SWR Symphonieorchester / Antoine Tamestit / Teodor Currentzis

Alexander Shchetynsky and Teodor Currentzis have been friends for many years. And so Currentzis and the musicians of the SWR Symphonieorchester were particularly keen to include a work by Shchetynsky, who is currently still in Kyiv, in the programme. Austere simplicity and profound beauty are intertwined in the multi-award-winning composer’s works. Many – including the orchestral piece »Glossolalie« – revolve around spiritual themes. The work refers to the religious practice of »speaking in tongues«, common in early-Christian communities, in which believers utter strange, speech-like sounds in a state of ecstasy. That piece is followed by Jörg Widmann’s Viola Concerto, one of the most exciting solo concertos in recent music history: full of original playing techniques, theatrical interludes and self-irony, the work is performed by star violist Antoine Tamestit, to whom it was dedicated. Teodor Currentzis and his orchestra then bring the concert to a close with a moving finale: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Having fallen foul of the Stalinist regime of terror, the composer feared for his life – and so he redeemed himself with the party leadership in 1937 by composing this traditionally structured work. But there are plenty of indications that Shostakovich secretly offered resistance: between the lines of his enigmatic music.