6th Philharmonic Concert by Various, Dg. 06 Febr. 2022, De (2022/2022), Director musical Kent Nagano, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany

The “little ninth” - this is how Beethoven's “Choral Fantasy” op. 80 is called, in contrast to the more famous sister work that was written sixteen years later. This shows not only musical parallels with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but also in terms of content: Christoph Kuffner's verses also deal with the magic of art, joy and brotherhood. Shostakovich's 13th Symphony, called "Babi Yar" after the eponymous gorge near Kiev, the site of a horrific mass murder of thousands of Ukrainian Jewish families by German units in 1941, to which Yevgeny Yevtushenko dedicated a rousing poem in 1961, represents a counterpoint. Shostakovich set it to music when the Soviet government decided to remove the traces of this massacre, which in turn brought him into conflict with the authorities.