Fourth Symphony Concert

The programme for the 4th symphony concert includes works by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) and Jörg Widmann (born in 1973). Composed in 2003, Widmann’s “Lied for Orchestra” is a vivid homage to Franz Schubert’s vibrant musical legacy. “Schubert was a melodic genius”, Widmann comments, and indeed the composer's orchestral score for “Lied” exhibits his admiration for Schubert’s gift of communicating simply through song. Widmann employs intense melodies as building blocks in the work, capturing and drawing listeners in, and effectively adapting the intimate form of the art song to a large instrumental group. His original idea was to write an orchestral monody – one line, or melody, that gradually unfolded throughout each section of the ensemble. But instead, Widmann chose to channel Schubert’s ideas of musical “traveling”, exploring different harmonic backgrounds throughout the work and hinting at Schubertian themes from select string quartets and the octet. Widmann’s homage is in stark contrast to the overture and experts from Schubert’s incidental music to the now almost completely forgotten play “Rosamunde”.

In the 2nd half of the concert, Dmitri Shostakovich steps forward as one of the key figures in the development of the 20th Century symphony, a composer who carried a heavy artistic burden in the restrictive Soviet political system. After losing his prestigious teaching posts in a broad cultural crackdown against “formalism”, Shostakovich ceased to write symphonic works for nine years. Then, in 1953, the 10th Symphony appeared, a musical portrait of Stalin and, perhaps, an examination of man’s existence at times of terror and deportation.