University Symphony Orchestra

Graphic with Cold War Soviety style geometric shapes in red and black. Reads: University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Barbara Schubert, Music Director; Shostakovich: Condemnation and Redemption

February 1, 2020 | 8:00PM
Mandel Hall
Free; Donations requested at door: $10, $5 students

Shostakovich: Condemnation and Redemption

The University Symphony Orchestra showcases two pivotal works from Dmitri Shostakovich’s career:  one that spurred the 1936 Pravda denunciation of his language as “muddle instead of music,” and the other that was officially viewed as “a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism.”  The concert opens with the intensely concentrated Passacaglia from Shostkovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which roused Stalin’s ire a full two years after its successful premiere and ongoing performances.  The USO then presents Shostakovich’s monumental Symphony No. 5, Op. 47, whose patently more conservative language proved instantly appealing both to audiences and to critics the world over.  Nevertheless this powerful four-movement symphony reveals the composer’s relentless message of irony, despair, and critique of the Soviet regime just beneath its simpler and more inviting surface.