Shostakovich: Jazz suites/Kuchar
Shostakovich wrote a lot of light music but not necessarily a lot of great light music. The Jazz Suite No. 2 (compiled by others) is a case in point. Conductor Theodore Kuchar deserves credit for making the suite consistently entertaining. Though most of it is simple dance music, Kuchar at least provides the proper idiom&#;the particular lilt&#;of each type of dance. So the listener at least gets to hear these chips from the master&#;s workbench in friendly performances.
Kuchar also does as much as he can for the Overture on Russian and Kirghiz Themes, an empty-hearted dues-paying job alleging friendship between the USSR&#;s dominant nationality and one of the dominated ones. Kuchar does not try to minimize the looseness of the work&#;s structure; he just makes sure the high points are there. The piece falls into place as well as any I have heard, short of Neeme Järvi&#;s less jolly performance on Deutsche Grammophon.
Jazz Suite No. 1 is the most imaginative work on the disc. While the Jazz Suite No. 2 has nearly nothing to do with jazz, No. 1 comes from the s Euro-jazz milieu of Kurt Weill or Erwin Schulhoff and still manages to sound like r
Klassik meets Jazz: Schostakowitsch &#; „Suite für Jazzorchester Nr. 1“
Die Oktoberrevolution im Jahr war nicht nur politisch sondern auch kulturell eine tief einschneidende Zäsur für Russland. Revolutionsführer Lenin forderte: „Die Kunst gehört dem Volke. Sie muss ihre tiefsten Wurzeln in den schaffenden Massen haben.“ Fortan wurde die Musik sozialistisch getrimmt. Eine volkseigene Musikkultur sollte entstehen – auf Befehl des kommunistischen Machthabers. Schostakowitschs „Suite für Jazzorchester Nr.1“ ist das erste Resultat dieser Anweisung.
Musik aus dem Land des Klassenfeinds
Der zur selben Zeit in den USA aufkeimende Jazz, mit seinem freiheitlich-individualistischen Charakter, stand Lenins Vorstellungen von einer volkseigenen Musikkultur diametral entgegen. Dennoch brauchte es nicht lange, bis die ersten Schallplatten mit den neuartigen afroamerikanischen Klängen die noch junge Sowjetunion erreichten. Das unterhaltungsfreudige russische Volk zeigte sich begeistert, die Sowjetregierung hingegen war weniger angetan von der ausgelassen-emotionalen Musik aus dem Land des Klassenfeinds.
Obwohl der Jazz als dekadent galt, kam somit ein Verbot nicht infrage. Schließlich b
Composed:
Length: c. 8 minutes
Orchestration: soprano saxophone (= alto 2), alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, percussion (drum, woodblock, cymbal, bells, xylophone), piano, banjo, Hawaiian guitar, violin, and bass
First Los Angeles Philharmonic performances
Though Dmitri Shostakovich seemed destined to greatness in the classical tradition, he also loved popular music. He was taken with Jewish folk and theater music, for example, and with the gypsy tunes his father frequently sang around the house. He was also unabashedly in love with the cinema. In fact, he wrote over 30 film scores, many during periods in which he had fallen out of favor with the Soviet authorities and had trouble getting concert performances.
The years were busy ones for Shostakovich, especially writing music for films. Sound had been recently introduced in cinema, and as dialog and sound effects became more prominent, musical segments began to shrink. Also, directors were searching for new and exotic sounds. The Golden Mountains, a film by Sergei Yutkevich, was a perfect example. Shostakovich experimented with a variety of unusual and offbeat instruments in his score for that film, including the
Dmitri Shostakovich: Jazz Suite No.1
Context
Composed in when Dmitri Shostakovich was 28 years old, his Jazz Suite No.1 was part of his genre-bending stage. The first performance of the work took place on March 24th, in Leningrad.
The orchestration is not for a regular orchestra. Shostakovich handpicks instruments to build a jazz orchestra for this suite. He uses these instruments:
- Three saxophones (soprano, alto and tenor)
- Two trumpets
- Trombone
- Wood block
- Snare drum
- Cymbals
- Glockenspiel
- Xylophone
- Banjo
- Hawaiian guitar
- Piano
- Violin
- Double Bass
The quirky orchestration of this jazz suite is what accentuates the unique character of Shostakovich’s music. Although Shostakovich is known for his intense, serious and emotional large-scale works, he was also very in tune with popular culture. He jumped at the chance to compose a Jazz Suite, and actually ended up composing two!
The Music
The suite is in three short movements:
Movement I &#; Waltz
The opening waltz is opened by banjo and piano, with a muted trumpet taking over the main melody. The soprano saxophone joins in and the melody is soon passed around more of the instruments. Shost
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