The International Shostakovich Days Gohrisch celebrate their 15th anniversary in 2024. The anniversary will be celebrated over four festival days with seven top-class concerts and a film screening. Numerous musicians will be performing in the concert barn for the first time, including Matthias Goerne, Martin Helmchen, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Nathalia Milstein and Ema Nikolovska. The Shostakovich Prize will be awarded to Irina Antonovna Shostakovich, who will be present in person in Gohrisch. In addition to Dmitri Shostakovich's oeuvre, the program will focus on works by Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Raskatov. For the first time, introductory podcasts will be offered in advance of all concerts.
Shostakovich - Mussorgsky - Raskatov
This year, Dmitri Shostakovich's oeuvre is juxtaposed with works by two other Russian composers: Modest Mussorgsky was an important model for Shostakovich both stylistically and aesthetically; Shostakovich presented quite a few of Mussorgsky's works - including the operas "Boris Godunov" and "Khovanshchina" as well as the cycle "Songs and Dances of Death" - in his own arrangements or orchestrations. Alexander Raskatov brings the Shostakovich tradition into the present day: the composer, who was born in Moscow in 1953, has lived in France for many years and recently celebrated great success with his new opera "Animal Farm" based on George Orwell at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and at the Vienna State Opera. Raskatov is looking forward to his visit to Gohrisch: "I've known about the Shostakovich Days in Gohrisch for a long time. Now I will finally visit this historic place. It means a lot to me that my music will be heard in this unique context."
Tugan Sokhiev © International Shostakovich Days Gohrisch
Opening concert:
Two quartet formations and the soprano Elena Vassilieva
With almost 40 cyclical performances of the string quartets, the Quatuor Danel is regarded as the leading Shostakovich quartet worldwide. The four musicians from France are once again guests in Gohrisch and will be performing two programs this year. In the opening concert on June 27, they will perform Shostakovich's String Quartets Nos. 6 and 14 - the latter is the only one of the 15 quartets that has not yet been performed in Gohrisch. The cycle is thus completed in its 15th year. The program will open with Shostakovich's pieces for string octet op. 11, in which the Quatuor Danel will be joined by the musicians of the Fritz Busch Quartet, a quartet formation from the ranks of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. At the heart of the program is Alexander Raskatov's moving "Prayer (Kaddish)" for soprano and string quartet, which the Danels premiered in 1998 with soprano Elena Vassilieva and are now presenting with her in the Gohrisch concert barn.
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker violoncello and Martin Helmchen piano © Harald Hoffmann
Four prominent debuts and a world premiere by Shostakovich
The second day of the festival starts on June 28 at 3 p.m. with a recital in which cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and pianist Martin Helmchen will present themselves to the Gohrisch audience for the first time. The program includes the sonatas for cello and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, as well as "Pictures at an Exhibition" in the original version for piano, the most famous work by Modest Mussorgsky. The performance in Gohrisch is also a premiere for baritone Matthias Goerne and his piano accompanist Alexander Schmalcz. On June 28, both will perform a song recital for the first time as part of the festival. The program includes piano songs by Gustav Mahler, the late Suite after poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti op. 145, which Shostakovich dedicated to his wife Irina Antonovna, and a posthumous Romance by Shostakovich for bass and piano on a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This was composed around 1971, has only survived as a fragment and is currently being completed by Alexander Raskatov. Matthias Goerne and Alexander Schmalcz will give the posthumous world premiere of this late work in Gohrisch.
Gidon Kremer © Angie Kremer
Chamber recital with Gidon Kremer and
Performance matinee of the Sächsische Staatskapelle
Gidon Kremer has been associated with the Shostakovich Festival for many years. For his fourth appearance at the festival on June 29, he will be accompanied by members of his chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica. Together with them, he will be taking a broader look at composers from Eastern Europe, including Erkki-Sven Tüür, Grażyna Bacewicz, Tālivaldis Ķeniņš and Alfred Schnittke. The program also includes works by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, who received the Shostakovich Prize in Gohrisch in 2022, and Alexander Raskatov. In a performance matinee on June 30, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the closest partner of the Shostakovich Days for 15 years, will present four premieres under Dmitri Jurowski: Alexander Raskatov's "Bel canto" for viola, string orchestra and temple gong (Anya Dambeck, viola) is a European premiere; Shostakovich's Concertino op. 94 in the arrangement for piano and chamber orchestra by Julia Zilberquit will be performed for the first time in Germany with her at the piano; and in Dmitri Jurowski's own arrangements or Dmitri Jurowski's own arrangements and arrangements of Modest Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" (Alexandros Stavrakakis, bass) and Shostakovich's early theater music for Mayakovsky's "The Bug" op. 19 are world premieres.
