Delusions of grandeur

The fact that Dmitri Shostakovich withdrew his Fourth Symphony just before its premiere in 1936 had everything to do with Stalin and a damning article in Pravda. Shostakovich thought at the time that his symphony was ‘full of delusions of grandeur’. When the work finally premiered in the 1960s

it turns out he hasn’t changed a single note. Familiar matinee guest Vasily Petrenko shows with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra that Shostakovich did well.

String Quartet

The ears have already been warmed by ‘a colossal twenty-five minute scherzo’, as John Adams called his Absolute Jest for string quartet and symphony orchestra. The work, written in 2012 for the centenary of the San Francisco Symphony, regularly refers to Beethoven’s late string quartets. The Dudok Quartet, the ‘soloist’ on duty, has already created the quartet sound with the first movement of Roukens’ Fourth String Quartet, ‘a beautiful piece in which the finite and infinite meet’, according to NRC.

Program:

Joey Roukens – Strange Oscillations (from String Quartet No. 4 ‘What Remains’)
John Adams – Absolute Jest
Dmitry Sjostakovitsj – Symphony No. 4 in c minor, op. 43