The Hallé Orchestra

Programme:
Shostakovich - Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin
Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No.1
Shostakovich - Symphony No.5

Much of Shostakovich’s extraordinary output was profoundly marked by politics and the judgements of censors. The composer was on relatively safe ground when he wrote his Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian poet’s death. Nevertheless, the first song, ‘Rebirth’, makes Pushkin’s battles with the critics very much the composer’s own.

There are strong links between the songs and Shostakovich’s monumental Fifth Symphony, one of the greatest and most powerful of twentieth-century orchestral works. The great American cellist Alisa Weilerstein performed Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto with the Hallé in 2015 and now returns to perform its ground-breaking predecessor, one of the highlights of the entire cello repertoire.