Moessorgski, Brahms, Sjostakovitsj by Mussorgsky, Brahms, Shostakovich, Nuo (2023/2023), Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Song art is central to this program with soprano Elena Stikhina in the leading role. Since graduating in Moscow in 2012, she has caused a furore at almost all major opera houses, including Dutch National Opera. Following in the footsteps of the legendary soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, she gives Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, thought of from a male perspective , a transgender interpretation. Shostakovich wore his Seven Romancesto Vishnevskaya and her husband, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, with whom he was a close friend. The lyrics are almost apocalyptic musings on life, death, nature and the power of music. Equally weighty are Shostakovich's penetrating notes, barely instrumented for soprano, cello, violin and piano. A certain melancholy also typifies Brahms. But in his glowingly romantic First Violin Sonata , the sun dominates, although in the last movement he does quote his own melancholic Rain Song full of thoughts of days gone by.