Music and Vinyl: Shostakovich - Suite For Variety Orchestra No. 1 (Jazz Suite No. 2)

Dmitri Shostakovich was a major composer of the 20th Century whose most notable compositions were a set of fifteen symphonies. Composing during the communist era in the Soviet Union, for a lot of the time his music had to conform to the ideals of the Communist Party or risk censure - as happened after the premiere of his 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. However not all his music were epic symphonies, or composition conforming to socialist realist expectations. There was a lighter side to Shostakovich - often thinly disguised as satirical takes on the decadent West.

A short Suite for Jazz Orchestra - No.1 - was composed in 1934. A 1938 work - lost until 1999 - was the 2nd Jazz Suite. However this title had been used for a suite of Shostakovich's music arranged by Levon Atovmyan in 1956. Upon discovery of the "real" 2nd Suite, Atovmyan's suite gained its proper name - the snappy Suite for Variety Orchestra No.1. It consists of music from Shostakovich's ballet, theatre and film music. Rather than being jazz-like, much of it could be considered "easy-listening" (so nothing like the 7th or 8th symphonies!) and well at home in a ballroom at the end of a seaside pier.