Closing concert: more debuts and the composer at the piano
The closing concert on June 30 in the afternoon will also feature musicians from the Sächsische Staatskapelle. Norbert Anger, concertmaster of the orchestra's cellos, will perform his 1991 duo "Dolce far niente" together with Alexander Raskatov at the piano. Pianist Nathalia Milstein will present a selection of Mussorgsky's rarely performed piano works and perform Shostakovich's "Satires" op. 109 with mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska - a song cycle that was composed just before Shostakovich's first visit to Gohrisch in 1960. Both artists are up-and-coming classical stars, are in Gohrisch for the first time and will perform Shostakovich's enigmatic "Romances Suite" based on words by Alexander Blok op. 127 together with Norbert Anger and Robert Lis, 1st concertmaster of the Staatskapelle, at the end of the festival.
June 27 to 30, 2024
www.schostakowitsch-tage.de
Ema Nikolovska © Kaupo Kikkas
Shostakovich Prize for Irina Antonovna Shostakovich
The 15th International Shostakovich Prize Gohrisch will be awarded to Irina Antonovna Shostakovich, who has supported the festival from the very beginning and tirelessly championed the legacy of her husband Dmitri Shostakovich. She will be traveling to Gohrisch for the fourth time - she accompanied her husband to Saxon Switzerland in 1972 and was a guest of honour at the Shostakovich Days in 2010 and 2018. The award ceremony on the afternoon of June 29 will be framed by two works dedicated to Irina Antonovna: Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 9 (Quatuor Danel) and the song cycle "Black Sun" by Alexander Raskatov (Elena Vassilieva, Nathalia Milstein), which will be premiered on this occasion. In addition, Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's string sextet "Souvenir de Florence", one of Irina Antonovna's favorite works, will be performed by Quatuor Danel and musicians from the Sächsische Staatskapelle (Anya Dambeck, Dawoon Kim).
Film screening and Shostakovich podcasts
The tribute to Irina Antonovna Shostakovich will be complemented by a screening of the Russian documentary film "TWO. The Story of Shostakovich's Wife" from 2022. The film reflects the story of Irina Antonovna at her husband's side and will be shown in Gohrisch for the first time in Europe in the presence of director Elena Yakovich. For the first time, the Shostakovich Festival will also offer introductory podcasts to all concerts, which will be available free of charge on the festival website before and during the festival. This offer is a cooperation with the music journalism course at TU Dortmund University, which will also be organizing the live concert introductions in the Gohrisch municipal administration hall.
Special concert by the Staatskapelle Dresden
The Shostakovich Days will once again be launched with a special concert by the Staatskapelle Dresden at the Kulturpalast in Dresden. On June 26, Tugan Sokhiev will conduct Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 in C major op. 60 ("Leningrad") - and thus the work with which the Russian conductor made his debut with the Staatskapelle at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2022, when he resigned from his leading positions in Moscow (Bolshoi Theatre) and Toulouse (Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse) at the same time following the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Dmitri Shostakovich © International Shostakovich Days Gohrisch
Shostakovich in Gohrisch
The Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich visited the spa town of Gohrisch in Saxon Switzerland twice - in 1960 and 1972. During his first stay, he composed his Eighth String Quartet in C minor op. 110 here. Today, it is considered one of his most important works and is demonstrably the only work that Shostakovich composed outside the Soviet Union.
After his first visit to Gohrisch, he wrote to his friend Isaak Glikman on July 19, 1960: "I have returned from my trip to Dresden. I looked at the material for the film '5 Days, 5 Nights', which L. Arnstam is shooting. I must say that I really liked a lot of it. It reveals Ljolja's very kind soul. And that is the main meaning of this movie. I was made very comfortable there in order to create a creative working atmosphere. I lived in Gohrisch, also a spa town, near the small town of Königstein, 40 kilometers from Dresden. The area is incredibly beautiful. Incidentally, that's how it should be: the area is called 'Saxon Switzerland'. The creative working conditions were worth it: I composed my 8th string quartet there."
