New Collected Works Suites from Operas and Ballets

Suite from the Ballet The Bolt. Op. 27a. Score.

Volume 72
2015

Suite From the Ballet The Bolt. Op. 27а
Edited by Victor Ekimovsky. Explanatory article by Olesya Bobrik.

Opuses:

Suite from the Ballet “The Bolt”
1934* year

Op. 27a
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  After the ballet’s failure (which was more decisive than that endured earlier by The Golden Age, which managed to sustain 18 performances), Shostakovich had no desire to return to its music, rearranging it instead into a suite. Conductor Alexander Gauk undertook this work with the composer’s consent. The variety show nature of the ballet made it easy to convert it into a suite. More than half of the ballet’s items were antic dance portraits, and it was these that became the core of the new arrangement.

In its original version, the Suite was comprised of eight parts:

  1. Overture,
  2. Dance of the Bureaucrat,
  3. Dance of the Drayman,
  4. Tango (Dance of Kozelkov and His Friends),
  5. Interlude,
  6. Dance of the Colonial Slave Girl,
  7. The Yes-Man and
  8. Final Dance [and] Apotheosis

  The author prepared a second version for publication, in which he removed two parts—Nos. 6 and 7, and gave all the items new names:

  1. Introduction,
  2. Polka,
  3. Variation,
  4. Tango,
  5. Interlude
  6. Finale

  This publication features the second version, while two items from the first version (Dance of the Colonial Slave Girl and The Yes-Man) are given in the Appendix.

Orchestra:

Piccolo, 2 Flauti (II = Piccolo II), 2 Oboi, Corno inglese, Clarinetto piccolo (Es) =, Clarinetto basso (B), 2 Clarinetti (B), 2 Fagotti, Contrafagotto
6 Corni (F), 3 Trombe (B), 3 Tromboni, Tuba
Timpani, Triangolo, Tamburino, Tamburo, Piatti, Cassa, Tam-tam
Campanelli, Silofono
BANDA: Cornetto piccolo (Es), 2 Cornetti (B), 2 Trombe (B), 2 Alti (Es), 2 Tenori (B), 2 Baritoni (B), 2 Bassi
Violini I, Violini II, Viole, Violoncelli, Contrabassi

  This publication is based on the first edition of the Suite (D. Shostakovich, Collected Works, in 42 vols., Vol. 26, Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1987), collated with the authorised copy of the Suite kept in RSALA, rec. gr. 653 (Muzgiz), inv. 1, f. 2268 and the score of the ballet (D. Shostakovich, New Collected Works, in 150 vols., Vols. 62a, 62b, and 62c, DSCH, Moscow, 2013). The whereabouts of the author’s manuscript is unknown. When necessary, the unauthorised hand-written copy of the Suite kept at the Glinka All-Russia Museum Association of Musical Culture (VMOMK), rec. gr. 32, f. 285, as well as the piano score of the ballet (D. Shostakovich, New Collected Works, in 150 vols., Vol. 63, DSCH, Moscow, 2014) were used.

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