However, the concert dedicated to the celebration of the 75th anniversary of Victory day and the end of world war II, will take place in spite of circumstances. The organizers decided to translate it into online format and to submit a performance of Shostakovich’s symphonies in the record. And Valery Gergiev has added to the planned in the “Leningrad” Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony by Sergei Prokofiev.
As said by the Maestro himself in the online presentation of a program TASS: “Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony will be performed after the “Leningrad”: they are written in that order. And if the “Leningrad” sounded in 1942, the Prokofiev Sixth Symphony is Symphony the end of the war. Two titans of the Russian musical tradition – Shostakovich and Prokofiev – in one evening will appeal to thousands of listeners.” Valery Gergiev remembered that another student visited the rehearsals of Karl Eliasberg, the legendary musician who on 9 September 1942 he conducted Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony in the besieged Leningrad. Then half-dead from hunger, the musicians performed to a Packed hall of the Philharmonic, and the Symphony was broadcast on loudspeakers and on the radio.
This performance went down in history as one of the main human messages to the world from the besieged city became a symbol of the human spirit and a sign of future victory in the war.
Today’s broadcast of war symphonies of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, the organizers dedicate the Victory Day. And I hope that this concert will become a kind of symbol of spiritual power, which is needed in the current emergency in the world.
Valery Gergiev, Director of Mariinsky theatre:
Musicians always have the opportunity to rely on the power of music. In such a situation, in which we find ourselves today, the musicians, the artists lay in the only possible bridge between peoples, countries and cultures. Musicians from different countries no need to speak many languages to get in touch, to be on the same stage. And the public no matter, the orchestra plays Russian music of the French or Belgian orchestra Russian music. No barriers that couldn’t overcome the people who want to light, to goodness, to peace. Time will go relentlessly forward, and it will lead us to the opportunity to communicate and work together. I am sure that we will emerge from this crisis, which was completely unexpected and serious challenge to humanity. And I’m glad that the genius of Shostakovich and Prokofiev is a genius can rise above the circumstances.
help “RG”
the Beginning of the concert broadcast today at 20:00 Moscow time. The live broadcast will be available for viewing within 24 hours on the platform in social media theater “Vkontakte” and “Classmates”, as well as and social networks “Russian seasons” in the framework of the initiative Stay home with Russian Seasons, on the website of BOZAR and on the website of the Russian centre of science and culture in Brussels.
