Program
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 77 (1878)
Allegro non troppo
Adagio
Allegro giocoso — Poco piu presto
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47 (1937)
Moderato
Allegretto
Largo
Allegro non troppo
Performers:
The musicAeterna Orchestra
Soloist — Olga Volkova, violin
Conductor — Teodor Currentzis
Details
The programme of the musicAeterna Orchestra conducted by Teodor Currentzis includes two classical compositions that belong to different styles and eras, but embody the ‘zeitgeist’ pretty much upon a par. Johannes Brahms’s Concerto for violin and orchestra is a brilliant example of romantic writing for solo violin, a positivist hymn to the unity of man and nature, filled with Viennese elegance and Hungarian motifs so fashionable in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the late 1870s. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 is one of the most famous symphonic cycles of the 20th century Russia. The composer created in it a strikingly eloquent ‘cast’ of Leningrad and Moscow in 1937.
Johannes Brahms dedicated his only Violin Concerto to his devoted friend, the magnificent violinist Joseph Joachim, who introduced Brahms to the Schumann couple in his youth. Together with Joachim, the composer calibrated the solo part: later, other world-renowned violinists deemed it unfeasible. Brahms was perfectly sure of the soloist’s skill. He did not even write the cadence in the first part, suggesting that his friend write it himself. Joseph Joachim became the first performer of the Concerto in Leipzig in 1879. He began the evening with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, and continued with Brahms’s Concerto in D major, and the similarity of the two compositions was manifested not only in the key that was chosen. Brahms’s ‘beethovenianism’ was expressed in the emphasized symphonic quality of the cycle, in its classical structure, some melodic and orchestral solutions, but most importantly — in the affirmation of the harmony of the world, man and nature, which Beethoven celebrated in the bright years of his life.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 became the watershed between the composer’s early and mature styles, the boundary between his youthful maximalism, gushing eccentricity and experiments, and the tragic symphonism of the maestro with his focus on ‘the last questions of existence’. The new simplicity of the language of the Symphony No. 5, for which the composer was so praised in the Soviet music-critical press, turned out to be deceptive. This work begins the story of Shostakovich’s secret language, which encodes messages in musical thematism and its development that cannot be unambiguously interpreted, but speak to each listener about what brings pain in their own heart. In the Symphony No. 5 there are references to Mahler and to Habanera from Bizet’s opera Carmen (perhaps this is just a musical greeting to a beloved who married a Spaniard with the surname Carmen); there are intonations of L’Internationale, a quote from Shostakovich’s own song ‘Renaissance’ to the lyrics by Pushkin. The classic four-part cycle with the dramatic Allegro of the first movement, the ‘street’ scherzo, the lyrical and philosophical centre in the slow third movement is crowned by a strikingly ambiguous finale — either a victorious triumph, or an infernal exultation.