Brussels Philharmonic, Edgar Moreau, Tadaaki Otaka

‘A Soviet artist’s response to just criticism’: that is the subtitle Shostakovich gave his 5th Symphony. But everything about the work is ambiguous: order becomes restlessness, joy is stifled, the harmony suddenly turns shrill. The regime didn’t realize any of this, and yet Shostakovich managed to express the oppression of his people through the music. Stalin had already died when Shostakovich wrote his Cello Concerto No. 1, but the piece nevertheless makes an ironic reference to the tyrant’s favourite song.

Flagey, Brussels Philharmonic