Hamlet, opus 32, incidental music to 1932 production[a]; Hamlet, incidental music to 1954 production; King Lear, opus 58a, incidental music to 1941 production[b].
Mark Elder, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Luba Suchevskaya (Player-Queen)[a], Igor Khokhlovin (Player-King)[a], Louise Winter (mezzo-soprano)[a,b], David Wilson-Johnson (baritone)[a,b].
Signum Classics SIGCD052. DDD. TT 73.03.
Recorded Birmingham Town Hall, 13-15 June 1994.

Two majestic works are brought together on this reissue of a 1995 Cala programme (CACD 1021): Shostakovich's incidental music to Akimov's 1932 stage production of Hamlet and to Kozintsev's 1941 stage production of King Lear.

Shakespearean heroes are characterised by the intensity of their passions and in their Russified version this trait is even more pronounced. The equivocal character of Hamlet, between foolishness and profound wisdom - just like a Russian yurodivy - would have been the perfect way in which to "encode" messages levelled against the authorities, just as was required in the political situation of the early 1930s.

Akimov presented the play as if it were no longer suitable for modern Russian audiences and needed to be updated, but in fact the work was perfectly relevant. This deliberate confusion between seriousness and sarcasm is reflected by Shostakovich in the very short, fragmentary movements, put together here like a curious puzzle; some of the scenes were added by Akimov and their place in the production is not clearly determined.

One very important feature of the music is its use of contrasting effects - for instance the opening Prelude, in which an idyllic Shepherd's horn follows a bombastic fanfare and precedes a Funeral March played fortissimo; or again the Romance sung at the feast followed by a Can-can, and the elephant-like march of The Beggars passing by followed by the Requiem quoting the Dies Irae - all of which are well underlined by the lively interpretation on this CD. In addition, the spoken Russian phrases included on the disc also sound very musical - the literaturnost, a characteristic of Russian culture, which binds literature with other arts, is present in this music, even without the images of the play.

The much shorter score to King Lear begins in a more dramatic and operatic fashion with Ballad of Cordelia. But just as in Turgenev's adaptation of Shakespeare's drama, A King Lear of the Steppe, in this stage version Kozintsev intensifies the comportment of the characters and adds texts that are not taken from Shakespeare. Shostakovich also added unexpected elements like the short song-cycle with variations on Jingle Bells resulting in a distancing effect. The short instrumental numbers that follow recall the music to Akimov's Hamlet. Kozintsev's own 1954 stage production of Hamlet reused much of this King Lear score, plus a Gigue and Finale composed by Shostakovich, which are both presented here.

The intention behind bringing together these pieces on CD was clearly to underline the similarities between the Shakespeare-inspired pieces by Shostakovich. What the historian Rudnitsky said about Akimov's Hamlet production also applies to this programme: if it had not been produced, it would have to be invented!

Hélène Bernatchez
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