“Tahiti Trot”. Orchestral Transcription

Vincent Youmans, “Tahiti Trot”
Orchestral Transcription by Dmitri Shostakovich
Op. 16

     The transcription of Vincent Youmans’ (1898-1946) foxtrot, ‘Tahiti Trot’, dates 1928. Shostakovich himself dated this opus as such in the list of works he compiled at the end of the 1930s.
     The premiere of the transcription of ‘Tahiti Trot’ took place on 25 November 1928 in Moscow, in the Grand Hall of the Conservatory. N.A. Malko conducted the Soviet Philharmonic Society (Sophil) orchestra.
    ‘Tahiti Trot’ as an independent concert piece was not only performed in Moscow and Leningrad. What is more, while working on his first ballet, Shostakovich introduced this transcription into the score of The Golden Age (as an interlude to the third act).
     But soon, in the atmosphere of the aggressive campaign ‘against NEPman music [cancan, strip-tease, live music characteristic of the New Economic Policy era (NEP) in Russia in the 1920s]’ launched by the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM), Shostakovich, precisely with respect to the transcription of ‘Tahiti Trot’, became a target of severe attacks and even accusations, not so much of an artistic, as of an ideological and political nature.
     At the beginning of the 1930s, ‘Tahiti Trot’ disappeared for long decades from the repertoire. The author’s manuscript was considered lost. Not until after Shostakovich’s death did Gennadi Rozhdestvensky restore the score in accordance with the orchestral parts kept by Malko’s widow and orchestrated it.