"Songs of Great Rivers". Music to the Film

  There are two versions of the film.
  The film Das Lied der Ströme was made in 1954 by Dutch director Joris Ivens in the German Democratic Republic at the DEFA studio of historical and documentary films. The Soviet version of the film, entitled “Song of the Great Rivers”, was made under Ivens’ direction in Moscow at the Central Documentary Film Studio (CDFS). It was not an impersonal dubbing into Russian; there were differences related to the selection and assembly of the material, as well as the music.

  Shostakovich arrived in Berlin on 11 April 1954 and was met at the station by Joris Ivens and a group of co­workers. On the evening of the same day, Shostakovich met Bertolt Brecht, author of the lyrics of the “Hymn of the Rivers” from the future film. Three viewings at the studio in Babelsberg (on 12 April in the morning and afternoon and on 14 April) were arranged to familiarise the audience with the rough-cut footage, which was the main purpose of Shostakovich’s trip to Germany, as well as to listen to recordings of the folk songs Ivens’ colleagues had collected for the film.
  There is not very much documentary information about how the film music was composed. It appears that writing the music was not part of the composer’s busy agenda during the Berlin visit and it was written later. Shostakovich’s letter to Deputy Soviet Minister of Culture Vladimir Surin has survived, providing the only currently known chronological reference point regarding creation of the score. The letter refers to the period when the work in Berlin had reached the stage of recording the music, that is, the German side needed the sheet music. The composer wrote to Surin: “Dear Vladimir Nikolayevich! I am forwarding you the letter I received from director Joris Ivens, and I ask you to instruct Vladimir Golovnya, the director of the Central Documentary Film Studio, to make three photocopies of my manuscript of the film ‘Song of the Great Rivers’ and send them to Joris Ivens. The manuscript is in the orchestra library.” The letter, dated July 1954, confirms that the score of the film Song of the Great Rivers had been completed by that time and was in the possession of the orchestra of the Film Production Directorate; perhaps a sound recording had already been done under the direction of the orchestra’s head conductor Grigori Gamburg.
  The premiere of the german version of the film was held in Berlin on 17 September 1954. The Soviet version of the film was released in the Soviet Union in November 1954.
  After release of Songs of the Great Rivers, several excerpts of Shostakovich’s music to the film were published. They were printed by Sovetskaya muzyka, the U.S.S.R. Music Fund, Sovetsky kompozitor and Muzyka.
  In 1967, the “Hymn of the Rivers” was recorded on a gramophone record by the famous East German singer and actor Ernst Busch.