DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975): Suite on Finnish Themes for Soprano, Tenor, Chorus and Orchestra, The Execution of Stepan Razin for Bass, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 119, Zoya Suite, Op. 64a.

Description: The rollicking grotesqueries of Execution have become almost standard recorded repertoire by now but there is only one other recording available of each of the other works. The music for the 1944 film Zoya, a hagiograhic exercise exalting an 18-year-old partisan caught and hung by the Germans, comes in a 28-minute suite of five movements with chorus in the first while the 11-minute suite of seven simple and unadorned settings of Finnish folk-songs comes from 1939, mysteriously commissioned by the Leningrad Military District with a deadline of Dec. 1 which, hardly coincidentally, was the day after the Soviet Union attacked Finland to begin the Winter War. Never performed, it was only rediscovered in 2001 and recorded by BIS the next year - the only other recording of the work. Transliterated Russian, Finnish-English texts. Mari Palo (soprano), Tuomas Katajala (tenor), Shenyang (bass-baritone), State Choir "Latvija", Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra;  Vladimir Ashkenazy.