Danubia Orchestra Óbuda

Nobody really knows for sure why this symphony remained unfinished, but in fact it doesn’t really matter. Even in this form it became one of the cornerstones of music, indeed, just like Michelangelo’s Prisoners or Slaves, precisely because of it. Incompletion, going astray as an artistic statement is a romantic and fine concept – even if, in this case, it is not totally correct. The other work is perhaps the best symphony from the master of diversions and restarts, yet it will be a discovery for many since it has long not received the attention it deserves, being in the shadow of the fifth or tenth. The ‘genius of the age’, comrade Stalin is partly to be blamed for this, given that he initiated a personally orchestrated culture policy attack against Shostakovich at the same time as the debut of the composition, to which the symphony also fell victim, and the composer ‘withdrew’ the work. This all happened in 1936. One can only imagine Shostakovich’s emotions each night. Despite all this, the work overflows with power, ideas, raw and manly beauty – confuting the spirit of the age and the pervasive madness of all-out terror. Stalin died, Shostakovich lives: 0–1.