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Mon, 30 Sep 2002 23:58:12 +0000 |
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Hector responded:
>Wasn't the transcription the result of a wager on whether or not
>Shostakovich could harmonize the song in less than a minute? I heard
>that this bet took place in a bar, and that Shostakovich won.
From the booklet:
"Shostakovich's involvement in popular music came about quite
fortuitously, as the result of a bet with conductor Mikolay
Malko, who had given the first performance of the "First Symphony"
in 1926, to orchestrate Vincent Youmans' famous number "Tea for
Two" from his musical "No No Nanette." Challenged to complete
his orchestration within an hour, Shostakovich needed only forty
minutes. The result, alternately witty and nostalgic, was first
heard in Moscow on 25th November 1928, when Malko performed it
under the title "Tahiti Trot." The piece was soon played by dance
bands and theatre orchestras everywhere, and Shostakovich astutely
included it in his ballet "The Golden Age," where it became a
regularly encored item. Like so much of his music from this
period, it disappeared as the Stalinisation of the Soviet Union
proceeded apace, only to be revived in the years immediately
following the composer's death in 1975."
Richard Whitehouse
Ron Chaplin
Iselin, New Jersey, USA
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