Shostakovich: Jazz Suite No. 1

“Shostakovich's piano concertos were written under very different circumstances, yet together they contain some of the composer's most cheerful and enlivening music. The First, with its wealth of perky, memorable tunes, has the addition of a brilliantly conceived solo trumpet part (delightfully done here by Philip Jones) that also contributes to the work's characteristic stamp.
The Second Concerto was written not long after Shostakovich had released a number of the intense works he had concealed during the depths of the Stalin era. It came as a sharp contrast, reflecting as it did the optimism and sense of freedom that followed the death of the Russian dictator. The beauty of the slow movement is ideally balanced by the vigour of the first, and the madcap high spirits of the last. The poignant movement for piano and orchestra from the Suite from the 1951 film The Unforgettable Year 1919, 'The assault on beautiful Gorky', provides an excellent addition to this disc of perceptive and zestful performances by Alexeev. He's most capably supported by the ECO under Maksymiuk, and the engineers have done them proud with a recording of great clarity and finesse. A joyous issue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The digital recording is in every way excellent and score over most of its competitors in clarity and presence. Artistically, Alexeev has more personality than his rivals, and he has the advantage of sensitive and idiomatic support from the ECO and Maksymiuk.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

"So is this another winner from Naxos? I think so...This is Svetlana's old band, so you can expect colourful winds and penetrating brass...Try the Weill-like 'Foxtrot' from the Jazz Suite No 1 (track 19) and I dare say you'll be hooked: those trombone glissandos are nicely done, the Hawaiian guitar slyly insinuating." - David Gutman, Gramophone July 2002

“…the centre of gravity of this recital is a magnificently eloquent and understanding performance of Shostakovich's Violin Sonata, which as the years pass comes to seem one of the greatest of his late works. …Gluzman and Yoffe infuse the music with an expressive glow that transcends its innate austerity.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 *****

“Vadim Gluzman and Angela Yoffe, an impressive well matched husband-and-wife team, give a powerful account of the 1968 Shostakovich Sonata. This performance rises to its demands - extremes of tone and virtuoso intensity - the central Allegretto projecting an atmosphere of glittering ferocity. The Jazz Suite No 1 of 1934... takes us back to a very different Shostakovich: the wit may be sardonic but the mood remains light-hearted and upbeat. The Sonata, Auerbach's response to the events of 9/11, is on a far grander scale, with big, even melodramatic gestures. It's a well made piece, imaginatively cast for the two instruments and with some beautiful, inspiring moments...” Gramophone Magazine, September 2006

“…'hypothetically murdered'… Shostakovich's long-lost score for a 1931 music-hall show… enjoys a timely resurrection. …you'll enjoy the first incarnation of romps recycled in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the First Piano Concerto, as well as the discreet tinklings of the bar-room piano, the excellent, jazz-friendly CBSO soloists who also savour the solos of the jazz suite at the other end of the programme, and the authentic wail of the flexatone.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2004 ****

“Shostakovich's lively and endearing forays into the popular music of his time were just that, and light years away from the work of real jazz masters such as, say Jelly Roll Morton or Duke Ellington And yet they do say something significant about Shostakovich's experience of jazz, as a comparison of these colourful, Chaplinesque Jazz Suites with roughly contemporaneous music by Gershwin, Milhaud, Martinu, Roussel and others will prove.
Shostakovich engaged in a particularly brittle almost Mahlerian form of parody – his concert works are full of it – and that's what comes across most powerfully here. Besides, and as annotator Elizabeth Wilson rightly observes, 'real' jazz was treated with suspicion in Soviet Russia and Shostakovich's exposure to it was therefore limited.
The two Jazz Suites were composed in the 1930s, the First in response to a competition to 'raise the level of Soviet jazz from popular cafe music to music with a professional status', the Second at the request of the then-newly formed State Orchestra for Jazz (!). The First will make you chuckle, but it's the Second (subtitled 'Suite for Promenade Orchestra') that contains the best music, especially its achingly nostalgic Second Waltz. The instrumentation is light (the saxophone and accordion add a touch of spice to a generally bland recipe), while the playing is quite superb. In fact, there's little to be said about Chailly's direction other than that it's good-humoured, affectionate and utterly professional, his Royal Concertgebouw players sound at home in every bar and the recording (Grotezaal, Concertgebouw) is both clean and ambient.
Taiti trot came to life when Nikolai Malko challenged Shostakovich to score Vincent Youmans's Tea for Two in an hour, or less – which he did, as a sort of mini-concerto for orchestra, each refrain being dealt to different instrumental forces. Fun that it is, its charm is terminal.
Which leaves the Piano Concerto, music that for sophistication and inventive ingenuity is actually closer to what we now think of as jazz than the Jazz Suites. (Sample the free-wheeling, improvisatory opening to the last movement, on track 7.) Ronald Brautigam's instrument is twangy at the bass end, which mightn't seem too inappropriate, but as it was recorded two years before the other items on the disc (1988), I doubt that that was the intention. Still, it's a lively and fairly intense reading, neatly supported by Chailly and trumpeter Peter Masseurs, but ultimately less memorable than Argerich or Jablonski or the composer himself.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010