This is the third of Riccardo Chailly’s offbeat Shostakovich collections for Decca, building on the success of ‘The Jazz Album’ (3/93) and ‘The Dance Album’ (12/96). Back in Amsterdam (‘The Dance Album’ was made with the Philadelphia Orchestra), the acoustic is again big and bold, not-quite-cavernous, while the playing has the kind of sheen and self-confidence one expects from this source. Only ardent film buffs and die-hard Shostakovich completists will cavil at the selection, cutting across as it does several more serious-minded projects. Jose Serebrier’s Shostakovich film music series included more extended highlights from The Gadfly and Pirogov (RCA, 5/88) and Hamlet (RCA, 10/88), and we have twice had Alone in its entirety, including a recent version from Michail Jurowski (Capriccio, 1/97). That said, most Shostakovich recordings would sound rough and ready after Chailly’s and he gives us some genuine novelties too. ‘The Song of the Counterplan’ (track 3) was transmogrified into an MGM production number in the 1940s for the film Thousands Cheer; Matthias Bamert’s account of a subsequent Stokowski re-arrangement is on Chandos (6/95).
Producer Andrew Cornall’s new (non-vocal) suite from the Tom and Jerry-like Tale of the Silly Little Mouse was sanctioned by the composer’s estate and makes its debut here. I had not previously heard the ‘Funeral March’ from The Great Citizen which turns up again in the Eleventh Symphony (track 22). Nor the much later ‘Waltz’ from Sofia Perovskaya. Less committed listeners should perhaps sample track 11 for Shostakovich’s take on the spooky weirdness of the theremin, and track 25 for the ubiquitous ‘Romance’ from The Gadfly.
There may be no great music here – some of the darker numbers from Hamlet come closest with their echoes of Stepan Razin and the Thirteenth Symphony – but with music-making of this quality it scarcely matters. For once you probably won’t miss the raw primary colours and fish-glue pungency of an older interpretative tradition. Chailly has rarely sounded so unbuttoned in the studio and the selection is generous, if random. Only the final chord of the ‘Finale’ from Pirogov is a bit of a puzzle. Given the top-notch Decca production values on display, what sounds here like a drop-out or similar technical fault could be either the conductor executing a tricksy hairpin diminuendo or Shostakovich perpetrating a Mahler 7-type joke. I have not been able to determine which, in the absence of a score. Warmly recommended in any event.'