Stravinsky Jeu de Cartes Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 Shostakovich Symphony No. 6
Vladimir Jurowski conductor Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin
Prokofiev’s second Violin Concerto is said to represent the composer’s focus on a ‘new simplicity’, but it’s a warm, heartfelt piece nonetheless as the composer’s long-breathed melodies mingle with moments of haunting stillness and thought. Shostakovich, too, had to alter course with his Sixth Symphony. After the Soviet authorities accepted the masked rebellion of his Fifth, Shostakovich felt compelled to be more honest and open; under the surface of the Sixth – first brooding and then bustling – emerges a grotesque picture of persecution ending in a gallop that portrayed, for one commentator, ‘a brazen display of vulgarity.’
Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski places Shostakovich's sixth symphony in its historical context:
