Balda (Comic Book Opera) / Orchestral Suite from Lady Macbeth

Conductor Thomas Sanderling, a friend of Shostakovich who has premiered several of his works, leads his Russian cast and orchestra to offer a deeply devoted and ambitious reading of these exciting rarities – for the first time on disc in this version.

The film scenario to The Tale of the Priest and his Worker, Balda was written by the director Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, after Pushkin's folk-tale, known to every child in Russia. A priest hires Balda as his worker, for the price of "three knocks on the forehead"; but then, in order to escape from the deal with Balda, he begins to give him unperformable duties. Balda, however, carries out all these duties, and the moment of payment arrives for the miserly boss. "The poor priest exposed his forehead. With the first knock the priest shot up to the ceiling; with the second the priest was speechless, and with the third the old man had his senses knocked out of him. But Balda kept repeating, reproachfully: 'So, priest, you wanted a good price ...'" Tsekhanovsky, who in 1931 had made the famous avant-garde animated film Pacific (a paradoxical title!) to the score of Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, decided to create a new work in the style of Russian folk tableaux, on the same principle: "first the music, then the film". At the beginning of 1933 he got in touch with the composer.

At that time the young Shostakovich was not only the writer of symphonies, operas and ballets but also a highly experienced master in the area of film music. He considered that music in the cinema "may and should be faced with the same level of demands as the scenario, the actors' performances, and the direction. But in such a film the music must then be accorded parity of esteem". He was immediately fascinated by Tsekhanovsky's concept: "The screenplay ... has succeeded in retaining satirical sharpness and the entire palette of Pushkin's ... work of genius tale ... The film is sustained at the level of a folk-farce. In it there is a mass of sharp, hyperbolic situations and grotesque characters ... The tale sparkles with fervour, lightness and cheerfulness. And to compose music for it was likewise an easy and cheerful task."

Tsekhanovsky's diary entry records vivid details of the collaboration: "Shostakovich played excerpts from Balda: the dialogue of Balda with the Devils. He played powerfully and precisely. It was as though his fingers were extracting precious stones from the instrument ... He likes my 'scenario', and he went about his work like an inspired, first-rate artist." Shostakovich was also satisfied with his music for Pushkin's tale. Never before or since did he come into such close and immediate proximity to the Russian folk-tale element, to folk intonations and rhythmics; and this encounter lent his work a special freshness, energy and splendour.

"The content of the tale itself and the artist's concept defined the character both of the musical language - in the manner of a folk-fairground and a merry-go-round - and of the entire film", the composer recalled. "Perhaps after The Tale of the Priest is shown on screen, I will again hear reproaches from certain musical critics at my superficiality and mischief, at the absence of the real human emotions that 'at long last' materialized in my Lady Macbeth. But what should we consider as human emotion? Do only lyricism, grief and tragedy count? Surely laughter also has a right to this honourable title?"

Having worked on it for nearly four years, Tsekhanovsky unfortunately was unable to complete his innovative film. Only the scene of the "Market" remained as a well-known classic of animated cinema, plus the magnificent music of Shostakovich, which 70 years after its creation is available to the listener on this disc for the first time in its full and authentic form. It was on the initiative of the composer's widow, Irina Antonovna, that the score of The Tale of the Priest was completed, a task carried out by one of Shostakovich's pupils, Vadim Bibergan.

The Symphonic Suite from the opera The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District presents the sharpest, most staggering contrast to the score of The Tale of the Priest. It does not appear in a single list of Shostakovich's works (the author of these lines was fortunate enough to discover of the score in the process of preparing the New Collected Works of Shostakovich). The Suite is dated 1932 and was assembled immediately after the completion of the opera.

At the turn of the 1920s/30s Shostakovich repeatedly emphasized the great significance of the symphonic principle in his musical-theatrical works. "I consider it essential", he wrote in 1931, for instance, "to dramatize the musical essence, to give the music a genuine symphonic tension and dramatic direction." In firmly insisting on the through-composed, symphonic quality of Lady Macbeth's musical dramaturgy, he particularly highlighted the orchestral interludes: "The musical flow is uninterrupted," he wrote, "only breaking off at the conclusion of each act; and it is renewed in the next act, going not in small segments but unfolding on the large, symphonic plane ... The musical interludes are the continuation and evolution of the preceding musical thought, and they play a very large role in the task of characterizing the events on stage ... In connection with this arises the massive role of the orchestra, which does not accompany but plays a role no less important, perhaps even more important, than the soloists and chorus."

The Suite op. 29a consists of three interludes: between the second and third, seventh and eighth, and sixth and seventh scenes (the last two interludes of the opera are swapped round); however, in the Suite the movements do not have titles. The dramatic fate of the opera as a whole - which had initially travelled the world in triumph but then was suppressed and for a quarter of a century removed from musical life - evidently settled that of the Suite. Its recording is here realized for the first time.