Woodwinds: piccolo, 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 B♭ clarinets, E♭ clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, double bassoon
Brass: 6 French horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba
Percussion: timpani, triangle, tambourine, snare drums, cymbals, bass drum, gong, glockenspiel, xylophone
Strings: violins, violas, cellos, double basses
Banda in Finale: E♭ cornet, 2 B♭ cornets, 2 trombones, 8 saxophones (2A,2T,2Bar,2B)
The premiere was the only performance for 74 years, as the audience jeered it and the critics upbraided it for its un-Soviet intentions. Along with his other ballets The Limpid Stream and The Golden Age, the work was banned by the authorities after Shostakovich's first denunciation in 1936. He subsequently put parts of it in his other music.
The waspish and delightfully colourful score bowls along like a children’s cartoon-film, every number full of drama and parody and fine take-offs of serious and popular music of every kind. Among the highlights are the opening scene when the workers gather in the morning for their physical fitness class before hitting the conveyor belts, the appearance of pompous and opinionated officials and bureaucrats, a ridiculous church-going episode, and the exciting scene when the sabotage-conspiracy nearly succeeds and is only foiled at the last moment. There are also plenty of numbers which mimic the whirling and hammering sounds of modern factory machinery.[1]
- — Gerard McBurney