Music's Master Architects

 

I went to a performance of the Phoenix Symphony Friday evening and found myself totally immersed in the music.  I love classical music anyway but there was something very moving about this particular performance.  The first piece was a new piece by Valerie Coleman who has been named one of the top 35 Women Composers.  After that we heard Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 played with Stewart Goodyear at the keyboards.  His nimble fingers criss-crossed the keyboard many times but I have to admit that his posture was making my neck and back hurt just watching him.  (Just watch the first 20 seconds on the link above and you will see what I mean.) I snapped the above photo while we were waiting for him to enter the stage.

But the music that really got to me was Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5.  The schedule of performances and the pieces were all selected long before there was a war in Ukraine and since Shostakovich was a Russian composer, the orchestra played the Ukrainian National Anthem before beginning the symphony.  The anthem is a beautiful piece if you haven't heard it.

Shostakovich had his own troubles with the tightly controlled Stalin regime and his symphony did such a good job of conveying that balance between what the artist wanted to write and what the state made him write.

I really felt the emotion of the music.  A little over a year ago, I read the book "A Gentleman in Moscow".  It was an excellent book and the images it conveyed have stuck with me.  Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 conveyed exactly those same images.  It could easily be the theme music for that novel.