Kammerkonzert - Schostakowitsch & Schubert by Shostakovich, Schubert, sek 07 lie 2024, Nuo (2024/2024), Pfalztheater, Kaiserslautern, Germany

The program of the chamber concert on July 7th, 2024 combines two works that juxtapose or even merge light and dark, joy and pain, vitality and premonition of death in a very small space: On the one hand, Shostakovich's »String Quartet No. 4 D- Major op. 83" a piece that was written at a time when the composer was exposed to severe hostility from the Communist Party. Completed in 1949, it was only premiered publicly after Stalin's death in 1953. The fact that Shostakovich gives great importance to the processing of Jewish music can certainly be understood as a statement against the USSR's policy, which was characterized by strong anti-Semitism. On the other hand, Schubert's "Quintet for 2 violins, viola and 2 cellos in C major D 956" is a work that seems to go beyond all dimensions. Schubert wrote it - still under the impression of Beethoven's death - in the year of his own death, 1828. In doing so, he not only pays his last musical respects to his great role model, but also explores all the limits, both compositionally and emotionally. Romantic cantilenas and dance-like episodes stand next to melancholic, mysterious sounds, energetic joy of life is interrupted by desperate cries. With its almost intangible complexity, the quintet became one of the most important works of its genre.