Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 & Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2

Phil.harmonie presents ‘Kolja Blacher-Dmitri Schostakowitsch’ including Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony for sextet, arranged by Viktor Derevianko, and the first recording of a new arrangement for sextet by Oriol Cruixent of Shostakovich’s ‘Varieté Suite’.

The Suite for Variety Orchestra (post-1956) is a suite in eight movements which derive from other works by the composer. Also named ‘Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra’, it was misidentified as the ‘lost’ Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 (1938), a different work in three movements that was lost during World War II, the piano score of which was rediscovered in 1999 by Manashir Yakubov, and orchestrated the following year by Gerard McBurney. The Suite was first performed in a Western country on 1 December 1988 in Barbican Hall, London, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, under the title ‘Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2’. Here players with close associations with the Philharmonie in Berlin play it in a new arragement by composer and pianist Oriol Cruixent.