The Unknown Shostakovich
Overture (Entr'acte) to Der arme Columbus, opus 23; Two Preludes (orch. Schnittke)§; Tishchenko: Cello Concerto No 1 (orch. Shostakovich)[a, b]; Schumann: Cello Concerto, opus 129 (orch. Shostakovich - opus 125)[a].
Valery Polyansky, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Ivashkin (cello)[a].
Chandos CHAN 9792. DDD. TT 59:38.
Recorded in Mosfilm Studios except [b] in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire.
§World première recording of orchestration.

The Unknown Shostakovich is the enticing title of a new collection from Chandos promising no fewer than three world première recordings. However, when Chandos promise a première, count your spoons! Just as their "première" recording of Shchedrin's Symphony No. 2 was beaten to the tape by over 30 years and even to CD by about ten, so the three premières here shrink to just one. But enough - what is the disc like?

It opens with the overture to Der arme Columbus. This is not the première that Chandos claims; Rozhdestvensky's 21-year-old recording (his second of the piece) appeared in a collection reviewed in DSCH No. 11. Polyansky is less sparky at the beginning but outshines Rozhdestvensky at the end; a good performance of this enjoyably brash and fun opener, typical of Shostakovich's theatre music of the time.

Boris Tishchenko wrote his First Cello Concerto in 1963 and six years later Shostakovich reorchestrated it as a thirtieth-birthday present, though Tishchenko seems to have been unimpressed by the gesture. Again despite Chandos' claim, it has appeared before (as, indeed, has the original). Tishchenko's bizarre scoring (17 winds, percussion and harmonium) is ameliorated in the reorchestration, but the music - cramped, obsessive, claustrophobic and ultimately explosive - is just as powerful. Starting with a long, slow, mood-shifting cantilena for solo cello, the orchestra slowly accretes to the soloist's line. The whole work continues to be a paradox, gripping but hard to grasp, with the cello and orchestra seeming to drift in and out of shared and different worlds. Shostakovich's orchestration is immensely effective and thought-provoking. Perhaps inevitably, Shostakovich's contemporary works come to mind - neither the Second Cello Concerto nor the Fourteenth Symphony is far away, and yet Tischenko's concerto retains its individuality. Hopefully this disc will encourage more performances of the work in either orchestral guise.

Next up comes Schumann's Cello Concerto, retouched by Shostakovich three years before composing his own second concerto for the instrument. Coincidentally this was at the same time as Tishchenko was composing his concerto. If Shostakovich felt that Tishchenko had orchestrated his concerto oddly, and at the same time wanted to draw it nearer to his own idiom, he thought Schumann had done his badly due to depression, and generally tried to help the earlier composer express himself better. He added only piccolo and harp, and the renovation is relatively understated: minor changes such as occasionally replacing the violas with bassoons, though the string pizzicati at bar 691 are given to shrilly Shostakovichian woodwind. Alexander Ivashkin is more flexible than conductor Polyansky, but the soloist is so closely miked that some grunting and sniffing is caught.

Finally, after about fifty-five minutes we come to the only real première on the disc. Shostakovich's Preludes, opus 2, Nos. 5 and 2 were orchestrated by Schnittke in 1976 in the style of Lyadov and Rimsky, the first like a music-box and the second a bell-filled distant landscape. Chippings from the workbenches of both composers perhaps, but enjoyable nonetheless and an effective way to come down after the intensity of the Schumann and Tishchenko.

While I may have carped about 'première recordings' claims this disc is certainly the easiest way to hear some of these pieces, but with performances of this standard that's not the only reason to buy it.

John Riley
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