Tchaikovsky wrote six symphonies. Why does it seem like we only ever get to hear the last three? We heave a sigh of relief whenever one of the earlier works is played. Italian of French heritage and a former assistant to Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly is one of the most suggestive and energetic conductors of our time. For the first piece in this concert by the Filarmonica della Scala, the musical director of Milan's opera house will conduct the composer's Symphony No. 2 ("Little Russian”) with its treatment of Ukrainian melodies.
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District was the Shostakovich opera that occasioned an editorial in Pravda (entitled „Muddle Instead of Music”) that amounted to an indictment of the 1936 performance. Some believe that the source of the article denouncing the composer's "bourgeois formalism” was Stalin himself. In any case, the writing reflected the dictator's opinion, and Shostakovich was naturally compelled to undergo "self-criticism”...
How different Stravinsky's fate was! He was living in the free world both in 1910-11 and in 1947, the years when he wrote and later revised the rivetingly colourful and ingenious Petrushka, the now-classic folkloric ballet from his "Russian period”. Composed for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and premièred in Paris, the work revolves around the themes of love and jealousy as experienced by its characters: Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Moor, all marionettes who have come to life.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest