Hypothetically Murdered (Signum Classics)
The general image of Shostakovich is that of the tormented composer, fearful of arrest at any moment by Stalin’s secret police and forced to write optimistic pieces in praise of communism.
This CD is a welcome reminder that before the Terror, Shostakovich was a different composer. In 1931 he teamed up with a bunch of entertainers to write a satire on the Civil Defence Corps, an irreverence unthinkable only a few years later. His music consists of lots of short marches, waltzes and fox-trots, full of irrepressible nose-thumbing wit. The orchestral score disappeared during the war, but the piano score survived and has been re-orchestrated for this recording by Gerard McBurney with great skill and a sure instinct for Shostakovich’s idiom.
Also on the CD are the sombre Four Romances, written in 1937, by which time Shostakovich had become a marked man and the gaiety had vanished from his music for ever. The orchestral playing under Mark Elder is superbly sharp and vivid throughout.
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Ivan Hewett