“Motherland”. Vocal-Symphonic Suite

Motherland

Vocal-Symphonic Suite

In 1942, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote a series of pieces for the stage show Native Country performed by the NKVD Song and Dance ensemble at the Dzerzhinsky Central Club.

The exact dates the music for Native Country was written are unknown since there is no author’s manuscript of the full score or piano score.

For Native Country, the composer wrote four short items forming a short suite Native Leningrad for orchestra, choir and soloists to words by Sergei Alymov (the suite was assigned as Op. 63): No. 1 ‘Overture’, No. 2 ‘Song of the Victorious October’, No. 3 ‘Youth Dance’ (orchestral piece) and No. 4 ‘Ode to Leningrad’.

The premiere of Native Country was held in Moscow on 7 November 194217 at the Dzerzhinsky Central Club.

During March­May 1943, the show was performed repeatedly at the Vyborg House of Culture in Leningrad (the premiere was held on 6 March).

The first edition of the suite came out in 1972 as part of the oratorio titled My Native Country (Sovetsky kompozitor, Moscow; full score). The oratorio was compiled by Yuri Silantyev (without Shostakovich’s knowledge) from music to all three shows of the NKVD ensemble.

In 1977, Sovetsky kompozitor Publishers put out a collection called Music for Stage Shows, which included the item ‘Youth Dance’ titled ‘Folk Dance’. Originally, the four­ movement suite Native Leningrad based on verses by Sergei Alymov was published in Volume 28 of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Collected Works—piano score (Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1986). The full score was published in Volume 27 of the same collection (Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1987).

The ‘Youth Dance’ enjoyed particular popularity (in most editions it was published under the title ‘Folk Dance’). It was arranged for wind orchestra by Mikhail Vakhutinsky (Sovetsky kompozitor, Moscow, 1971), H. robert reynolds (Carl Fischer, New York, 1979), Torgny Hanson (Salvation army Brass Band Journal, 1994) and James Curnow (Curnow Music Press, Wilmore, 2000), etc.

The first recording of the songs from Native Country—as part of the oratorio My Native Country—appeared in 1971.19 The performers were the grand Choir and Stage Symphony Orchestra of All­Union radio conducted by Yuri Silantyev, with Ludmila Belobragina, Andrei Sokolov, Denis Korolev and Mark reshetin as vocal soloists and Yuri Levitan as narrator. The recording of the suite with Sergei Alymov’s original verses was done in 2009 by the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir of Smolny Cathedral conducted by Aleksandr Titov, with soloists Boris Stepanov and Andrei Slavny. There are also several audio recordings of ‘Youth Dance’ in different arrangements.