Suite on Finnish Themes
The Suite on Finnish Themes (Russian: Сюита на финские темы) or Seven Arrangements of Finnish Folk Songs (Семь обработок финских народных песен) is a suite composed in 1939 for soloists (soprano and tenor) and chamber ensemble in seven movements by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–75). The composer later disowned the work, and the suite does not have an opus number.[1]
History
In 1939, before the Soviet forces were to invade Finland, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, a theme to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army would be parading through the Finnish capital Helsinki.[2] Shostakovich finished composing on 3 December 1939, as the Red Army was advancing in the Finnish front and the puppet regime Finnish Democratic Republic was founded three days earlier.[3]
The only early historical source of the suite is a letter which Shostakovich sent his friend Levon Atovmyan on 5 December 1939. In the letter, Shostakovich explains that he was unable to come to Moscow as the Leningrad military district had commissioned a suite of Finnish folk songs. The deadline was on 2 December, but he had completed it on 3 December.[3]
The exact commission date is uncertain, but according to the Finnish historian Ohto Manninen, it was probably commissioned on 25 November, though not earlier than 23 November. An earlier date is not likely as Shostakovich sent a telegram on 22 November to Atovmyan where Shostakovich was certain he would arrive in Moscow.[4] The war began on 30 November 1939.
However, the Winter War was a bitter experience for the Red Army. The Red Army never entered Helsinki, and Shostakovich would never lay claim to the authorship of this work.[2] It was not performed until 2001.[5]
The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra recorded the suite for BIS in 2002.[6]
Movements
- Energico (orchestral)
- Taivas on sininen ja valkoinen (The Sky is Blue and White)
- Lento non troppo (orchestral)
- Tämän kylän tytöt ovat tilulilulei (The Girls of this Village)
- Mansikka on punainen marja (The Strawberry is a Red Berry)
- Jos mie saisin jouten olla (If I Could be at leisure)
- Minun kultani kaunis on (My Beloved is Beautiful)
References
Citations
- ^ DSCH Publishers
- ^ a b Edwards 2006, p. 98
- ^ a b Manninen 2002, p. 33
- ^ Manninen 2002, p. 34
- ^ MTV3: Shostakovitshin kiistelty teos kantaesitettiin (in Finnish)
- ^ "BIS Records". Retrieved 31 March 2016.
Bibliography
- Edwards, Robert (2006). White Death: Russia's War on Finland 1939–40. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-84630-7.
- Manninen, Ohto (2002). Stalinin kiusa – Himmlerin täi (in Finnish). Helsinki: Edita. ISBN 951-37-3694-6.
- v
- t
- e
- The Nose
- Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District/Katerina Izmailova
- The Big Lightning (unfinished)
- Orango (unfinished)
- The Twelve Chairs (unfinished)
- Katyusha Maslova (unfinished)
- The Gamblers (unfinished)
- Moscow, Cheryomushki
- The Golden Age
- The Bolt
- The Limpid Stream
- No. 1 in F minor
- No. 2 in B major (To October)
- No. 3 in E♭ major (The First of May)
- No. 4 in C minor
- No. 5 in D minor
- No. 6 in B minor
- No. 7 in C major (Leningrad)
- No. 8 in C minor
- No. 9 in E♭ major
- No. 10 in E minor
- No. 11 in G minor (The Year 1905)
- No. 12 in D minor (The Year 1917)
- No. 13 in B♭ minor (Babi Yar)
- No. 14 in G minor
- No. 15 in A major
Piano |
|
---|---|
Violin |
|
Cello |
|
- Tahiti Trot
- Suite from The Golden Age
- Suite from The Bolt
- Suite from The Limpid Stream
- Five Fragments
- Scherzo (1922)
- Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1
- Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 (orch. McBurney)
- Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1 (arr. Atovmyan)
- Festive Overture
- Suite from Encounter at the Elbe
- Suite from The Gadfly (arr. Atovmyan)
- Novorossiisk Chimes, the Flame of Eternal Glory
- October
- "Intervision"
- The New Babylon
- Alone
- Golden Mountains
- Counterplan
- The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda
- The Youth of Maxim
- Girl Friends
- The Return of Maxim
- The Vyborg Side
- Friends
- The Great Citizen
- Zoya
- Simple People
- The Young Guard
- Pirogov
- Michurin
- Meeting on the Elbe
- The Fall of Berlin
- Belinsky
- The Unforgettable Year 1919
- The Gadfly
- Five Days, Five Nights
- Sofiya Perovskaya
- Hamlet
- King Lear
- Gogoliad (unfinished)
- Suite on Finnish Themes
- Song of the Forests
- The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland
- Antiformalist Rayok
- From Jewish Folk Poetry
- The Execution of Stepan Razin
- Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok
- Loyalty
- Six Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva
- Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin
String quartets |
|
---|---|
Other |
|
- Three Fantastic Dances
- 24 Preludes
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor
- Children's Notebook
- 24 Preludes and Fugues
- Galina Shostakovich (daughter)
- Maxim Shostakovich (son)
- Concerto DSCH
- DSCH motif
- Europe Central
- Ian MacDonald
- Muddle Instead of Music
- The Noise of Time
- Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox
- Solomon Volkov
- Testimony: book
- film
- The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin
- Wihuri Sibelius Prize
This article about a classical composition is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e