RUSSIAN BALLET SUITES
Russian ballet music, recorded in Russia, performed by the Russian National Orchestra under Russian conductor Alexander Vedernikov - add to this the theatrical atmosphere conveyed by surround sound on the first Super Audio CD recording of these works, and an exceptional listening experience is guaranteed.
The three Russian composers represented on this SACD were all born within just 15 years of one other, yet each had his own very distinct style. In their lifetime, they all enjoyed great popularity within their country, yet they also suffered from the strict censureship of the Soviet regime. Despite the fact that all three received the Stalin prize for various works, the Central Committee under Zhdanov (Stalin’s right-hand man) took them to task in 1948 for “failing in their duty to the Soviet people” by showing “formalistic deviations and anti-democratic tendencies” in their musical works. Forced to live under a totalitarian system, they had to exercise constant self-criticism in order to protect themsel ves. Nevertheless, despite all restrictions, they still managed to create masterpieces while apparently towing the official line.
Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953) was both a brilliant pianist and composer.
After the Russian revolution in 1917, he left his homeland to settle first in the US, then in France. Following his return to Russia in the middle of the 1930’s, he quickly poured out such brilliantly inventive and vital works as “Peter and the Wolf” (1936), his two great classical ballets “Romeo and Juliet” (1936) and “Cinderella”(1944), and the opera “War and Peace” (1942), until he was hauled up by the Soviet authorities in 1948. He was restored to official favour after writing a letter admitting his “mistakes” and acknowledging the “justice” of the official criticism.
Although his ballet “Romeo and Juliet” was first turned down in 1934 by both the Kirov and the Bolshoi Theatres, who considered it “undanceable”, Prokofiev extracted from the music two orchestral suites and 10 piano pieces in 1936 and 1937, compiling a further orchestral suite in 1946. The music has since remained highly popular. By a strange quirk of fate, Prokofiev died on the same day as the dictator Stalin, on March 5, 1953.
Unlike Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) did not begin studying music seriously until the age of 19, when Gnessin took him under his wing. Later he studied at the Moscow Conservatoire under Miaskovsky. Many of his compositions, and especially his ballet scores, are based on Armenian-oriental folk music idioms, characterized by exotic beauty and exuberant polyrhythms.
Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Khachaturian denounced the Committee’s judgment and was named People’s Artist of the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, he completed his score to the ballet “Spartacus”, which was the last and most important of the three ballets he composed. Later, Khachaturian compiled several orchestral suites with music from this ballet.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) studied under Glazunof at the
St. Petersburg Conservatoire, and during the height of his popularity in the Soviet Union was spoken of as the “composer-laureate of the Soviet State.”
Basically, Shostakovich wrote tonal music spiced with an expressive use of dissonance. The “Bolt” is a brilliantly scored tale of industrial sabotage. Although the scenario of the ballet did not appeal to Shostakovich, he could hardly refuse to compose a work for the Russian ballet at the height of a political campaign to eradicate industrial sabotage. However, Shostakovich added his own keen sense of irony to the subject, once again getting into trouble with the authorities upon its first performance in 1931. Following his death in 1975, his fellow-composer Khachaturian described him as the conscience of Soviet music.