THREE PIECES FOR 2 VIOLINS AND PIANO (publ. 1970)

Dmitri Shostakovich
(b. St Petersburg, Russia, September 12/25, 1906; d. Moscow, August 9, 1975); arr. Levon Atovmyan

Composed 1955, 1934, arranged 1970; 6 minutes

These three pieces derive from film, theater and ballet scores that Shostakovich composed alongside his major symphonies, string quartets and operas. His apprenticeship for the film work was served in his teens improvising all manner of scenes for silent films on a cinema piano, helping support his family after his father’s death, during a time of hardship in St. Petersburg. Later in life, Shostakovich was comfortable working speedily within the requirements of the film industry, particularly when political pressure was falling heavily on his music for concert performance. His trusted friend Levon Atovmyan (1901-73), composer, arranger and well-connected man about the music industry, would then select and arrange music from Shostakovich’s many film scores resulting in concert suites for Hamlet (1932) and The Gadfly (1955), plus four Ballet Suites. Atovmayan also transcribed Five Pieces for two violins and piano, published in 1970. The lyrical, gently melancholy Prelude comes from The Gadfly. The toe-tapping, light-hearted Gavotte is drawn from music Shostakovich wrote for a stage adaptation of scenes from Balzac’s novels, titled The Human Comedy (1934). The source of Atovmyan’s Waltz arrangement is unknown, though the music is included in a volume titled Shostakovich: Easy Pieces for the Piano, published, without any identifying source, by Schirmer.

— All program notes © 2023 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.c