A Slavic Celebration

Sunday, May 13, 2012; 2:30 PM
Orchestra Iowa

Concluding the Classical Series will be music featuring Dvorak's dance, Bartok's beauty, and Shostakovich's show-stopping vigor. Antonin Dvorak's Slavic Dance No. 8 is from a series of pieces inspired by Brahms' Hungarian Dances. They are lively, nationalistic and among the composer's most memorable works. Bela Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta has been used frequently in film. Popular as it may be in cinema, it is truly a piece that is meant to be heard live, as the strings are divided into two groups and placed antiphonally on opposite sides of the stage. Following a series of works denounced by the Communist Party, Dmitri Shostakovich delivered a rousing symphony that not only pleased critics, but audiences at the premier gave it an hour-long ovation. What on the surface seemed to celebrate Stalin's regime may have in fact contained hidden messages protesting the very system it seemed to support. Despite its meaning, the symphony is grand and beautiful, and a fitting close to the season.