CANCELLED: Ural Philharmonic Orchestra / Masleev / Liss

The Ural Philharmonic Orchestra under its chief conductor Dmitry Liss has a reputation as one of Russia’s best symphony orchestras. Founded in 1936, the orchestra is based in Yekaterinburg, some 1,700 km east of Moscow. Tonight it brings monumental and typically Russian sounds to the Elbphilharmonie.

The country’s turbulent history is reflected in its music, particularly in the context of the Soviet Union. Not unlike in Nazi Germany, artists under the Soviet system had to choose between rebelling against the government (possibly with fatal consequences) or jumping on the bandwagon. »Socialist realism« was the official requirement,as can be heard in Mosolov’s stamping, unchangingly positive »Iron Foundry« of 1926. The planned economy in musical form, as it were.

Sergei Prokofiev, on the other hand, somehow managed to fall between two stools: his bombastic cantatas setting texts by Lenin and other Party figures were intended to celebrate the glorious October revolution, but they were far too advanced for the taste of the Ministry of Culture. By the same token, in the postwar years Shostakovich pupil Galina Ustvolskaya likewise suffered official reprisals. But in the end her striking and condensed music gained acceptance.