Daniele Gatti conducts Stravinsky and Shostakovich

At the heart of Vienna's legendary Musikverein, the Wiener Philharmoniker perform Stravinsky's ethereal Apollo and Shostakovich's somber Symphony No. 10 in E minor, led by Italian conductor Daniele Gatti!

“Praising the Philharmoniker is like saying that the art of the violin thrives in Vienna": the words of composer Richard Strauss have never rung truer than in the glow of this sublime interpretation of Stravinsky's Apollo. The elegantly expressive motifs of this neo-classical ballet, composed in 1928 for string orchestra, resound with crystalline beauty under the bows of the orchestra often considered to be the world's finest. Apollo provides a marked contrast with the darkness and ardor of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 in E minor, composed during the Cold War and completed shortly after Stalin's death. This work points an accusatory finger at the artistic Zhdanovism of the time — the Soviet totalitarian censorship movement promoted by Andrei Zhdanov from 1946 to 1953, which sought to impose a new, universal conception of artistic creation on the world. The profound and chilling second movement portrays a ruthless Stalin, while the third movement introduces Shostakovich's musical acronym DSCH (D - E-flat - C - B) for the first time, a sarcastic jab in the face of the repressive ruler he outlived.