Daniele Gatti in conversation with Aleksandar Ivić (15 min.)

In January 2021, Daniele Gatti juxtaposed Igor Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. In conversation with Philharmoniker violinist Aleksandar Ivić, the conductor explains how strongly the respective circumstances of the composers’ lives influenced each work: while Stravinsky had already left Russia before the revolution, Shostakovich remained in his homeland throughout his life. In his symphony, Shostakovich ostensibly bowed to the state’s directive to write optimistically, but allowed the despair of the oppressed population to echo in the subtext. Stravinsky, on the other hand, composed his tribute to the ancient god of music in the free world. Apollon musagète belongs to his Neoclassical period, in which Stravinsky departed from the radical Modernism of earlier works.