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Tahiti Trot

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Tahiti Trot
Tea for Two
ArrangementbyDmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich in 1925
Opus16
Commissioned byNicolai Malko
Based on"Tea for Two"byVincent Youmans
Composedcirca October 1927
DedicationTo dear Nicolai Andreyevich Malko as a token of my best feelings
PublisherMuzika,Hans Sikorski Musikverlage
Duration4 minutes
Scoringsymphony orchestra
Premiere
DateNovember 25, 1928
LocationLarge Hall of theMoscow Conservatory,Moscow,Russian SFSR
ConductorNicolai Malko
PerformersSovFil Orchestra[ru]

Tahiti Trot(Russian:Таити трот,romanized:Taiti trot) (orTea for Two),[1]Op.16, is anarrangementfor symphony orchestra byDmitri Shostakovichof the song "Tea for Two"from the musicalNo, No, NanettebyVincent Youmans.It was composed in 1927 and resulted from a bet between the composer and the score's dedicatee,Nicolai Malko.

Tahiti Trotwas premiered on November 25, 1928, and quickly became popular in the Soviet Union. Changing cultural politics that resulted from theGreat Breakand the end ofNEPled to Shostakovich renouncing the work. It subsequently was withdrawn, then considered a lost work untilGennady Rozhdestvenskyreconstructed it in the early 1980s from orchestral parts presented to him by Malko's widow; it was first published in 1984.

History

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Nikolai Malko(pictured here in 1946)proposed an orchestral arrangement of "Tea for Two"as a bet to Shostakovich

In his memoirs,Nicolai Malkorecalled first hearingVincent Youmans' "Tea for Two"at theMeyerhold Theatrein Moscow in 1927:

[They] performed a play calledRoar, China.In one of the scenes some Americans on a ship are dancing. Thefoxtrotused in that scene became very popular. Nobody knew who the composer was. [...] It was called the "Tahiti Trot". In reality it was "Tea for Two". Jazz music was regarded very negatively in Russia in those days. I did not agree with this philosophy and referred to that foxtrot as an example of music that was not bad.[2]

Shostakovich developed an interest in popular music during this period. Like Malko, he had heard "Tea for Two" at the Meyerhold Theatre. He was also greatly impressed byErnst Krenek's jazz-influenced opera,Jonny spielt auf,and its arrangement of another Youmans song fromNo, No, Nanette,"I Want to Be Happy".In the company of friends he enjoyed playing jazz-style improvisations on the piano for them.[3]

At some point before October 1927,[4][5]Malko jokingly suggested to Shostakovich that he should orchestrate "Tea for Two" and proposed a bet:

If you, Mitenka, are as brilliant as they all say, then please go into the next room, write that song down from memory, orchestrate it, and I will play it. I will give you an hour to do this.[6]

Shostakovich completed his task in forty-five minutes, thereby winning the bet.[3][6]He dedicated the score to Malko as a "token of [his] best feelings".[1]

Tahiti Trotwas later included, with modified orchestration, as the interlude to the third act of the balletThe Golden Ageupon the request ofAlexander Gauk.[7]Shostakovich also includedTahiti Trotin an unpublished five-movement version of the ballet's suite.[8]

Music

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The manuscript score has no tempo markings; these were added byGennady Rozhdestvenskywhen he edited the score for its first publication in 1984.[9][a]A typical performance takes four minutes.[1]

Instrumentation

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In the original arrangement, the orchestra consists of the following instruments:

Shostakovich later adjusted the orchestration for the version ofTahiti TrotinThe Golden Ageand added awoodblockandalto saxophone.[1]

Premieres

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Tahiti Trotwas officially premiered at the Large Hall of theMoscow Conservatoryon November 25, 1928, by theSovFil Orchestra[ru]conducted by Malko, although this had been preceded by his performances on August 2 and 3 with the Baku Academic Orchestra in theAzerbaijani SSR.[1]It appeared in a program devoted to Shostakovich's music, which also included the suite fromThe Noseand another arrangement,Two Pieces byDomenico Scarlatti,Op. 17.[10]Malko touredTahiti Trotaround the Soviet Union, including inKievwhere the score was pirated and performed without permission.[4]According to Gauk,Tahiti Trotelicited the vivid approval of audiences, which always demanded the piece be encored.[7]

The first British performance took place in London on March 8, 1929,[b]with Malko conducting theWireless Orchestra.[12]Prior to that performance, Malko told theDaily Mailthat he did not make distinctions between a "great symphony" or a "musical comedy" provided that they are good, and that he appreciated a "good jazz band as much as a good symphony orchestra and far prefer[ed] to listen to a really good jazz band than a poor symphony orchestra".[13]

