Programme Guide

When Shostakovich once again cancelled the première of his Fourth Symphony in 1951 – he had completed the work some 15 years earlier – he complained it suffered from “grandiosomania”. Whether he genuinely had reservations about the music or was really more afraid of the Stalinist censor cannot be determined today with certainty. The Fourth is in fact a grandiose, not to say, gigantic opus. But its greatness is flawed, slipping again and again into the surreal, including dance and march motifs. In this sense the symphony is with regard to its style clearly akin to Mahler’s providing us with the opportunity to try to identify these similarities.

Mahler’s spirit also pervades the first work of the concert with Simon Rattle: an adagio from Alban Berg’s Lulu suite. Another discovery is the cantata Les Voix by Paul Dessau, with soprano Angela Denoke and pianist Lars Vogt. Dessau (1894–1979) was one of the most versatile composers of his age, writing twelve-tone works alongside film music (for Disney and Hitchcock, for example). His music has only been included in a concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker once before, when one short work was performed in 1970.