Music to the Film ‘The Girl Friends’. opus 41. For string quartet, piano and trumpet.
Volume 100. Two Pieces for String Octet. opus 11. Elegy and Polka. Sans opus For string quartet. Quartet No. 1. opus 49. Quartet No. 2. opus 68. Quartet No. 3. opus 73.
Volume 101. Quartet No. 4. opus 83. Quartet No. 5. opus 92. Quartet No. 6. opus 101. ‘Farewell’ from the Film ‘The Young Guard’. opus 75. For string quartet. §
Volume 102. Allegretto. Sans opus For string quartet § Quartet No. 7. opus 108.
Quartet No. 8. opus 110. Quartet No. 9. opus 117.
Volume 103. Quartet No. 10. opus 118. Quartet No. 11. opus 122. Quartet No. 12. opus 133.
Volume 104. Quartet No. 13. opus 138. Quartet No. 14. opus 142. Quartet No. 15. opus 144.
Volume 105. Quartet No. 1. opus 49. Quartet No. 2. opus 68. Quartet No. 3. opus 73. Quartet No. 4. opus 83. Quartet No. 13. opus 138. Author’s arrangement for piano. §

XI Series

INSTRUMENTAL SONATAS

Volume 106. Sonata for Cello and Piano. opus 40.
Volume 107. Sonata for Violin and Piano. opus 134.
Sonata for Violin and Piano. Sans opus (1945). §
Volume 108. Sonata for Viola and Piano. opus 147.

XII Series

PIANO COMPOSITIONS

Volume 109. Scherzo. opus 1(a) § Eight Preludes. opus 2. Theme and Variations. opus 3(a) §Three Fantastic Dances. opus 5. ‘Aphorisms’. opus 13. A Child’s Exercise Book. opus 69. Dances of the Dolls. Sans opus Murzilka. Sans opus Children’s Plays of 1915 to the Beginning of the 1920s. Sans opus: ‘Polka’,* ‘In the Forest’,* ‘Longing for the Native Country’ (‘The Soldier’),* Funeral March in Memory of the Fallen Heroes of the October Revolution § Two Mazurkas § Three Pieces: 1. Minuet. 2. Prelude. 3. Intermezzo. Sans opus.
Volume 110. Twenty-four Preludes. opus 34.
Volume 111. Sonata No. 1. opus 12. Sonata No. 2. opus 61. Piano Fugues of the 1930s.
Volume 112. Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues. opus 87.
Volume 113. Suite for Two Pianos. opus 6. Concertino for Two Pianos. opus 94. Tarantella. Sans opus Prelude in D flat major. opus 87(a), No. 15. Merry March for Two Pianos. Sans opus.
Volume 114. Igor Stravinsky. Symphony of Psalms. Arranged for piano four hands § Mili Balakirev. Polka. Arranged for two harps (or ensemble of harps).
Volume 115. Arthur Honegger. Liturgical Symphony. Arranged for piano four hands. Gustav Mahler. Symphony No. 10 (Fragment). Arranged for piano four hands. §

XIII Series

INCIDENTAL MUSIC

Volume 116. Music to the Plays: ‘The Bedbug’. opus 19. ‘The Gunshot.’ opus 24. ‘Rule, Britannia!’ opus 28. Score
Volume 117. Music to the Play ‘Hamlet’. opus 32. Score. §
Volume 118. Music to the Plays: ‘The Human Comedy’. opus 37 § ‘King Lear’. opus 58(a) (1940). ‘Salute to Spain’. opus 44. Score.
Volume 119. Music to, the Plays: The Russian River. opus 66. ‘Victorious Spring’. opus 72. Score.
Volume 120. Music to the Plays: ‘The Bedbug’. opus 19. ‘The Gunshot.’ opus 24. ‘Rule, Britannia!’ opus 28. ‘Hamlet’. opus 32. Piano Score. §
Volume 121. Music to the Plays: ‘The Human Comedy’. opus 37 § ‘King Lear’. opus 58(a) (1940). ‘Salute to Spain’. opus 44. ‘The Russian River’. opus 66. Piano score.

XIV Series

FILM MUSIC

Volume 122. ‘New Babylon’. opus 18. §§
Volume 123. ‘Alone’. opus 26. §
Volume 124. ‘The Golden Mountains’. opus 30. §
Volume 125. ‘The Counterplan’. opus 33.
Volume 126. ‘The Story of the Priest and His Helper Balda’. opus 36. ‘The Story of the Silly Baby Mouse’. opus 56. Score.
Volume 127. ‘The Youth of Maxim’. opus 41 (N°1). ‘The Return of Maxim’. opus 45. ‘The Vyborg Side’. opus 50. ‘The Great Citizen’. opus 55. §
Volume 128. ‘Volochaevka Days’. opus 48. ‘The Man with a Gun’. opus 53. §
Volume 129. ‘The Friends’. opus 51. §
Volume 130. ‘The Adventures of Korzinkina’. opus 59.
Volume 131. ‘Zoya’. opus 64. ‘Simple Folk’. opus 71. §
Volume 132. ‘The Young Guard’. opus 75. §§
Volume 133. ‘Pirogov’. opus 76. §§
Volume 134. ‘Michurin’. opus 78. §§
Volume 135. ‘The Meeting on the Elbe’. opus 80. §§
Volume 136. ‘The Fall of Berlin’. opus 82. §§
Volume 137. ‘Belinsky’. opus 85. §§
Volume 138. ‘The Unforgettable Year 1919’. opus 89. §§
Volume 139. ‘Unity’. opus 95. ‘The Gadfly’. opus 97. §§
Volume 140. ‘The First Echelon’. opus 99. §§
Volume 141. ‘Five Days, Five Nights’. opus 111. §§
Volume 142. ‘Hamlet’. opus 116. §§
Volume 143. ‘A Year as Long as a Lifetime’. opus 120. §§
Volume 144. ‘Sofya Perovskaya’. opus 132 ‘King Lear’. opus 137. §§
Volume 145. Film Music. Piano score.

XV Series

THE WORKS OF OTHER COMPOSERS.
INSTRUMENTATION BY SHOSTAKOVICH

Volume 146. Ludwig van Beethoven. Adagio Cantabile (Second Part from Piano Sonata No. 8, opus 13). Ludwig van Beethoven. Maestoso (First Part from Piano Sonata No. 32, opus 111). Franz Schubert. Military March in F major. Johann Strauss. Polka ‘The Train of Pleasures’. Instrumentation for symphony orchestra. Score. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Romance ‘Waiting in the Grotto’. Russian Folksong ‘Hey, Let’s Bang!’. Russian Folksong ‘Cudgel’. Ludwig van Beethoven. ‘Mephistopheles’ Song of the Flea’. Pierre Degeyter. ‘The Internationale’. Instrumentation for voice and orchestra. Score. Gaetano Braga. Serenade. Arranged for duet and chamber ensemble. Score § Modest Musorgsky. ‘Song of the Flea’ § Modest Musorgsky. ‘Songs and Dances of Death’. Instrumentation for voice and orchestra. Score.
Volume 147. Boris Tishchenko. Cello Concerto No. 1. New instrumentation by Dmitri Shostakovich. Score. §
Volume 148. Robert Schumann. Cello Concerto. New instrumentation by Dmitri Shostakovich. Score.
Volume 149. Eight British and American Folksongs. Arranged for voice and orchestra. Score. §
Volume 150. Alexander Davidenko. Two Choirs: 1. ‘On the Tenth Verse’. 2. ‘Turmoil in the Street’. opus 124. Orchestrated by Dmitri Shostakovich. For mixed choir and symphony orchestra. Score.

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