Symphonies n° 4 et n° 5 (Intégrale des Symphonies, Vol. 1)

Description

Alain Altinoglu and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which he is music director, are embarking on a recording of the complete symphonies of Shostakovich, starting with his Fourth and Fifth symphonies. Shostakovich dared to express through his music human suffering and passions, fear, catastrophe, and posed a haunting question: what is man?In this sense, these two symphonies open with an interrogation, a theme of martyrdom, which would become one of the central ideas of the later symphonies and, of course, of Lady Macbeth. They both belong to the period 1935-1937 (Shostakovich was in his thirties), one of the darkest and most trying phases of the composer's life, marked by the repercussions of some of his writings and by the arrest of many people close to his circle, including members of his family.