Berio
Sinfonia 33'
interval
Shostakovich
Symphony No. 4 in C minor 64'
London Voices
European Union Youth Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko conductorÂ
A contemporary classic opens this concert from the European Union Youth Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko.
Berio's Sinfonia is a witty, whistle-stop tour through centuries of Western culture – a high-water mark of 1960s experimentalism, with musical references extending from Bach and Brahms to Boulez and The Beatles.
The orchestra and eight amplified soloists muse their way through an intricate and joyous web of quotations that frustrate interpretation even as they invite it.
Shostakovich's embattled Fourth Symphony asks the same questions as Berio, trying to reconcile the same conflicts and contradictions and finding only Babel and madness in one of the composer's most confrontational works.