EDITING SHOSTAKOVICH

Who would have the nerve, is the first question you ought to ask. The correct answer is, nobody, not even his son, the musician and conductor. But then I did. Inadvertently. And the results are not bad. Worth listening to, anyway.

It happened this way. Accidentally. Now the Russian composers are used to have a captive, stationary audience, such as in a concert hall. So the composer teases the audience. (I used the word advisedly.) You are supposed to sit there, all attention, while the silence, or near-silence, plays on. Then (I am thinking of Tchaikovsky's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, in particular) after several long minutes a bit of music can be heard. Divine. But in the meanwhile, you begin to think that there is something wrong with the CD or the amplifier, or, worse, you forgot to turn the damn thing on. Then the music comes creeping in, and all is right with the world again. Very right, because the music is so good.

Which brings us to Shostakovich and his Eleventh Symphony. I downloaded it from eclassical.com in Sweden, and paid a fee, which includes a royalty for leasing it. Perfectly legitimate. But--new to downloading and to MS Windows Media Player rip and burn technology, I got the tracks out of order when it came time to burn my CD. There are four long movements, and the first follows the classical Russian tediously slow lead-in. Normally the listener will have a ten or twelve minute wait until he hears the distant timpani signifying the overthrow to the Tsar Nicholas and the start of the Russian Revolution. (Believe me, it is worth the wait.)

My accidental sequence is 4, 1, 2, 3. Not noticing this, I began to play the Eleventh, and was astonished at hearing the music start at once, and boomingly so. Wonderful music. Then I pulled the CD and looked at the track order in my computer. And I saw my mistake. Quickly I burned another CD--they are cheap--and got it in the right order. So now I listen to the music as Shostakovich intended me to: as in a music hall.

But I've saved the errant CD and occasionally--the hurried American I am, always doing something while my music plays in the background--I sneak it out and play it. And what is more, I like it. I might consider doing it again, but knowingly this time. Don't worry, though. I wouldn't dream of touching his marvelous Seventh Symphony.

Not a note.

P.S. Don't tell anybody I did this.