Dmitri Shostakovich - the Fall of Berlin

Composer - Dmitri Shostakovich
Conductor - Sergey Krivobokov
Performance - Moscow symphony orchestra, Moscow capella, Moscow youth chorus
Genre(s) - Classical, film score
Origin - Russia
Album - The Fall of Berlin OST
Year of release - 1949

It's Russia-mania! The Fall of Berlin was a propaganda movie about Russia's ultimate victory in the Second World War. I must confess I haven't seen it although I'd really love to. Its score was composed by the famous Dmitri Shostakovich, who often collaborated with Stalin's regime not because of ideological similarities but because he was the kind of person who could not say no to people even if he wanted. Much like his symphonies, this soundtrack is a volatile affair with many sudden, dramatic shifts in mood and tempo. Like O Fortuna in Orff's Carmina Burana and the Scherzo part in Beethoven's Ninth, this is "hard classical": heavy, victorious, and bombastic with a capital B. I usually don't have the patience for classical music but Shostakovich's compositions are another thing entirely.

The appearance of a very hated face on my blog forces me to repeat that because during the civil war and foreign intervention true workers' power quickly evaporated and Stalin's regime actually had a highly counterrevolutionary and bureaucratic character, Stalinist Russia and the Eastern Bloc can not be called socialist or communist!

1. Main title part 1
2. Beautiful day
3. Alyosha by the river
4. Stalin's garden
5. Alyosha and Natalia in the fields - attack!
6. Hitler's reception
7. In the devastated village
8. Forward!
9. Main title part 2
10. The roll call - attack at night
11. Storming Seelov Heights
12. The flooding of the underground station
13. The final battle for the reichstag - Kostya's death
    
14. Yussuf's death - the red banner
15. Stalin at Berlin's airport
16. Finale - Stalin's speech - Alyosha and Natasha reunited
    

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