Shostakovich under Stalin's shadow

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Andris Nelsons reveals the art of Shostakovich under Stalin's darknessFor the Latvian conductor, born in 1978 at a time when the country was still part of the USSR, the symphonies that Shostakovich composed during the years when Joseph Stalin was at the head of the Soviet empire are particularly rich in meaning.Andris Nelsons sees in the composer's relationship with Stalin a struggle between two egos.A battle that began in 1936 with the publication of the article Chaos replaces music, probably commissioned by Stalin, in the official communist newspaper, the Pravda.Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934) is completely dismantled there.The work then disappears from the Soviet stage, jeopardizing the composer's brilliant career, as well as his life.With Stalin's death in 1953, a new chapter opens in Shostakovich's career, embodied by his Tenth Symphony.According to Andris Nelsons, Shostakovich painted with the cold colors of the Tenth Symphony a picture of the fear that reigned during the Stalinist period.It resonates like a sublime outlet, a mirror of the composer's soul.