Customer Reviews

Shostakovich: The Gadfly; Five Days - Five Nights (Suites)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is always a very pleasant surprise to have one's expectations so notably exceeded. As to the composer, I confess to being a great fan of Shostakovich and here, he seized upon a little known and tragic story ("The Gadfly," by E.L. Voynich) which renders a first-rate account of people in revolution and a society in upheaval -- and the music that Shostakovich composed for the film in this instance is just that: revolutionary. I believe that he composed nothing finer in all his filmscores. This achievement is historic and the "Introduction (Prelude, track 7)" may, in fact, just be the finest piece of melodic Classical Music ever written. It has that perfect astonishing Russian blend of Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Balakirev, Stravinsky and maybe even a little of Rachmaninoff! And that comment leads me to the rendition itself - I was astonished as to what a fine job the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (Theodore Kuchar, conducting) did with this work. It is an historic achievement and I was very pleased at the quality of the sound on this CD (it's a DDD recording from 1995 at Kiev). The "Suite from Five Days -- Five Nights" (the second composition on this CD) is also a fine work and a perfect complement to "The Gadfly." My only reccommendation beyond what I have said so far would be to read the book as you listen to this recording which lends considerable enhancement to both media.

This is currently one of my favorite CD's. I admit I have not heard any other performances of the Gadfly Suite, but THIS one is good in any case. The violin and 'cello solos are well done, too. Also, the Gadfly Suite is generally considered to be among Shostakovich's better film scores.

Since I have only heard another recording on the score on the radio I won't go into the quality of the conductor/orchestra which in my ears sound pretty good. It's just that this music score (The Gadfly) is one of the treasure of soundtrack music and I wonder how it comes and is not played more often. Listening more carefully I picked some lines that reminded me of some Rota scores, one of my favourite soundtrack composers. This is great music and at this modest price everybody should listen to it.

The music on this disc isn't exactly first-rate Shostakovich, but the tuneful and appealing suite from the Gadfly at least makes for very pleasant listening. In fact, many of the numbers are genuinely memorable, and the level of melodic invention is sustained more or less throughout. The same cannot really be said for the suite from Five Days, Five Nights; a strangely pale and rather uninvolving mixture of reminiscences of the composer's eleventh symphony, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet and Beethoven's Ninth. Still, it's worth hearing at least for Shostakovich fans, and since the main bulk of the playing time is taken up by the engaging Gadfly suite, I won't complain. The performances are idiomatic and mostly fine, but the string sound is dangerously thin at times, making parts of the Gadfly suite sound a little scruffy and grainy. I haven't heard any of the alternative recordings, but this one warrants a safe enough recommendation as a disc of pleasant, second-rate Shostakovich. I don't recall anything in particular about the sound quality, which I guess means that there cannot have been anything seriously objectionable about it.

I found the recording quality to be up to Naxos' standards. I listen to it on my laptop which has two small and inadequate speakers and the cd maintains its integrity.

Orchestration and recording does not do justice to this very lovely film score. It sounds tin like, rather dissapointing.