Shostakovich and More

Last night was the opening of the local philharmonic season. Several weeks ago Galya asked us if we were interested, so several of us jumped on some tickets that cost about $7. Unfortunately Nicole and Molly could not go because of obligations to teach conversation classes, but Bob, Amanda, Sara, Joanna, and I ventured into the world of the arts for a couple of hours last night. The preformance was by an orchestra from Moscow which was very good but was way too large for the concert hall, which was less than half the size of the MAC (for those of you familiar with IU.) We were into the third piece and a piano started playing: I didn't even know there was a piano, it was so far off-stage.

The music was really good. There was no program in sight, so we had to depend on the recitations of some Russian woman on stage who was difficult to understand, so this is the Cliff's Notes version. It started out with a short piece by a composor whose name we did not catch, but who was probably a Romantic. Then there a violin concerto by Saint-Saens. It was enjoyable and the soloist was really pretty good. Then followed a piece adapted from the opera Carmen which featured the same solist and then a break. After the break came Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, which he composed in 1937 and was first performed in that year. 1937 was the height of the Great Terror and Shostakovich himself had been denounced and was in danger of falling victim. I gathered from the introduction that Shostakovich is a popular attraction this year, as this is the 100th anniversary of his birth. (You can only imagine how much Russians love anniversaries...of anything.) In fact, his 100th birthday would have been on Monday. If you want to learn about Shostakovich and his works, check him out on Wikipedia, here . He is one of my favorite 20th century composors and is not all that well known in America.

So, after our visit to "get cultured," we are back to the real world today. Class, class, preparing for class...you get the idea.