This concert is devoted to the extraordinary friendship between Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczysław Weinberg – two composers who, despite their different origins and under the difficult conditions of Stalinist repression, developed a deep human and artistic bond.
In 1948, the Soviet cultural scene was shaken by the campaign against formalism, which put composers such as D. Shostakovich, S. Prokofiev, A. Khachaturian and M. Weinberg under enormous pressure. At the same time, cultural and scholarly work in the 1940s and 1950s was marked by the campaign against "rootless cosmopolitanism", which had a clearly antisemitic undertone.
Weinberg, himself a Jewish composer, and Shostakovich, who passionately studied Jewish music, were united by their shared search for musical forms of expression – despite the ideological accusations.
At the heart of the programme are Weinberg's Violin Sonata No. 5 op. 53, dedicated to Shostakovich, and his "Moldavian Rhapsody", in which Jewish and folk melodies meet the strict form of the sonata. Shostakovich is represented by his Violin Sonata op. 134 (whose premiere Weinberg played together with David Oistrakh) as well as the 6 pieces "From Jewish Folk Poetry" op. 79 in the arrangement for violin and piano.
The concert shows how the chamber music of Weinberg and Shostakovich, and the sonata form in particular, became a medium for the personal expression of cultural identity and artistic solidarity – and invites the audience to experience the deep musical friendship of the two composers in every note.