Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, Dmitry Yablonsky, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra :: Shostakovich: Hamlet

Shostakovich As a Great Film Music Composer

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 06/24/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"By my title I don't necessarily mean the FILM is great (I've not seen it) but the music certainly is. As far as I know we've not had the complete film score on CD before; there have been several recordings (conducted by Chailly and Previn, among others) of a suite from the score. This one does not have to take a back seat to any recording I've ever heard of the suite. And it contains music that we'd not otherwise hear, some of it extraordinarily evocative. More and more, with some recent widely distributed recordings, we are coming to know Shostakovich as a masterful film composer. Look for CDs of his music for 'The Great Citizen,' 'Pirogov,' 'The Gadfly, 'The New Babylon,' among others. Just as we remember Prokofiev for his ballet scores, we may come to remember Shostakovich just as much for his film music. And these are not the typical Hollywood-style scores; they don't sound so much like movie music as descriptive tone poems.Dmitry Yablonsky conducts the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, a group that has been coming on strong in recent times; Yablonsky is their Principal Conductor and he certainly gets all one could ask for from them. The playing is alert and flexible, musical and suave, spooky and exciting. In the spooky passages (and there are some moments of real frisson in the scene with Hamlet's Father's ghost) I was actually made to feel eerily unsettled.Some highlights of the score: The Ghost, The Ball, Arrival of the Players, Monologue ('What a rogue and peasant slave'), Monologue ('To be or not to be'), In the Garden, Death of Ophelia, and 'The Duel - Death of Hamlet - Hamlet's Funeral.' The latter is an emotionally evocative 7-minute tone poem that could stand on its own. This CD also has a release on SACD which I have not heard. But on this plain vanilla CD the sound is demonstration quality, so I can only imagine what it must be like with surround sound.Recommended.TT=62:28Scott Morrison"

Some of Shostakovich's Most Profoundly Moving Music

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 05/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There was a time when the public looked down on classical music composers who deigned to stoop to writing film scores, and yet many of the finest composers of the 20th century were quite successful in producing quality music for the cinematic medium: Korngold, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Copland and Shostakovich to name but a few. When Shostokovich wrote this deeply profound and moody score for the 1963 Russian film 'Gamlet' he was in top form and the music that is brought to us in its entirety on this lengthy recording (59 minutes) by Dmitry Yablonsky conducting the Russian Philharmonic in a eight day recording session in Moscow in February 2003 offers some refreshing insights into the power of Shostakovich's compositional techniques.



From the sinister Overture, through military music and fanfares and palace balls, Shostakovich leads us into the mysteries that abound in Shakespeare's drama. The episodes of meeting the ghost, the inordinately appealing subtle music that accompanies Hamlet's famous monologues to the madness and death of Ophelia and the eventual death of Hamlet - all are orchestrated with such brilliance that the music sounds like a fresh introduction to Shostakovich. For example, he uses the harpsichord for Ophelia, allowing that odd keyboard sound to dwindle into insanity in a manner that sets this character apart from the rest of Shostakovich's musical style.



For those who love the symphonies and quartets of Dmitri Shostokovich this magnificently recorded CD should become a part of the library. It is not a minor work: it is some of this great composer's most personal writing. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 06



"