Kirill Kondrashin - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 'Babi Yar', Prokofiev: October (2014)

A historic version of the patriotic October cantata by Prokofiev plus only the second public performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony on December 20, 1962, using the original text by Yevtushenko, which pays tribute to murdered Jews in the Ukrainian ravine of Babi Yar. As in the first performance this heroic ballad succeeds as a passionate, vengeful and suitably funereal tribute despite Kruschev's to change the text. The same incomparable, authentically Russian cast performs most of the 'October' Cantata which honours the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution. In ten contrasting movements, drawn from the writings of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, it relates the story of the Bolshevik Revolution and the birth of the Soviet Union, from the battle for the Winter Palace in 1917, through the suffering of 1918 and Lenin's funeral in 1924, to the building of factories and collective farms in the early '30, and the final consolidation of Stalin's control over the country with his new constitution of 1936. Begun by Prokofiev in 1936 on a generous commission from the All-Union Radio Committee and Prokofiev's friend Boris Gusman, it was finished the following summer. Prokofiev expected it to be part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 but due to the political climate towards artists in 1937, Prokofiev withheld the work. The Cantata had to wait until May 1966 for its première, 13 years after Prokofiev's death. By this time Stalin was also dead and disgraced.