Retraction and loss

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Gennady RozhdestvenskyreconstructedTahiti Trotfrom the original orchestral parts that Malko bequeathed to his widow

The popularity of foxtrots and light music in the Soviet Union was viewed as a "problem" by the authorities. At a June 1929 conference of theCentral Committee of the CPSU,People's Commissar of EducationAnatol Lunacharskysaid that no task was "more urgent" for Soviet culture than to rebuke the "aggressive, jazzy syncopations of the foxtrot":[14]

The bourgeoisie would like man to live not so much by his head as by his sexual organs. [...] The fundamental element of the foxtrot derives from mechanization, suppressed eroticism, and a desire to deaden feeling through drugs. [...] [W]e do not need that kind of music.[3]

Shostakovich repudiatedTahiti Trotin a 1930 issue ofProletarskiy Muzikant,the house journal of theRussian Association of Proletarian Musicians.He said that composing the arrangement and letting Malko perform it had been a "political mistake",[15]that he had conceived it forThe Golden Ageand that playing outside the context of the ballet gave the incorrect impression that he was a supporter of light music,[16]and that he dispatched a letter to Malko immediately demanding that he cease performingTahiti Trot.A later issue ofProletarskiy Muzikantpublished Malko's response, which said that he never received any demand to stop performingTahiti Trot,but that he had not programmed it in any of his recent concerts anyway. He also expressed irritation that Shostakovich had seemingly put the entire blame for the affair on him. In an afterword, the editorial board of the magazine wrote that both composer and conductor shared equal responsibility.[15]

The score was withdrawn and quickly forgotten,[15]an outcome that Gauk deplored in his memoirs.[7]By 1942, the manuscript was reported lost byNicolas Slonimsky,[17]although Malko confirmed in his memoirs that he still possessed it.[4]

Reconstruction

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Gennady RozhdestvenskyreconstructedTahiti Trotusing the original orchestral parts that had been in the possession of Malko. His widow provided them to Rozhdestvensky.Tahiti Trotwas published for the first time in 1984.[18]

Notes

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  1. ^В автографе темпа отсутствует, метр—четыре четверти. Добавлено и изменено редактором.
  2. ^Derek C. Hulme incorrectly states that the British premiere did not occur until August 14, 1981, at the 87thProms.[11]

References

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  1. ^abcdeMcBurney, Gerard(March 2023)."Shostakovich: Work List"(PDF).London:Boosey & Hawkes.p. 43.Archived(PDF)from the original on April 24, 2023.RetrievedApril 25,2023.
  2. ^Malko 1966,pp. 212–215.
  3. ^abcVolkov 1978,p. 225.
  4. ^abcMalko 1966,p. 215.
  5. ^Fay 2000,p. 47.
  6. ^abKhentova 1985,p. 200, n. 2.
  7. ^abcGauk 1975,p. 125.
  8. ^Tartakovskaya, Natal'ya (July–September 2006)."Some Autographs of Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, and Shostakovich in British Archives".Fontis Artis Musicæ.53(3): 224.JSTOR23510749.
  9. ^Shostakovich 1984,p. 187.
  10. ^Khentova 1985,p. 200.
  11. ^Hulme, Derek C. (2010).Dmitri Shostakovich: The First Hundred Years and Beyond.Scarecrow Press. p. 39.ISBN9780810872646.
  12. ^"The Wireless Age: Programmes to be Broadcast To-day".Daily Mail.March 8, 1929. Archived fromthe originalon November 1, 2022.RetrievedNovember 1,2022– viaNewspapers.
  13. ^"To-night's Russian Music: Conductor's" Surprise Item "".Daily Mail.March 8, 1929. Archived fromthe originalon October 31, 2022.RetrievedOctober 31,2022– viaNewspapers.
  14. ^Fairclough, Pauline (May 2002)."The" Perestroyka "of Soviet Symphonism: Shostakovich in 1935".Music & Letters.83(2): 265.doi:10.1093/ml/83.2.259.JSTOR3526498.
  15. ^abcVolkov 1978,p. 226.
  16. ^Fay 2000,p. 59.
  17. ^Slonimsky, Nicolas(October 1942)."Dmitri Dmitrievitch Shostakovitch".The Musical Quarterly.28(4): 443.JSTOR739182.
  18. ^Shostakovich 1984,p. vi.

Sources

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