5 pieces arranged for cello and piano

Clockwork Doll (1945) arr Sapozhnikov

Hurdy-gurdy (1945) arr Atovmian

Moderato (c1935?)

Nocturne (1955) arr Atovmian

Gigue (1954) arr Chelkausas

The now flourishing Shostakovich recycling enterprise began in a small way 57 years ago when Lev Atovmian put together the Ballet Suite No.1 from dances in the then proscribed ballet The Limpid Stream (and a few other sources). He went on to compile three more orchestral ballet suites and to make other arrangements for smaller ensembles. And he was by no means the only musician to sift through Shostakovich ballet and film scores and incidental music in search of attractive little pieces that could conveniently be arranged for other instruments. Roman Sapozhnikov’s cello-and-piano version of The Clockwork Doll, for example, comes from A Child’s Exercise Book for piano, while Hurdy-gurdy is another Atovmian arrangement from The Limpid Stream.

The only piece in its original scoring in this group is Moderato which, Pauline Fairclough suggests (in her valuable liner notes for Alban Gerhardt and Steven Osborne’s forthcoming Hyperion recording), could have been intended for another cello sonata. Certainly, it is more serious-minded than its companions here, including even the sensitively sustained Nocturne from The Gadfly and, of course, the grotesque Gigue from the Hamlet incidental music.