Pierre Boulez describes Debussy’s symphonic poem Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun as one of the earliest examples of musical modernism. Musical devices such as whole-tone (six-note) scales, pentatonic (five-note) scales, and abundant chromaticism create a dreamlike state typically associated with Debussy’s impressionism. Dmitri Levkovich performs Bartók’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra no. 1. In this work Bartok often deploys the piano in a manner that is percussive rather than melodic: his programming notes state that the percussion instruments should be placed directly beside the piano. The concert concludes with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, composed at the height of World War Two, as the German army laid siege to Leningrad. Shostakovich himself suggested that the symphony does not explicitly depict German aggressors, but rather the evil of totalitarianism; this did not stop others from describing the symphony as “a symbol of cooperation and spiritual unity.”

Kristian Alexander | conductor
Dmitri Levkovich | pianist
Daniel Vnukowski | host