Poor Columbus: Entr'acte and Finale

In 1929 there was a staging in Leningrad of a new opera by a young German composer called Erwin Dressel. Dressel was taken up by the Russians partly because he was talented but mostly because he was a leftwinger. The plot of his opera was obviously political. It concerned a very modern ‘Columbus’, a poor European man who sets off to discover the rich capitalist America of the 1920s. Shostakovich’s contributions were intended to overcome a couple of dramatic weaknesses in Dressel’s score and to underline more strongly the Communist politics of this idea.


To fulfil this strange commission, Shostakovich composed two of his quirkiest and oddest early orchestral pieces. An energetic Entr’acte is followed by a hilariously noisy Finale, with mock American dance-music, a parade of American sailors (presumably on ships in New York harbour), episodes intended to accompany silent cinema and a chorus singing  the words ‘International Peace!’ at the tops of their voices.


This is a real rarity, a thoroughly over-the-top piece of orchestral poster-art, with the composer’s tongue firmly in his cheek.


Note by Gerard McBurney.