Waltzes from Film Music

Waltzes from Film Music for Symphony Orchestra.

Shostakovich-Atovmyan

Dmitri Shostakovich’s catalogue contains a large number of compositions named “Suite”, primarily consisting of excerpts from stage-related works—suites from operas, ballets and incidental scores for theatre performances.

The composer himself authored the earliest ones—Suite from The Nose, Op. 15a, Suite from The Golden Age, Op. 22a, Suite from The Bolt, Op. 27a and Suite from the music for Hamlet, Op. 32a. Later, other musicians, such as conductors Mikhail Khvostov, Aleksandr Gauk, Albert Coates, Yuri Silantyev and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, musicologist Sofya Khentova and composer Gerard McBurney, began compiling suites from Shostakovich’s music.

Levon Atovmyan, Shostakovich’s close friend, composer, experienced arranger, compiler and editor of more than twenty suites featuring Shostakovich’s music, was particularly productive in this respect. The bestknown and most in demand are his Ballet Suites Nos. 1-4 based on music from the ballet The Limpid Stream.

One of the best known collections of Shostakovich’s film music is Waltzes from Films for symphony orchestra (first published by Moscow’s Sovetsky Kompozitor in 1959). The cycle of eight waltzes is not Shostakovich’s own project, but the collection became popular under his name without mention of Atovmyan as the author and compiler. It is performed by conductors both in its entirety and as separate items and included in the repertoires of orchestras all over the world.

This also explains why Waltzes is included in the New Collected Works:

1. Waltz from the M usic to the Film The Return of Maxim
2. Waltz from the M usic to the Film The Golden Mountains
3. Waltz from the M usic to the Film Michurin
4. Waltz from the M usic to the Film Pirogov
5. Waltz from the M usic to the Film The Gadfly
6. Waltz from the M usic to the Film The First Echelon
7. Waltz from the M usic to the Film Unity
8. Waltz from the M usic to the P lay The Human Comedy