Rafael Payare conducts Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10

You won’t want to miss the sensational Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare’s Concertgebouw Orchestra debut! Frank Peter Zimmermann features as soloist in one of the most beautiful violin concertos of the twentieth century – that of Frank Martin, the Swiss composer who died in the Dutch town of Naarden just over fifty years ago. After the interval, Shostakovich’s thrilling Symphony No. 10 has been programmed.

With the Tenth Symphony, Shostakovich effectively put his memories of the tyrant Joseph Stalin behind him. The agitated second movement, a sarcastic musical portrait of Stalin, is a high point of the symphonic repertoire. And then the tragic third movement and exuberant finale are still to come!

‘My wish for you is that you should continue along your mistaken path’, Shostakovich told his younger colleague Sofia Gubaidulina in 1959, thus encouraging her to remain herself. She did - and developed into one of the most important composers of her generation. The Fairytale Poem is one of her milder, more accessible works.