The Bolt Suite, opus 27a; Suite for Variety Orchestra; Jazz Suite No. 1; Tahiti Trot, opus 16.
Dmitry Yablonsky, Russian State Symphony Orchestra.
Naxos 8.555949. DDD. TT 62:14.
Recorded Grand Studio 5, Moscow State Broadcasting and Recording House, October 2001.

Here is a pleaser of a programme that demonstrates that Shostakovich's light music is not all of the same stripe. At hand are three delightfully capricious scores from the composer's early years: the first Jazz Suite, the Suite from the ballet The Bolt, and Tahiti Trot. Also present is the Suite for Variety Orchestra, a compilation of movements from the composer's film and stage scores long misidentified as Jazz Suite No. 2, as Naxos' booklet notes explain. Each provides a feast of comic-lyric opportunities for the interpreter in tune with the music's irrepressible merriment and skiddingly twisted humour. The interpretations are lively, the music very listenable. However, what works for one score does not necessarily work as well for another.

Perhaps typical of the cultured Soviet citizen of the 1930s, Shostakovich's understanding of American jazz idioms was far from rounded. One might infer as much from the First Jazz Suite, whose musical style bears little or no resemblance to the genre that was then being developed by figures such as Ellington and Armstrong on distant shores. Shostakovich's Jazz Suite takes on more of a dance hall character with its catchy tunes fitted to standard dance forms and standard metric divisions. As in the Suite for Variety Orchestra, the delights of Shostakovian duality are still to be reaped in these charming settings, which combine the elegance of an Armani evening gown with the mischief of a handshake buzzer.

Conductor Dmitry Yablonsky's variety orchestra approach is well matched to the music. Listeners will savour the lively quality of the various solos and the clarity of the inner voices in these exceptionally well-recorded performances: the suave accordion filigrees in the Suite for Variety Orchestra's Lyric Waltz, the piano highlights in the following Dance, the saxophone solos and ornamentations in Waltz I, the parlay of odd instrumental duets in the Little Polka.

The more delicately scored Jazz Suite No. 1 offers additional morsels of dance floor delight as oboe, banjo, glockenspiel and piano take the limelight in the opening Waltz. And this particular interpretation will not let the listener overlook one of the score's many show-stopping moments, the smarmy appearance in the final Foxtrot of the Hawaiian guitar whose gliding twangs are backed by equally smarmy slides on the trombone. Has musical sarcasm ever sounded as sweet and savoury? Whereas a little more knowing slyness is brought out in Riccardo Chailly's meticulous performances of the same suites with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Decca/London 433 702-2), Yablonsky's lively pace together with the strong solos keeps the music cheerfully bouncing along. What more can one ask for in these happy little numbers?

Shostakovich's Bolt ballet score teems with some of the most colourful non-conformities found in his lighter music, from its wayward lyricism and abrupt juxtaposition of phrases to its peculiar instrumental combinations and registral extremes. Such a freewheeling set of parameters invites an interpretation that is just as unconventional. Of the precious few performances of the complete suite, I have never heard one with as much personality as that of its premiere recording by the composer's son, Maxim, leading the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and Zhukovsky Military Air Academy Band (BMG/Melodiya 74321 66981-2; deleted). The unlikely combination of ensembles, in particular with the military band duly unfettered by conventional balletic demeanour, takes the score by storm. Thanks also to the superb soloists and, so the story goes, fatherly supervision of the orchestral rehearsals. Even Neeme Järvi's fine version of the suite seems rather unnecessarily guarded by comparison (Chandos CHAN 7000/1). Rozhdestvensky's off-day recording of the complete ballet demonstrates that the score is not so readily airborne (Chandos CHAN 9343/4).

Yablonsky brings to the Bolt Suite the same liveliness as found in the Jazz and Variety Orchestra Suites, though this score calls for something more. He handles the opening Overture, as fine a Shostakovich curtain-raiser as one will find, with exceptional finesse, gliding seamlessly through its expansive thematic episodes and shifting moods. The Drayman's Dance has a good, swaggering pulse, yet its brazenly whooping trombone figures are a bit clipped in comparison to the lusty bellows heard in Maxim's recording. Among other recent Drayman's Dances to appear on disc, one that captures a particularly zesty spirit - incorporated into the pastiche known as Young Lady and the Hooligan - is performed by the Symphony Orchestra of Russia under Mark Gorenstein (Saison Russe RUS 788164; reviewed in DSCH No. 14). In the Intermezzo, Yablonsky is up-tempo, but less than daring in connecting the variously linked phrases, cutting some comic corners in the process. The Conciliator, on the other hand, is paced somewhat leisurely and as a result its featured xylophone solo does not have the sharp virtuosic edge of the solo in Maxim's recording. But even Järvi's xylophonist pales against Maxim's Leonid Redkin, whose dazzling execution has not yet been equalled. The reader may want to seek out the lively rendition of The Conciliator in an effective performance of the suite by the Czech Philharmonic under Kazushi Ono (Canyon Classics PCCL-00292; deleted). In the final Apotheosis, the elated saxhorn solo rings out with resonant clarity, and the suite is brought to an irrepressibly merry conclusion. Yablonsky's Bolt Suite is robust and spirited with strong playing throughout. However it lacks the demonic trespasses that would have made it an even more memorable performance.

The suave and sprightly reading of Tahiti Trot, Shostakovich's tongue-in-cheek variations on Vincent Youman's Tea for Two, closes the album on a high note. As throughout this album, the recording brings out all the instrumental details with exuberant clarity. A pleaser indeed, from beginning to end.

Louis Blois
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