Bach/Saito: Chaconne & Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 – Suntory Hall, Tokyo

About this event

Titled “Prayer and Fury: What is the Abyss of Humanity?”, this program frames a stark dialogue between spiritual lament and defiant modern testimony under the baton of incoming Music Director Lorenzo Viotti. It opens with Hideo Saito’s orchestral arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne from the D minor Partita, transforming an intimate monument of grief and transcendence into a resonant public statement. The second half is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, composed in the year of Stalin’s death and often read as a personal reckoning with totalitarian violence, fear, coded identity, and survival. Across these two pillars, the concert charts an arc from private prayer to public resistance, confronting the depths of human suffering and the resilience of the individual spirit. As a curatorial gesture, the pairing signals Viotti’s intent to pursue thematically charged, emotionally intense repertoire that probes the moral and historical stakes of orchestral music today.

Cast & creative

• 

  Conductor

  Lorenzo Viotti
• 

  Conductor

  Lorenzo Viotti
• J

  Composer

  Johann Sebastian Bach
• D

  Composer

  Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich