Festival Summer
Klaus Mäkelä
Lisa Batiashvili Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Dmitri Shostakovich

Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote his violin concerto in the Swiss town Clarens in 1878, in a collaboration with the Russian violinist Iosef Kotek. Together, they performed a version of Éduard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole, which was premiered in Paris in 1875. It was primarily this piece that inspired Tchaikovsky to write his own violin concerto. 

The concert had a troubled start: Tchaikovsky's benefactor, Nadeszda von Meck, disliked the piece, the violinist he dedicated it to, Leopold Auer, did not think it suited the instrument, and after the premiere in Vienna, the critic wrote one of the most infamous slurs in music history. But Tchaikovsky had become an established and popular composer, and the concerto quickly established itself on the orchestral repertoire, where it has remained ever since. 

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) composed Symphony No. 5 during one of the most ominous epochs in Soviet history. The years 1937–1938, known as the Great Terror, were marked by oppression, persecution, and mass executions under Joseph Stalin's regime.

Shostakovich had reason for concern. In 1936, his controversial and successful opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was heavily criticized in Pravda newspaper after Stalin saw it. Symphony No. 5 was an exercise in balance – maintaining artistic integrity without provoking too much.

Symphony No. 5 premiered in 1937 and was, as the authorities desired, a step towards a traditional direction, but Shostakovich's uniqueness remained intact. The third movement, Largo, conveyed a more profound message about the terror of the times, and the audience hailed the composer with tremendous applause after the concert.