Rule, Britannia!
(Rule Britannia: Schauspielmusik) op. 28 (1931)1(=picc).0.0.bcl.1-1.2.1.1-timp.perc:tgl/SD/cyms/BD-pft-strings-chorus
Abbreviations (PDF)
VAAP
1.The Internationale 2.Infantry March 3.Along the Soviet Route 4.Protest 5.Raising the Banner 6.The Banners are Making a Noise
Shostakovich’s third and final score for TRAM (the Theatre of Working Youth) was composed for a play written by the theatre’s brilliant and controversial director, Adrian Piotrovsky. The subject matter was apparently the condition of the working-classes and the prospect for revolution in western capitalist countries.
The surviving music is lively, cheerful and vigorous, somewhat in the style of the colourful political posters of the period. It is scored for a small orchestra and includes a simple chorus in the first and last movements, singing two well-known revolutionary songs, including the ‘Internationale’. It also includes an ‘Infantry March’ which Shostakovich liked well enough to recycle in an elaborated form in op.31, and then again further elaborated in op.32
Note by Gerard McBurney