Festive Overture (Shostakovich)

1954 orchestral work by Dmitri Shostakovich

The Festive Overture, Op. 96 is an orchestral work composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1954. Commissioned for the Bolshoi Theatre's celebration of the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution, the score has since become one of the most enduring of Shostakovich's occasional scores.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 Instrumentation
* 3 Music
* 4 Reception
* 5 References

## Background[edit]

At the time the Festive Overture was composed, Shostakovich was engaged with the Bolshoi Theatre as a musical consultant.[2] According to Lev Lebedinsky, the commission resulted from an impromptu visit to the composer's apartment by Vassili Nebolsin, who came to express the Bolshoi's urgent need of a celebratory work on short notice.[3] With only three days to meet the deadline, Shostakovich agreed to provide an appropriate work and immediately began to compose the Festive Overture.[4] Within an hour, Nebolsin began to send couriers to the composer's apartment to pick up the score page by completed page, who then took them to the Bolshoi's music copyists in order to prepare the parts for performance.[5] The premiere of the score took place on November 6, 1954 at the Bolshoi, with the house orchestra conducted by Alexander Melik-Pashayev.[6]

## Instrumentation[edit]

Shostakovich scored the overture for one piccolo, two flutes, three oboes, three clarinets in A, two bassoons, one contrabassoon; four horns in F, three trumpets in B-flat, two trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba; a percussion section with timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, and snare drum; and strings. Shostakovich also includes an extra complement of brass consisting of four horns in F, three trumpets in B-flat, two trombones, and one bass trombone.

## Music[edit]

The Festive Overture begins with a brass fanfare which later reappears before the work's coda. It was recycled from the "Birthday" movement of the Children's Notebook, Op. 69.[7] Gerard McBurney has observed that the work's resemblance to Mikhail Glinka's overture to his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila is evidence for its use as a model for Shostakovich. Altogether the Festive Overture lasts approximately 6 minutes.[8]

Shostakovich himself described the Festive Overture as "just a short work, festive or celebrative in spirit."[9]

## Reception[edit]

Lebedinsky attended the dress rehearsals of the Festive Overture and later recalled his initial impressions of the work: "I heard this brilliant effervescent work, with its vivacious energy spilling over like uncorked champagne."[5] Sofia Khentova wrote that in this score Shostakovich had "with his habitual sensitivity. . . grasped the timeliness and necessity of the overture as a mass, democratic genre," praising its "spectacular flash of expressiveness, festive sparkle, [and] brilliance of orchestration." The work became very popular and was often performed during commemorative events on Soviet holidays.[10]

The Festive Overture, along with the Cello Concerto No. 1, was one of only two works which Shostakovich ever conducted himself. That performance took place at a festival devoted to his music in Gorky on November 12, 1962.[11]

Five years after Shostakovich's death, the Festive Overture was chosen as the signature musical theme of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.[12]

## References[edit]

1. ^ Fay, Laurel (2000). Shostakovich: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 192–193. ISBN 0195134389.
2. ^ Fay 2000, p. 192.
3. ^ Wilson, Elizabeth (1994). Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 264–265. ISBN 0691029717.
4. ^ Хентова, Софья (1985). Шостакович. Жизнь и творчество, Т. 2 (in Russian). Moscow: Советский композитор. p. 303.
5. ^ a b Fay 1994, p. 264. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFay1994 (help)
6. ^ Fay 2000, p. 193.
7. ^ Dmitri Shostakovich (PDF). Hamburg: Sikorski Musikverlage Hamburg. 2011. pp. 121, 129. Retrieved May 31, 2021.
8. ^ McBurney, Gerard. "Festive Overture (Festliche Ouvertüre) op. 96 (1947)". Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved May 31, 2021.
9. ^ Grigoryev, L.; Platek, Ya., eds. (1981). Dmitry Shostakovich: About Himself and his Times. Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 157.
10. ^ Khentova 1985, p. 303. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKhentova1985 (help)
11. ^ Fanning, David (2008). "Shostakovich on record". In Fairclough, Pauline; Fanning, David (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Shostakovich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 326\. ISBN 9780521842204.
12. ^ "There's More to Olympics Music Than John Williams Compositions". National Association for Music Education (NAfME). Retrieved May 31, 2021.

