Shostakovich originally composed what has become known as the Waltz No. 2 in 1955-56 for his score (Op. 99) for the film The First Echelon (Pervyi eshelon), directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, which had its premiere on April 29, 1956. The waltz was also included in the Suite from The First Echelon (Op. 99a) arranged by Shostakovich and Levon Atovmyan in 1956. The BSO has never performed the Waltz No. 2, but Keith Lockhart led a Boston Pops performance of the waltz in a program celebrating the Ballet Russes in May 2009.
In the late 1950s an anonymous person, probably Shostakovich himself, arranged an orchestral suite from ballet, musical theater, and film music of the 1930s to 1950s, that was mistakenly identified for many years as the Suite for Jazz Orchestra, No. 2; it is now known correctly as the Suite for Variety Orchestra. Waltz No. 2 is the seventh of eight numbers in the Suite for Variety Orchestra.
Between 1929 and 1970, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote scores for almost forty films in a variety of genres, from the eccentric silent feature The New Babylon, to hardcore Stalinist propaganda docudramas like The Fall of Berlin, to probing versions of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear. The First Echelon (Pervyi eshelon) was Shostakovich’s only collaboration with Mikhail Kalatozov (1903-1973), a distinguished auteur director best known for his classic World War II film The Cranes Are Flying (1957).
The scenario follows a group of enthusiastic young volunteers who travel to barren, remote Kazakhstan to participate in the campaign launched by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for the settlement and agricultural development of the “virgin lands.” Shot by acclaimed cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, the film depicts their difficulties in adjusting to the harsh climate and primitive living conditions, but in good Socialist Realist fashion focuses on the ability of Communist Party officials to lead the collective and triumph over adversity and human weaknesses (alcoholism, jealousy, romantic misadventures).
https://www.bso.org/works/waltz-no-2-from-suite-no-1-for-variety-orchestra
Music, Classical Music
