Symphony of Shadows: Shostakovich 7

As Hitler’s armies surrounded the city of Leningrad, and bombs rained down on a starving population, Dmitri Shostakovich sat down and – somehow – composed his Seventh Symphony. Written for massed battalions of musicians, this is music from the front line: a roar of defiance from an unbreakable city. You can hear it this afternoon conducted by Vasily Petrenko, whose recording of the piece was described by one critic as ‘devastating’. It’s a stupendous climax to a concert that’s all about struggle and resistance: whether it’s Sibelius defying Russian imperialism with a mighty hymn to his native Finland or the poet Walt Whitman’s pleas for tolerance, set to music by the exiled Kurt Weill. Singing them today is the fabulous British baritone Roderick Williams: a born communicator at the heart of a truly epic programme. 

This performance is funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY

Part of Lights in the Dark

This performance is part of Southbank Centre's Multitudes festival, where world-class orchestras join forces with some of the most ambitious and exciting artists, performers and creatives practising today. To visually interpret this powerful symphony, a three-channel video installation by filmmaker Ilya Shagalov and art director Kirill Serebrennikov accompanies the orchestral performance, bringing Shostakovich’s music into the modern era through cutting-edge technology.

Commissioned by the Southbank Centre and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Large print versions and digital formats of the programme for this concert are available on request for customers with accessibility requirements. Please email your request to Doran Crowhurst crowhurstd@rpo.co.uk at least one full week before the performance.