Suite from the Ballet “The Limpid Stream”

The Limpid Stream

Suite from the Ballet

Op. 39a

The suite from the ballet The Limpid Stream, Op. 39a is one of Shostakovich’s least popular works. Its premiere was held on 11 March 1945 in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory during a Sunday matinee concert, performed by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Nikolay Anosov.

The history of performances of the suite essentially ended before it had begun. While preparing the recording of suites from his father’s ballets with the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre in the mid-1960s, young conductor Maxim Shostakovich chose The Golden age and The Bolt, passing over The Limpid Stream. Nor did this suite arouse any interest in other performers in later decades.

In 1987, the score of the suite from the ballet The Limpid Stream for full symphony orchestra was published in Volume 26 of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Collected Works under the editorship of Konstantin Titarenko, along with the scores of the suites from The Golden age and The Bolt. But even after publication, suite did not attract the attention of performers.

There is only one recording of the suite from the ballet The Limpid Stream, done in 2005 in Kiev by American conductor Theodore Kuchar with the National Academic Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. We do not know anything about its performances at concerts.

The lack of demand for the suite also had an effect on the fate of its original hand-written sources. There is no information about the existence of its full score.

Suite from the ballet The Limpid Stream:

1. Waltz
2. Russian Folk Paintings
3. Gallop
4. Adagio
5. Pizzicato