Kurtz Conducts Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky

In the late 1940s, Dmitri Shostakovich's music had come under attack for formalism in the wake of the 1946 Zhdanov decree. It demanded that he and other composers write only music for the masses.

To comply, and to support himself, Shostakovich and his colleague Lev Avtomian came up with the idea of repackaging lighter music from the 1930s into suites. The first such Ballet Suite was published in 1949. It was followed by a second in 1951, and third and fourth suites in 1953.

Efrem Kurtz

It didn't take long for conductor Efrem Kurtz,  experienced in ballet and of Russian descent, to discover the music. When he did, he concocted his own version of music from the first two suites into what he called a Ballet Russe, which he and a New York studio orchestra recorded for Columbia in December 1952. As far as I can tell, this was the first recording of this music.

For whatever reason, the conductor changed the titles of most of the pieces from the published scores, and neither he nor Columbia saw fit to denote their sources.

With a little detective work, I was able to assemble a table (included in the download) that shows the names that Kurtz used, Shostakovich's names and the suite derivation, and the source material that Avtomian used for the music. For Kurtz's Ballet Russe, all of the source material dated from 1934, most of it from the ballet The Limpid Brook. From my spot checks, it appears that Kurtz employed Avtomian's arrangements.

Kurtz used five of the six pieces from Ballet Suite No. 1, eliminating the Romance, and five of the six from Ballet Suite No. 2, dropping the Spring Waltz.

Shostakovich (right) with East German leader Walter Ulbricht and wife Lotte, 1950.

The liner notes, while less than clear about the music's provenance, aptly describe it as "direct and simple and immediately appealing." The reading by Kurtz and his forces is light and sparkling. The conductor underplays any parody that Shostakovich intended in the work.

Young Bernard Greenhouse is the soloist in the "Serenade for Cello," and Robert Nagel in the "Romance for Trumpet." Nagel, then a freelancer, would found the New York Brass Quintet a few years later.

Gjon Mili's stroboscopic photo of Kurtz in action. Sorry if this induces a headache.

Kurtz maintained his light touch even in the more brooding music of Tchaikovsky found on the second side of the LP. First up is the Sérénade mélancolique. Most often heard in violin and orchestra form - although it has been arranged for everything from cello to theremin - here it is performed in an orchestral arrangement of uncertain origin. Kurtz himself might be responsible; regardless of parentage, it works well.

The conductor follows this by programming the second movement of Tchaikovsky's First Symphony. (I believe it is somewhat cut.) The composer's early symphonies were not heard often at the time. Only Sevitzky (available on this blog), Rachmilovich and Ivanov had recorded the First at the time.

To add to the confusion that seems to be a theme on this record, Kurtz calls the work "Andante," even though the movement is marked Adagio and the composer titled it "Land of desolation, land of mists."

Just as the conductor's Sérénade is not overly mélancolique, his Andante is more contemplative than desolate. Tchaikovsky called the symphony "Winter Dreams" or "Winter Daydreams," so perhaps Kurtz's approach isn't too far off the mark.

Columbia's sound is pleasant, although it doesn't have much dynamic range and is over-reverberant. It may be an example of the "stairwell reverb" technique that Columbia engineers were using at the time. That involved playing the tapes in a stairwell and adding the reverb created to the final mix. It was not an unusual practice, but it worked better for pop music than orchestras. Note below that in 1956 Columbia promoted this record as one of its "Hi-Fi Landmarks!", so at least they were proud of it.

Click to enlarge

To return to Shostakovich, to my knowledge Kurtz recorded the composer's music three times - the Ninth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, the Tenth with the Philharmonia, and this Ballet Russe. [Update: reader David Gideon notes that he also recorded the First Symphony for EMI, published by Capitol in the US.]


If you are interested in more of his Shostakovich, please visit my friend Bryan's Shellackophile blog. He hasn't published anything for the past year, but his previous posts are still on line, including his transfer of the Shostakovich Ninth mentioned above. Even though Bryan's item dates back to 2010, the links still work.