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Dmitri Shostakovich

List of compositions

Operas and operetta|

* The Nose
* Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District / Katerina Izmailova
* The Big Lightning (unfinished)
* Orango (unfinished)
* The Twelve Chairs (unfinished)
* The Gamblers (unfinished)
* Moscow, Cheryomushki

Ballets|

* The Golden Age
* The Bolt
* The Limpid Stream

Symphonies|

* No. 1 in F minor
* No. 2 in B major (To October)
* No. 3 in E♭ major (The First of May)
* No. 4 in C minor
* No. 5 in D minor
* No. 6 in B minor
* No. 7 in C major (Leningrad)
* Leningrad première
* No. 8 in C minor
* No. 9 in E♭ major
* No. 10 in E minor
* No. 11 in G minor (The Year 1905)
* No. 12 in D minor (The Year 1917)
* No. 13 in B♭ minor (Babi Yar)
* No. 14
* No. 15 in A major

Concertos|

| Piano|

* No. 1 in C minor
* No. 2 in F major

|

Violin|

* No. 1 in A minor
* No. 2 in C♯ minor

Cello|

* No. 1 in E♭ major
* No. 2 in G major

Orchestral works|

* Tahiti Trot
* Suite from The Golden Age
* Suite from The Bolt
* Suite from The Limpid Stream
* Five Fragments
* Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1
* Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2
* Festive Overture in A major for Orchestra
* Suite from Encounter at the Elbe
* Suite from The Gadfly (arr. Atovmyan)
* Suite for Variety Orchestra
* Novorossiisk Chimes, the Flame of Eternal Glory for Orchestra
* Intervision

Film music|

* The New Babylon
* Alone
* Golden Mountains
* Counterplan
* The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda
* The Youth of Maxim
* Girl Friends
* The Return of Maxim
* The Vyborg Side
* Friends
* The Great Citizen
* Zoya
* Simple People
* The Young Guard
* Pirogov
* Michurin
* Meeting on the Elbe
* The Fall of Berlin
* Belinsky
* The Unforgettable Year 1919
* The Gadfly
* Five Days, Five Nights
* Sofiya Perovskaya
* Hamlet
* King Lear

Vocal music|

* Suite on Finnish Themes
* Song of the Forests
* The Sun Shines over Our Motherland
* Anti-Formalist Rayok
* From Jewish Folk Poetry
* The Execution of Stepan Razin
* Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok
* Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti

Chamber music|

| String
quartets|

* No. 1 in C major
* No. 2 in A major
* No. 3 in F major
* No. 4 in D major
* No. 5 in B♭ major
* No. 6 in G major
* No. 7 in F♯ minor
* No. 8 in C minor
* No. 9 in E♭ major
* No. 10 in A♭ major
* No. 11 in F minor
* No. 12 in D♭ major
* No. 13 in B♭ minor
* No. 14 in F♯ major
* No. 15 in E♭ minor

|

Other|

* Cello Sonata in D minor
* Piano Quintet in G minor
* Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor
* Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor
* Quartet Movement in E♭ major (c. 1960s)
* Violin Sonata
* Viola Sonata

Piano music|

* Three Fantastic Dances
* 24 Preludes, Op. 34
* Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor
* Children's Notebook
* 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87

Named for Shostakovich|

* 2669 Shostakovich
* London Shostakovich Orchestra
* Shostakovich Peninsula

Related articles|

* DSCH motif
* Literaturoper
* Maxim Shostakovich (son)
* Muddle Instead of Music
* Neoclassicism
* Post-romanticism
* Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox
* Testimony
* The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin
* Wihuri Sibelius Prize

Category

Authority control |

* MusicBrainz work

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