Schostakovich e Estaline

The DSCH – Schostakovich Ensemble presents a concert dedicated to the music of one of the most brilliant composers in the History of 20th century Music: Dmitri Schostakovich.

The ensemble was created by pianist Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro in 2006, on the centenary of Schostakovich’s birth, to whom they pay tribute in their designation, thus exalting his artistic ideal of the composer of authenticity and humanism, of rigor and passion, expressed in the musical enigma of an autobiographical nature enclosed in the musical signature DSCH, a cryptogram created by the composer based on the first letters of his name and surname, that is, the thematic musical motif «D – E flat – C – B» used in some of his most significant.

Died in 1975 in Moscow, Schostakovich is remembered for his complex relationship with the Soviet Union, when Stalin and Soviet authorities attacked the arts — including Shostakovich’s — that they considered out of line with his nationalist vision. During his lifetime, Shostakovich wrote music in implicit protest against Soviet rule but also intensely nationalistic works, navigating a double life between artistic freedom and repression.

In this concert, masterpieces from his creative legacy will be performed, including the Cello Sonata, composed in the 1930s, when Schostakovich suffered the first violent attacks in Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, and the famous Piano Quintet, for which Schostakovich received the Stalin Prize in 1941.