4th Symphony Concert

The opening piece of the 4th Symphony Concert is dedicated to the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who passed away in 2025 at the age of 93. Her fairy-tale poem is inspired by the story of a piece of chalk that must write numbers and letters on the blackboard, even though it dreams of drawing castles and gardens. To Gubaidulina, who lived in the Soviet Union for many years, the fairy tale seemed “symbolic of an artist’s fate.” Composed in 1971, the piece was not premiered until 1992—after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, too, constantly navigated the tension between artistic freedom and political pressure. At the center of his dramatic 5th Symphony, he placed “the individual human being with all his feelings and doubts” and described it as “a Soviet artist’s practical response to just criticism.” The ironically bitter work was composed following public criticism of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and premiered in Leningrad in 1937.

In stark contrast to this is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D Major, K. 314. The arrangement of a concerto originally composed for oboe was likely commissioned by the Dutch flute enthusiast Ferdinand Dejean. The Tyrolean flutist Daniela Koch will perform the work, which is characterized by elegant lightness and a transparent balance of sound. The musical direction is in the hands of the internationally sought-after conductor Anna Skryleva, who was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK Award in 2024.