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Dmitri Shostakovich [Catalogue of Works]. Hamburg: Sikorski Musikverlage, 2005. [226p. ISBN 3-935196-60-1. ISMN M-003-03351-8. i19.50]
It is a sign of how rapidly Shostakovich scholarship is advancing, and of how much remains to be learned, that the catalogue under review is already out-of-date just two years after publication. Nonetheless, it remains the most reliable resource available in English, or in any language, for basic information about the composer's works.
This is a publisher's catalogue, issued by one of the major publishers of Shostakovich's music in the West. It is a work of collation and synthesis, not cutting-edge scholarship. No authors or compilers are credited. The goal, according to the Preface, is "to briefly document the present bibliographical state of knowledge of the oeuvre of Dmitri Shostakovich by bringing together and comparatively evaluating the most varied sources" (p. 6). Those sources include the 42-volume Soviet edition of the composer's music (issued by "Muzyka" from 1979 to 1987) and the prospectus for the 150 projected volumes of the New Collected Works issued by DSCH Publishers in Moscow that commenced publication in 1999, as well as earlier catalogues and recent biographical works (including the biography by this author). The source singled out for its "special importance" is Derek Hulme's Dmitri Shostakovich: A Catalogue, Bibliography, and Discography, 3rd ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2002).
Hulme's catalogue is also the most direct competition for this catalogue. Both furnish a chronological listing of Shostakovich's works giving-as appropriate-the title, subtitle, key, opus number, date of composition, dedication, designation of movements, orchestration, approximate duration, and the...