Being an artist in Stalin’s Russia was a daunting endeavour. The rules changed quickly and the consequences for disobedience ranged from censure to the gulag. Soon after the Man of Steel died, Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 10, with a violent second movement that seems to evoke the fateful figure of Stalin himself. Under the baton of brilliant cellist-turned-conductor Han-Na Chang, the symphony moves from introspection to a joy verging on ecstasy. Opening the concert, the prodigiously talented violinist Benjamin Beilman, returning to the OM after a long absence, gives over all the richness of his sound to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
BEETHOVEN : Violin Concerto
SHOSTAKOVICH : Symphony No. 10
