Shostakovich 4

“This recording demonstrates the orchestra’s keen response to the music’s darker moments of rumination, its rhythmic and harmonic pungency and, through razor-sharp incisiveness of attack, its modernist leanings.” — The Daily Telegraph

A champion of Shostakovich’s music, Bernard Haitink leads the Fourth Symphony — a dark and emotionally, groundbreaking work. It is often the case that great art emerges through great suffering. In Shostakovich’s Soviet Union, darkened by the shadow of Stalin, music was essential — it expressed the ideas and feelings of a people that otherwise had no voice. Yet the Fourth Symphony lay dormant, unperformed, for 25 years after its completion. This stunning symphony is now recognized as one of the composer’s boldest and most brilliant scores.

2008 Grammy Award, Best Orchestral Performance

Contents:

Shostakovich Symphony No. 4, Op. 43
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Haitink conductor

Beyond the Score®: Is Music Dangerous?
Gerard McBurney narrator
Nicholas Rudall actor

Recorded: 2008, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: Aug. 26, 2008