The Big Lightning
The Big Lightning (also sometimes The Great Lightning, Russian: Большая молния, Bolshaya molniya) is an unfinished opera sketched in 1932 by Dmitri Shostakovich. The manuscript was found by Olga Digonskaya.[1] Some of the musical material was borrowed from the earlier composition, Hypothetically Murdered, Op. 31. The music for the Big Lightning was eventually scrapped and reworked into Orango,[2] because of his lack of confidence in the libretto.[3] Shostakovich only managed to write the overture and eight following pieces,[1] which lasts about 17 minutes. The original title may have been Nail in the Powder. The opera contains parodies of Glière's The Red Poppy, and Beethoven's Rage Over a Lost Penny.[1]
The work was commissioned by the Maly Theatre,[3] and the libretto was written Nikolai Aseev, and was about a team of Soviet specialists on a visit to America.[4] It premiered 11 February 1981, Leningrad, Large Philharmonic Hall, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who also made the premiere recording.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d Schostakowitsch Werkverzeichnis, sikorski.de. p. 65. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- ^ Kirkman, Andrew; Ivashkin, Alexander (28 January 2013). Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film. Ashgate Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 9781409472025. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- ^ a b Fairclough, Pauline; Fanning, David (30 October 2008). The Cambridge Companion to Shostakovich. Cambridge Companions to Music. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 195. ISBN 9781139827386. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- ^ Fairclough, Pauline (11 November 2010). Shostakovich Studies 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780521111188. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
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- t
- e
- The Nose
- Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District/Katerina Izmailova
- The Big Lightning (unfinished)
- Orango (unfinished)
- The Twelve Chairs (unfinished)
- Katyusha Maslova (unfinished)
- The Gamblers (unfinished)
- Moscow, Cheryomushki
- The Golden Age
- The Bolt
- The Limpid Stream
- 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)
- 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 in G minor
- No. 15 in A major
Piano |
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Violin |
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Cello |
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- Tahiti Trot
- Suite from The Golden Age
- Suite from The Bolt
- Suite from The Limpid Stream
- Five Fragments
- Scherzo (1922)
- Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1
- Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 (orch. McBurney)
- Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1 (arr. Atovmyan)
- Festive Overture
- Suite from Encounter at the Elbe
- Suite from The Gadfly (arr. Atovmyan)
- Novorossiisk Chimes, the Flame of Eternal Glory
- October
- "Intervision"
- 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
- Gogoliad (unfinished)
- Suite on Finnish Themes
- Song of the Forests
- The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland
- Antiformalist Rayok
- From Jewish Folk Poetry
- The Execution of Stepan Razin
- Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok
- Loyalty
- Six Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva
- Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin
String quartets |
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Other |
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- Three Fantastic Dances
- 24 Preludes
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor
- Children's Notebook
- 24 Preludes and Fugues
- Galina Shostakovich (daughter)
- Maxim Shostakovich (son)
- Concerto DSCH
- DSCH motif
- Europe Central
- Ian MacDonald
- Muddle Instead of Music
- The Noise of Time
- Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox
- Solomon Volkov
- Testimony: book
- film
- The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin
- Wihuri Sibelius Prize