2024-25 BSO Season

Harlow Robinson, host
Josie Larsen, soprano 
Mary Kray, mezzo-soprano 
Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor
Joseph Vasconi, piano

SHOSTAKOVICH From Jewish Folk Poetry

“The distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations," Shostakovich told a friend. "Why does a man strike up a jolly song? Because he feels sad at heart.” This sort of black humor – “laughter through tears” — struck a deep chord in Shostakovich. Antisemitism and the difficult historical experience of the Jewish people in Tsarist Russia, the USSR and elsewhere profoundly disturbed him, especially since many of his close friends and colleagues were Jewish and he saw first-hand the injustices and humiliation they suffered at the hands of Stalin and Hitler. Shostakovich incorporated Jewish themes into numerous works: the Second Piano Trio (1944), the First Violin Concerto (1947), From Jewish Folk Poetry (1948) the Fourth String Quartet (1949), and the Babi yar Symphony No.13 (1962). Prof. Harlow Robinson will discuss these works and other issues of Shostakovich's relationship to Jewish themes.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Baiba Skride, violin

ALL-SHOSTAKOVICH program
Violin Concerto No. 1
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 8

Friday afternoon's performance by Baiba Skride is generously supported by the Plimpton Shattuck Fund.

A part of our series looking at the music and times of Dmitri Shostakovich and how the composer folded messages of revolution and resistance into his music during a politically turbulent time. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride brings her signature dulcet tones to Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. This work is a deeply personal one, influenced by the composer’s fear of the Soviet censors and actual encounters with restrictive directives from the government. These bitter feelings toward the regime especially color the third and fourth movements. In this way and many others, we see the composer finding ways to stand up to prevailing political winds; for example, the whole piece is shot through with Jewish klezmer influence at a time when antisemitism was on the rise in the USSR.

Pre-concert Talk
The May 2 concert will include a pre-concert talk at 12:15pm with Soviet and Russian cultural historian Harlow Robinson.

Jonathan Senik, piano 
Mark Pasnik, Professor of Architecture, Wentworth Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Design

SHOSTAKOVICH 24 Preludes op. 34

A discussion of the history of brutalist architecture, from its European origins and expressionistic roots in Russian Constructivism to its arrival in the United States, hosted by Mark Pasnik, professor of architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology, founding principal of the architecture firm OverUnder, and co-author of Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston, which examines Boston’s brutalist legacy. This discussion will explore the people, ideas, and stories behind the building of Boston’s own City Hall, the inherited legacy of brutalism, it’s parallels to traditions surrounding Shostakovich’s own journey, and the architectural movement’s changing reception today.