"The Fall of Berlin". Music for the film.

"The Fall of Berlin". Music for the film

Director Mikheil Chiaureli and screenwriter Pyotr Pavlenko were commissioned by the Soviet government to make this film after finishing their work on The Vow. Released in 1946, this historical film covered the events of the previous two decades—from Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924 to the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. According to its narrative, Joseph Stalin was portrayed as the central figure guiding the nation through these years. So, approved by the authorities and Stalin himself, The Vow launched Chiaureli and Pavlenko’s collaborative Stalinist film cycle. The next film in this cycle was to be The Fall of Berlin as part of a broader artistic and ideological campaign aimed at developing and sustaining the Stalinist myth.

In post-war Soviet Stalinist cinema, the various filmmakers involved in creating this cycle had shifted the focus from Stalin’s leading role during the October 1917 Revolution and the Civil War to his decisive role in World War II. The declared aim of this new film genre was to recreate historical truth through action. Yet its true purpose was to construct a mythicised version of the recent past with Stalin as its sole architect. The films The Third Blow (1948, directed by Igor Savchenko) and The Battle of Stalingrad (1949, directed by Vladimir Petrov) emerged within the framework of this broad ideological film project under the slogan “Stalin’s Ten Blows,” a phrase Stalin conceived himself. The Fall of Berlin was the third film in this series.

A preliminary agreement between Mosfilm and the composer on the music to The Fall of Berlin was signed on 20 April, although Shostakovich was in Leningrad at the time. On 25 April, Mosfilm’s music department accepted Shostakovich’s musical script for Part One. And on 11 May, Shostakovich requested termination of his contract with Lenfilm for Alexander Popov, citing the start of work on The Fall of Berlin. This decision could only have been sanctioned by the cultural authorities.

The two months between screening the film material and its presentation to the Art Council saw not only composition of the music, but also its recording and sound editing.

The orchestra of the Soviet Ministry of Cinematography, conducted by Aleksandr Gauk, performed the recording. The Soviet State Choir led by Aleksandr Sveshnikov (conducted by Vladimir Zakharov), the Pyatnitsky State Folk Choir and Orchestra (choir director and conductor Pyotr Kuzmin and conductor of the folk orchestra Vassili Khvatov) also participated. None of these ensembles were listed in the film’s credits.

The film was approved for screening on 30 December 1949, according to the conclusion of the Art Council of the Soviet Ministry of Cinematography. Dmitri Shostakovich’s “good, expressive music” to the film was mentioned separately. The score was assigned opus number 82 in the catalogue of Shostakovich’s compositions.

The premiere of The Fall of Berlin was held on 21 January 1950. Public screenings followed in Leningrad at the House of Cinema on 24 January (Part One) and 26 January (Part Two). The two parts were shown separately in different cinemas to large audiences. The excitement surrounding the screening was fuelled by an active promotional campaign.

In the summer, an international screening of Der Fall von Berlin was organised in East Berlin—at the site of the events. Part One premiered on 23 June and Part Two on 7 July.

Shostakovich was awarded the Stalin Prize, First Class in 1949 for the oratorio “The Song of the Forests” and the music to The Fall of Berlin, thus confirming the highest official assessment. At the K arlovy Vary International Film Festival (15-30 July 1950), the film was awarded the Crystal Globe Grand Prize, although the award for best music went to The Kuban Cossacks and Isaak Dunaevsky.

Levon Atovmyan later arranged the film’s music into The Fall of Berlin Suite, Op. 82a, for choir and orchestra. The Suite, about half-an-hour long, which is approximately half the length of the film’s music score, differs in several respects from the original and consists of eight movements: No. 1. Introduction; No. 2. Scene by the River; No. 3. Attack; No. 4. In the Garden (Vocalise); No. 5. Storming of Seelow Heights; No. 6. In the Destroyed Village; No. 7. Scene in the Subway; and No. 8. Finale. The premiere took place on 10 June 1950, performed by the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir conducted by Aleksandr Gauk (choirmaster Ivan Kuvykin). That same year, the Suite’s finale was recorded on vinyl by the Orchestra and Choir of the All-Union Radio Committee under Gauk’s baton at the Melodiya studio. In 1952, the same ensemble recorded Nos. 1, 4–6, and 8 of the Suite at the same location, and its score was published in Moscow by Muzgiz Publishers. The song “Beautiful Day”, recorded in 1951 under the direction of choirmaster Anatoli Chmyrev at Melodiya, was often performed and has been published in various collections.

Interest in the infamous score re-emerged with the onset of perestroika, revived by the publication of excerpts from it in Dmitri Shostakovich’s 42-volume Collected Works (Muzgiz Publishers, Moscow, 1987, Vol. 34). A few years earlier, in 1982, the opening fanfare of the score was recorded by Melodiya with the Bolshoi Theatre Brass Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Andropov for the album Fanfares of Soviet Composers. In 1989, excerpts of the film’s music were performed at the Italian Maggio Musicale Festival in the ballet The Overcoat, based on Nikolai Gogol’s story and choreographed by Flemming Flindt. The production, created for Rudolf Nureyev, was shown the following year at the Edinburgh Festival and then in San Jose, California. Rubens Tedeschi and Irwin Kostal were responsible for the ballet score and its arrangement. Along with other compositions by Shostakovich, it included three episodes from the Suite: No. 4 (“In the Garden”), No. 5 (“Storming of Seelow Heights”) and No. 6 (“In the Destroyed Village”). The premiere was performed by a combined American ballet troupe from the San Jose and Cleveland theatres.

The Suite was first recorded in the West by José Serebrier (RCA Victor Red Seal, 1990) and Mikhail Yurovsky in 1995 (Capriccio 10 405, 1995). In 2000, a Swiss conductor and composer performing under the pseudonym Adriano recorded Shostakovich’s music to the film in the order heard on the screen (apart from quotations from other composers). He used his own rendition, combining smaller fragments from the soundtrack into a cohesive sequence. The Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Capella, and a children’s choir conducted by Sergei Krivobokov took part in the recording at the Mosfilm Studio. The recording was released in the same year by Marco Polo, along with the music to the film The Unforgettable Year 1919. Although the total length of the music written for The Fall of Berlin lasts 45 minutes, Adriano’s reconstruction extends to one hour and 15 minutes over 23 episodes due to the repetition of several fragments.

At the same time, the film itself was restored. In the early 1990s, the State Film Fund and the Toulouse Film Library completed its restoration, after which it was screened internationally, attracting sustained interest as a monumental artefact of the late Stalinist era.