A number of people have written about Shostakovich's film music in topics here in the past (Dinko especially). As with all sorts of different versions re-recorded by different conductors of the same music, there will be a lot of debate.

I don't want to get into what versions might be better or worse but to discuss the score itself. Naxos has recorded a number of Shostakovich film scores (Hamlet, The Gadfly, The Fall of Berlin, etc.) for better or worse.

By the way, as an aside, The Fall of Berlin is now available on DVD from International Historic Films if anyone is curious to see it.

Some back story on Odna. In Russian, Odna is the feminine of Alone so the film's title has been translated as Alone and also as A Girl Alone. Shostakovich made a concert suite from the score containing 3 movements. More recently the complete score was reconstructed and issued. Naxos calls their album a "World Premiere Complete Recording" but there seems to be another album of Odna which is not the suite but is not the complete score either.

More back story. Odna is Shostakovich's 2nd film score (composed in 1929). His first was for a silent film called The New Babylon (1928), a neat film which I've only seen in a poor version. Shostakovich went wild on The New Babylon scoring the film with all sorts of dissonance. One viewer commented that the composer must have been drunk. The Soviet authorities started to keep an eye on Shostakovich considering him one of those "counter-revolutionary troublemakers" starting with this score.

The score to The New Babylon itself is really wonderful and there are a number of different versions of it.

Back to Odna. Despite the reception of The New Babylon score, the filmmakers liked the music and wanted Shostakovich to score their next film, Odna. Shostakovich's score for Odna is less aggressive in nature but not without its own surprises.

Among those surprises is a cue for overtone singing (voiceless sound made by the throat) and the use in one cue of the theremin. The score also contains music for barrel organ and a number of songs.

As for the score itself, while it mickey-mouses, it's also delightful. There are light scherzos for the main character waking, doing exercises, playing with children, negative sounds for the bad characters she has to confront, dramatic orchestral crescendos for a snowstorm, and a very up-beat, almost too triumphant finale.

The score runs just shy of 80 minutes and Naxos runs a lot of the track breaks together so they can skip putting two seconds between them (which is just plainly annoying). But the whole score is there including music they found that was cut or not used in the final film.

It turns out there are two other versions of the score (not the suite). These look to be more or less complete minus a cue or two. I don't have these versions (I have a number of Shostakovich film scores but don't have every version) so I can't discuss them though they are by conductors who have done good jobs with other Shostakovich film scores in the past.

The Naxos looks like this:

http://www.abeillemusique.com/images/references/8570316.jpg

Here is a still from the film:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/programmes/images/Odna4_205x150.jpg

There is a DVD of the film from Norway. The film was originally shot silent and then a soundtrack was added to it when sound came in in Russia. Shostakovich said the players did well but the recording was poor. I'm not sure if the DVD has the original recording or a re-recording (it appears to be the latter). According to the Naxos Odna liner notes the film is now missing one reel and unless the existing reels had sound, I doubt the original soundtracks survive (though I don't know for certain).

In any case, the film itself is about a young girl from the city who decides to take a job as a teacher in some far-off Neglectastan.

The DVD looks like this:

http://www.moskwood.nl/store/images/dvd/MW2115.jpg

When the conductor reconstructed the score, he gave it in live performance. Here is a poster for those performances (again in Norway?). This contains yet another still from the film. When the girl arrives, one of the first things she sees is this horse skin: You're not in Moscow anymore Dorothy:

http://www.shostakovich.nl/odna_den_bosch/images/boekje-01.jpg

Here is the cover of the version conducted by Michail Jurowsky:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41B08K6TF6L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Though small, this is the cover of the version conducted by Walter Mnatsakanov:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21997W26PJL._SL500_AA130_.jpg

Some may criticize Western civilization as 5,000 years of oppression, hierarchy, and inequity in terms of race, class, and gender. Also, it seems likely that a post-human future is coming soon. It may be impossible now to save humanity and its artistic creations (a shame, though) and some would say that maybe both man and his artifacts aren't worth saving anyway.

But while I'm alive, I'm personally interested in absorbing and preserving the culture of the past which means listening to scores like Odna, learning all about them, and passing on the info for those willing to listen.

That said, I'm not promoting Odna only because it's some rare score that's supposed to be good for you like spinach. I'm promoting it because I think it's a good score to listen to.