Karg, Munich Philharmonic, Sokhiev: Opening Concert of the Dresden Music Festival at Kulturpalast Dresden

About the Event

Tugan Sokhiev, who leads this year’s opening night concert with the Munich Philharmonic, is renowned around the world as a magician of sound. Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony, written in 1939, is a piece marked by war. Planned as a great, monumental apotheosis of Lenin involving soloists, chorus and orchestra, the end result turned out to be a purely instrumental work of only three movements (apparently a conscious decision made by the composer, in contrast to his original concept). Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, which he composed in Bad Aussee and Maiernigg in Austria, was originally conceived as a »symphonic humoresque«. Ultimately, however, despite the »heavenly world« portrayed in the fourth movement, it ended up betraying multiple cracks and rifts amidst its blue skies.