Mahnung - 2. Philharmonisches Konzert – Audimax der Universität, Regensburg

About this event

In and about the darkest of times, Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 7 in 1941/42. Like few other symphonic works, its genesis—alongside the composer’s life and career—is inseparably bound up with world events. The “Leningrad” bears a musical expression of violence and menace, an enduring indictment against injustice and terror. Shostakovich vigorously resisted any one-sided appropriation of his symphony. Frequently maligned by Soviet authorities, he later said of his most famous work: “I feel unquenchable grief for all those killed by Hitler. But I feel no less grief at the thought of those murdered on Stalin’s orders. I mourn all the tormented, the tortured, the shot, the starved. […] I do not object to calling the Seventh the Leningrad Symphony. But it is not about the blockade. It is about Leningrad, which Stalin destroyed. Hitler merely put the final point.” Its timeless message remains disturbingly current.

Cast & creative

• G

  Conductor

  GMD Stefan Veselka
• D

  Composer

  Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich