The program features two of Shostakovich’s most challenging, provocative and arguably, greatest works!
The Fourth Symphony came as a result of the composer’s study of Mahler. Scored for a gigantic orchestra, the symphony consists of two colossal outer movements, each lasting nearly half an hour, that frame a brief, intermezzo-like movement: first a movement in extended sonata form, then a droll scherzo and in third place a final movement of varied symphonic character introduced by a funeral march.
The second work features the World Premiere recording of Shostakovich’s own suite from his opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Premiered in 1934, the work was a smashing success. However, triumph came to an abrupt end when on January 28, 1936, it became the subject of a devastating article in Pravda, presumably initiated by Stalin. Shostakovich arranged the Suite op. 29a, shortly after completing the opera. It can be assumed that the dramatic fate of the opera also had an effect on the history of the Suite’s performance, so that it, too, was not played for at least another twenty years.
Andrey Boreyko, born in St. Petersburg, studied at that cty’s Academy of Music under E. Kudriavtseva and A. Dmitriev. Since 1997, he has been living and working largely in Western Europe. He was Chief Conductor of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and First Guest Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Since 2004, he has been allied with the Hamburg Symphony as its Chief Conductor, in 2005 he was called to take on the same position with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and to be the Principle Guest Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of SWR. He works as Guest Conductor with the world’s leading symphony orchestras.
