CLASSICS

SHOSTAKOVICH: The Song of the Forests, Oratorio, Op. 81. Soloists, Choruses, Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Aleksander Yurlov, conductor (Melodiya SR-40214)

First heard in December, 1949, The Song of the Forests was Shostakovich's first large-scale choral work. It celebrated a post-war forestation program set up under Stalin after the Second World War, and had the added effect of being a morale-booster for the Soviet people considering the hardships the war had inflicted upon them.

In seven sections with titles like Let Us Dress Our Land in Forests, The Young Pioneers Planting Trees, and Walking Toward the Future, this work is great propaganda, but hardly great music. It's melodically simple to an almost embarrassing degree, appealing to the lowest musical denominator, and as such was extremely popular for quite some time after its premiere. In fact, it won the Stalin Prize.

This new recording of The Song of the Forests delivers all one could expect of it. The sound is exceptionally clear (the low Russian bass voices of the choir come through with chilling effect), though the surfaces on my copy were extremely shitty.