# Shostakovich's film music



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I sometimes see dismissive comments about DSCH's film music -- he wrote a lot of it! But somehow I've ended up with quite a bit of it, and much of that is surprisingly good. I'll mention for starters The Counterplan, Alone, Hamlet, and The Man with a Gun. Yes, he wrote a lot more than the Romance in The Gadfly.

How about you? Do you listen to this music? Any favorites?


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## satoru (May 29, 2014)

I like this album.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I have a few discs of his film music also - despite the fact that he had to do a fair amount of composing-by-numbers for films that were quite often little more than ideological propaganda fodder I think some of it holds up very well. 

Perhaps I read too much into it but I've often wondered if DSCH occasionally hid behind the comparative conveyor-belt blandness of writing film music in order to continue some sort of private protest/commentary - as if he deliberately over-simplified some of the music to parody what the Politburo expected of the typical proletarian viewer in response to being carpeted for writing music that was considered too complicated and 'un-Soviet'.

I've got my eyes on the Naxos recording of the whole score from The New Babylon, his first soundtrack from 1929 at a time when the bat-like wings of doctrinal restriction hadn't yet loomed over Soviet music.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I've seem most of the films that Shostakovich wrote film music for (I wrote a paper on the subject when I took musicology), in general I think that it is quite effective seen as a film score, there is of course (like for almost all film composers) a lot of reusing of phrases and ideas making most of it recognisably Shostakovian. IMHO, the best ones are "The Fall of Berlin" and the two Shakespeare films by Kozintsev. 
And in contrary to popular belief, Shostakovich did not score Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (but excerpts of his music was used for the 50th anniversary release in 1975), the original Potemkin score was by Austrian Edmund Meisel and is quite fun! 

Seen as concert music, well, I think that the Suites that Lev Avtomian put together is quite fun even if they are quite lite in character.

Chailly and Järvi Sr have both recorded several albums with the lighter Shostakovich!

/ptr


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

ptr said:


> I've seem most of the films that Shostakovich wrote film music for (I wrote a paper on the subject when I took musicology), in general I think that it is quite effective seen as a film score, there is of course (like for almost all film composers) a lot of reusing of phrases and ideas making most of it recognisably Shostakovian. IMHO, the best ones are "The Fall of Berlin" and the two Shakespeare films by Kozintsev. And in contrary to popular belief, Shostakovich did not score Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (but excerpts of his music was used for the 50th anniversary release in 1975), the original Potemkin score was by Austrian Edmund Meisel and is quite fun!
> 
> Seen as concert music, well, I think that the Suites that Lev Avtomian put together is quite fun even if they are quite lite in character.
> 
> ...


Interesting post, ptr (I thought I'd highlight the salient part in an appropriate shade of Socialist Red). I quite like the music from The Fall of Berlin, too. Do you recall if the film itself was worth watching? As comtemporary Soviet reviewers were falling over themselves to praise it (probably to ingratiate themselves with Stalin seeing it's a film that emphasised how wise a statesman and how great a leader he was), I was a little bit sceptical!


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Interesting post, ptr (I thought I'd highlight the salient part in an appropriate shade of Socialist Red). I quite like the music from The Fall of Berlin, too. Do you recall if the film itself was worth watching? As comtemporary Soviet reviewers were falling over themselves to praise it (probably to ingratiate themselves with Stalin seeing it's a film that emphasised how wise a statesman and how great a leader he was), I was a little bit sceptical!


Well this is not a one way question, I quite remember it, it is full of blond positive socialist retorik and when Stalin is introduced , he descends on the the believers as the elder statesman / god with a giant prosthetic face... If You have an interest in Soviet film/History its a fun pastime... Otherwise watching the YT trailer below goes a long way... 






/ptr


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

ptr said:


> Well this is not a one way question, I quite remember it, it is full of blond positive socialist retorik and when Stalin is introduced , he descends on the the believers as the elder statesman / god with a giant prosthetic face... If You have an interest in Soviet film/History its a fun pastime... Otherwise watching the YT trailer below goes a long way...
> /ptr


Yes, I see...methinks I'll settle on just the music for now. As usual on youtube with this kind of stuff some of the real comedy is to be found reading the more meat-headed reaction comments underneath the screen.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

I've enjoyed Shostakovich's film music on this 2-CD set:










*Shostakovich: Orchestral Works / Gennady Rozhdestvensky, USSR Ministry of Culture SO*
It includes music from the following films:

The Tale of the Priest and His Servant Balda
Alone
The Adventures of Korzinkina (A Ticket to the Fifth Zone)

I've never heard them, but I've read good things about Maxim Shostakovich's recordings of his father's film music. Anyone heard these?


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

It was a good place for Shostakovich to be whimsical and charming for once, such as in the _Lunch at Goneril's_ from King Lear!


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

Here's a write up on Chandos' on-going survey of DSCH's film music: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue34/shostakovich.htm

























I've not heard any of these.

Probably need to rectify that...


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

^
^

I've got vol. 1 of the Chandos series - the only reason I haven't bought the others is to avoid duplication with what I have on other labels. I'd definitely be interested in hearing more from the Maxim Trilogy if it ever becomes available.


