Conductor: János Kovács Featuring: Tamás Varga – cello Dmitri Shostakovich: Festival Overture, op. 96 Cello Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 126 Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47 The life and career of Shostakovich graphically demonstrates just how capable a powerful dictatorship is of penetrating the sovereign world of art. The remarkable talented composer was bequeathed the highest awards during Stalin’s era but was also subjected to the most terrible humiliations and he sometimes could ...not feel safe or secure. His music is characterised by extreme contradictions: great joy follows moods depicting deepest sorrow, and quite often, nearly trivial and popular elements crop up in his works, as if deliberately making a circus of their serious pretensions. Today’s Festival Overture is frequently performed and has a mood of harsh joy. His Cello Concerto No. 2 by contrast is a rarity. Shostakovich dedicated it to Mstislav Rostropovich (also the recipient of the First Concerto) and although the first one is still frequently performed, very few cellists are prepared to risk playing this latter essay. One who does is Tamás Varga who was formerly the solo cellist of the Hungarian State Opera House Orchestra and since 1998, has filled the same post with one of the leading orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic. Shostakovich’s Symphony Nr. 5 (1937) follows the traditions of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mahler, and thanks to its lyrical-pathetic mood, was a big success internationally and is now well established in the repertoire. János Kovács, the principal conductor of the Hungarian State Opera House, has been constant and much loved guest conductor of the Budapest Concert Orchestra MÁV for more than a decade, since completing his studies at the Academy of Music.
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