The Unknown Wind Music of Shostakovich
The unknown wind music of Dmitri Shostakovich is a topic that is obviously near and dear to Odd Terje Lysebo’s heart. It is always immediately apparent when a research session is being given by someone who has a genuine thirst for knowledge and is not merely fulfilling a job requirement or doing an assignment. Odd’s love of Shostakovich’s music is infectious and resulted in a riveting discussion and demonstration of a variety of music written between 1929 and 1971 for winds and percussion.
He brought with him the musicians of the Nanset Wind Orchestra who have had a very busy couple of days playing the wonderful opera the night before and the cabaret that evening. I suspect that each member of that ensemble is also more of an expert on Shostakovich than I will ever be.
As Odd remarked at the beginning of his session, not all of this music that he has discovered is good. Some is simply different than what we might expect from Shostakovich. All of it is worth knowing about. Of particular interest was the film music. He not only played suites from these films but also brought with him clips from these films to play as the music was being performed.
Volochayerka Days playing on screen with live music from Nanset Wind Ensemble
Of note were two pieces: Incidental music from The Bedbug written in 1929 and music from the film Volochayerka Days of 1938. The first was a light and humourous chamber work in three movements. The second was a much bigger work, both in instrumentation and in its more epic nature, which depicted a Japanese attack.
Unfortunately, much of this music is still unavailable to us as it is in manuscript but I hope that some of this will soon make it to published editions so that we can all share this music with our audiences. Thank you, Odd, for an inspiring and informative session.
©2007 WASBE and/or the contributing author/photographer