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## adrien (Sep 12, 2016)

I just watched OVOD a couple of times, from which Atovmian derived the Gadfly Suite.

The whole film is on youtube, but you need to search for OVOD. I guess the MPAA doesn't care about forcing google to take down Soviet films.

I've been doing a string orchestra arrangement of the suite, so am very familiar with it. It's one of my favourite works, although after seeing the film I'm not so sure how to feel about it any more.

I think most people would be very surprised at the distance between the film score and the suite.

In the film, there was no piece of music longer than 2:23, whereas in the suite most pieces are over 3 minutes, and some over 6 minutes.

The main recurring theme in the film is the Nocturne from the suite, and seems to be the romantically-associated theme, used in 3 places in the film at quite varied tempi.

The Overture, is made up of 2 pieces from the opening and closing credits joined together (the maggiore part is from the final credits).

The "Romance" from the suite is a concatenation of 2 parts from very different places in the film - the violin solo part with harp is the introduction of the main character at 00:04:54, the central louder orchestral part is from 00:26:43 where Artur is freed and goes outside to meet the female lead.. Of interest is that the iconic initial phrase on the violin is actually different in the film, the solo goes to a Db instead of a Bb on the 4th note. The final orchestral part in the suite I believe must be the work of Atovmian.

The introduction / prelude is probably my favourite part of the suite, but of that piece, which can be considered to be in 4 sections, only the first section inc trio is in the film at all, and is played on solo guitar at 00:54:43 for 1:08. Most disappointing! I can only presume the rest of the 6 minute piece in the suite either was in Shostakovich's score and didn't make it into the edited film, or was composed by Atovmian.

The Intermezzo, another great piece in the suite, in the film is an Organ solo used twice in at 00:17:14 and 00:41:48 lasting 1:27. The first part of the break-down part in the middle (clarinets) of the piece from the suite is from another part of the film at 00:47:31 (37s), and yet another part at 01:25:28 (crescendo part), before recapping the initial part without "solo". In fact the solo line is different in a few places.

The Folk Festival, Nocturne, Galop, and barrel-organ waltz, and Interlude parts are fairly close to the suite, although the Galop has quite a lot added in the suite.

There's a ball in the film, where the Contradance is used, but only the minuet-like part of it, the waltz part in the middle of the piece in the suite is not in the film at all.

There are also other significant pieces in the film, such as a classical-style choral work, complete with fugue, and orchestral finale at 00:43:25 which is the longest piece of music in the film (2:22). This is not in the suite at all.

Until seeing the film, I had the view that Shostakovich had an almost formulaic approach with the music: soft -> bombastic ->recap, but actually the pieces in the suite where this happens (Introduction/Prelude, Romance, Intermezzo etc) are all constructed that way by Atovmian. Shostakovich simply didn't do that, and the pieces in the suite are parts from the film joined together in a kind of medley.

It has to be said that I can understand why this was done, since the pieces in the film are all very short, most under 1:10, and there are a significant number of gorgeous themes that need to be heard and would be largely lost if not for the suite.

But it's almost like saying RVW fantasia is a piece by Thomas Tallis. I think a lot more credit (or otherwise) is due to Atovmian for the suite.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I sometimes see dismissive comments about DSCH's film music -- he wrote a lot of it! But somehow I've ended up with quite a bit of it, and much of that is surprisingly good. I'll mention for starters The Counterplan, Alone, Hamlet, and The Man with a Gun. Yes, he wrote a lot more than the Romance in The Gadfly.
> 
> How about you? Do you listen to this music? Any favorites?


I have listened to _The Nose_. I didn't find it overwhelmingly good but not poor either. Shostakovich is one of the last great 20th century composers from the late Romantic tradition.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> I have listened to _The Nose_. I didn't find it overwhelmingly good but not poor either. Shostakovich is one of the last great 20th century composers from the late Romantic tradition.


The Mahler + others influence is clear, but saying Shostakovich comes "from the late Romantic tradition" is a stretch methinks.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I do have the one that Jace has, ( the Melodia one) hardly leaves the shelf's.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I am not familiar with DSCH's film music. I am ambivalent about film music in general. On the one hand, in a sense it is the classical music of today. On the other, it suffers from the same thing some or other opera (Wagner? Rossini?) was accused of: it has beautiful moments, but awful quarters if an hour.

This is inevitable, because the music must support the action on screen, and thus you'll have plenty of directionless banging and clanging. It works perfectly in the film, but turn many soundtracks into dreary listening.

The obvious solution to this is to do what 19th century composers of incidental music did: if audiences seem to like the music, use it as the basis of suites suitable for concert performance, e.g. the Peer Gynt suites. With some film music, I wish the film composers would do this. They very seldom do; mostly, the soundtracks are released just as they were used in the films, and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to listen to that (with an exception here and there). 

In the case of DSCH specifically, I cannot really comment.


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## Mahlerite555 (Aug 27, 2016)

There is a lot of it popping up in the identifying music section.


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