Music in dark times

The effects of war and conflict in a nutshell. Viktor Ullmann's Piano Concerto still awaits rediscovery, and Shostakovich wrote an unexpectedly humorous, small Ninth Symphonyin 1945 .

Hannes Minnaar plays Viktor Ullmann
Viktor Ullmann was highly regarded during the interbellum. He was active in the Viennese circles around Schönberg, but disappeared into the background because of his Jewish roots. As an 'entartete' composer, he met his end in 1944, via Theresienstadt, in Auschwitz. Although the opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, premiered in Amsterdam in 1975, enjoys some notoriety, the greater part of his oeuvre has hardly been explored. Hannes Minnaar speaks out for the dynamic Piano Concerto from 1939.

Lightheartedness in dark times
Even in a concert programme that closely follows the horrific tragedies of the 20th century, there is plenty of room for beauty. Due to current conona circumstances, Shostakovich's planned, enormous Eleventh Symphony will not be played today, but the smaller-sized Ninth. It is an unexpectedly humorous work - altogether shorter than the opening movement of the Eighth - and in 1945 it was a slap in the face for Stalin's apparatchiks, who had expected a grand, jubilant conclusion to his 'war trilogy'.

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