Arena

There was something rotten in Theodore Kuchar's recent recording with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine of the Hamlet Suite (disc 3 of Dmitri Shostakovich: Jazz & Ballet Suites - Film Music; Brilliant Classics 6735; reviewed in DSCH No. 23 by Nigel Papworth). Unlike the other suites and overtures in the set, the Hamlet Suite lacks its opus number (opus 116a), the first warning that all may not be as it seems. The order of the movements has been re-jigged in an attempt to rectify Atovmyan's non-narrative sequence, the Arrival of the Actors placed before the Poisoning Scene. Unfortunately this was achieved by swapping Ophelia's death scene (normally No. 7; here strangely entitled Hamlet and Ophelia) with the Poisoning Scene (normally No. 5), thus creating a new non-narrative order, since Ophelia's drowning occurs after the Mousetrap play. Only tracks 1 and 6 (Prelude and Arrival of the Actors) match the score. The remainder can only be described as eccentric, since there are truncations, rearrangements, occasional sections from the main film score (op. 116, extracts published in Volume 42 of the old Collected Works Series) and even music alien to the Hamlet film score altogether.

Here is an overview of the changes. In the middle of No. 2, Ball at the Palace, there is a rearranged splice from The Ball (op. 116, No. 8), and No. 3, The Ghost, is truncated after less than a minute, with a new ending added. There is over a minute and a half of extraneous material at the start of No. 4, In the Garden: it begins with the opening from The Flutes Play (op. 116, No. 22), arranged for flute and a col legno string accompaniment, before a transition into a pastiche of a Baroque concerto slow movement for violin and string orchestra (please write to me via the Recordings Editor if you can identify this section), and finally a rather heavy truncated rendition of In the Garden proper, its final cadence extended unnecessarily by four bars. The title of No. 5, Hamlet and Ophelia, is in itself an indication that the track may contain more than usual, and it does. Even the haunting violin solo at the beginning has had one bar tweaked (bar 9) to emphasize the descending semitone figure. The following section, normally scored for harpsichord (the instrument associated with Ophelia and her descent into madness) and tubular bells, is particularly ineffective, since Kuchar has used glockenspiels instead; inexplicably, there is then a transition to a free reworking and re-orchestration of the Prelude music (No. 1), transposed up a minor third. The Poisoning Scene (Kuchar's No. 7) suffers only a few cuts, a repeat of the opening material and a new quiet ending based on the cross rhythms in the percussion. The final movement, No. 8, The Duel, contains a more substantial cut and a revised ending. Kuchar's treatment should be acknowledged as a new arrangement based on op. 116a (itself an arrangement) with selections from op. 116 and elsewhere. The decision not to admit this is dishonest, both for those buying the CD and the uncredited arranger(s). Alas, poor Hamlet suite, we knew you well.

Fiona Ford