Dogma Chamber Orchestra, Mikhail Gurewitsch - Shostakovich: DO.GMA#3 - 24 Preludes Op.34/Streichquartett 8 Op.110 (2013) [SACD]

Dogma is Dabringhouse & Grimm's young, 'Echo' award-winning string chamber orchestra, which has been garnering much critical approval. Like the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, they play standing, which may account partly for the intensity of the music-making in both groups. Dogma too is conductor-less, and their concert master and Musical Director is Mikhail Gurewich. In this, their third disc, they present two challenging arrangements for strings of Shostakovich's music.

His Twenty-Four Preludes for solo piano Op. 34 were written at great speed in the Winter of 1932/3. As the youthful winner of the first Chopin Piano Competition in Poland, he was obviously inspired by Chopin's set of Preludes, but he was a devotee of Bach, also a writer of Preludes, but often added Fugues to them, which Shostakovich followed in his set of Preludes and Fugues Op. 87. The Op.34 Preludes followed the composition of a large amount of incidental and film music, as well as that of the
controversial opera 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District', all of which were in his 'public' mode. The Preludes, however, are withdrawn and intimate, clearly an oasis of private writing away from official demands. Like Chopin's set, Shostakovich's 24 Preludes are ordered in relative major/minor pairs around the circle of fifths. Many of them are only a page in length, but each is clearly defined in mood and character, so that their essence and individuality is memorable.

From the start, some of these little pieces were arranged/transcribed for a wide range of forces from large orchestras, symphonic bands, clarinet and orchestra and violin and piano - even Leopold Stokowski transcribed No 14 in E flat minor, and his orchestral version was issued as a filler to his première recording of Shostakovich's First Symphony. The first (and only) transcription of the whole set fell to Grigory Korchmar (b. 1947), one of Russia's most important present-day composers. His full string orchestration, written in 1990, had to wait for 10 years before its first performance by the St Petersburg Philharmonic. Dogma's recording is the first, and to my ears is an illumination of Shostakovich's original and a wonderful addition to the string orchestra's repertoire.

To make some direct comparisons of the original with Korchmar's transcription, I turned to Tatiana Nikolayeva's classic recordings (e.g. Hyperion, RBCD); it was she who performed the work, rather than the composer, who confined himself to a select few numbers in his recitals. Dogma pick up the warmth and clarity of the lighter Preludes, as well as the angst of their darker companions, expressing Shostakovich's irony, bitterness (such as No. 6, a fragment of a malicious waltz), wryness (No. 7 with a delicate soliloquy from a solo cello) and a deeply serious No. 14 (soliloquy for double bass solo and cello solo). The set concludes with a jolly but severely curt dance. Compared with the piano version, the frequent use of counterpoint melodies in the piano Preludes, so beautifully interwoven by Nikolayeva, is beautifully brought out by the different character of each string section. At no time did I get an impression that Shostakovich's vignettes were overblown in their new garb, partly due to Gurewitsch seemingly reducing his playing numbers in lighter, simpler pieces.

Rudolf Barshai, a close companion of Shostakovich, made a name for himself as an arranger of Shostakovich's string quartets for chamber orchestra: the Kammersinfonien or Chamber symphonies. He started with the eighth quartet, Op. 110, Shostakovich approving the transcriptions and allotting them "official" Opus numbers (Op. 110a). He recorded all of these Chamber Symphonies, some of them several times. Dogma made their own transcription, which is very close to the original, essentially just adding a double bass part. The Amsterdam Sinfonietta, on their Silver Jubilee disk (Shostakovich, Weinberg: Chamber Symphonies, Concertino - Thompson) use Barshai's version, which is handy for comparisons.

The Eighth Quartet is at the pinnacle of C20th chamber music. Although he dedicated the work to the victims of Fascism, Shostakovich had a deeper, more personal agenda. In a letter to a friend, he doubted that anyone would write a musical epitaph for him on death, so he wrote one for himself - the Eighth Quartet. This personalization thread runs through the whole work in the shape of his musical initials (in German notation), as do many references to Jewish music, including Klezma as well as traditional rhythms and inflections, thus confirming the Jewish nation's historical experiences under the hammer of Fate.

Dogma's performance is intense and involved in every aspect. It communicates violence, total loss, hopelessness and weariness with all of the composer's resources, but amplified and made symphonic by the transcription. The only major difference in tempo compared to Barshai's recording is of the second Largo, the fourth movement. At a time of 7'02 compared with Barshai's 4'56, Gurewitsch takes the movement into another world - of timeless, suspended menace and lurking terror, with some wonderful high-suspense hushed playing, instead of Barshai's more prosaic leaden tread. They both work well, and it is good to have both interpretations, together with the fine Amsterdam one.

Sonically, the 16-player string orchestra is nicely balanced across the stage, with some depth, although even in multichannel the Radio Hall in Bremen's acoustic is anonymous (although it may reveal more of itself if I had a 2+2+2 speaker configuration). There is a solid bass, well articulated. The Amsterdam version has a somewhat more sophisticated rendition of timbres, and more instrumental resonance from a livelier acoustic.
Dogma 3 is a unique and inventive programme, hopefully bringing the 24 Preludes to the attention of more listeners - which I hope will be tempted to hear the original piano version with Nikolayeva (if SA-CD is required, then try Shostakovich: Piano Works - Babinsky, Busch).