Manfred Honeck & Julia Bullock by Shostakovich, Anderson, Julian, Πεμ 30 Μαρ 2023, Aπό (2023/2023), αγωγός Manfred Honeck, Isarphilharmonie, Munich, Germany

The world première of Julian Anderson’s half-hour Exiles, scheduled to be given by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in January 2022, had to be cancelled because of the covid pandemic – an ironic twist of fate, for this work of 2020-21 itself deals with the experience of the pandemic. More than that, here the composer sketches a broad panorama of the myriad aspects of exile, whether internal or external, individual or collective. It is “a meditation on leaving one’s native country and the longing for return”. Now the piece can be experienced for the first time in Munich. Manfred Honeck will also conduct Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, another work that emerged from a period of isolation and withdrawal. Following vicious attacks from Stalin’s cultural minions, the Fifth led to his official rehabilitation in 1937. Yet the music’s humanistic message and subtle ambiguity defy the adverse circumstances of its creation in a fascinating manner.