The main theme of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic concert under the baton of the excellent conductor Daniel Raiskin will be protest against tyranny. Composers from different eras have taken up this theme in their works, including those who themselves had to deal with oppressive regimes on a daily basis. The concert programme includes works by Giuseppe Verdi, Stewart Copeland, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Giuseppe Verdi’s work is where art blends with politics. The four-act opera Nabucco was first performed at La Scala in Milan in 1842. The subject of the work is the conquest of Judea by the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II. The Italian audience related the situation of the Jewish population to their own, as the territory was under Austrian occupation at the time, and the chorus Va, pensiero became the unofficial anthem of the movement striving to politically unite the Italian Peninsula as one state. The colourful Overture, containing themes from the opera, is often performed separately.

Stewart Copeland is an American rock drummer best known for his work with The Police. After the group disbanded, he began composing film music, but not only, a good example of which is Tyrant’s Crush: Concerto for Trapset and Orchestra. In the composer’s own words, this piece tells the story of a revolution ending with a dictator taking power, who contradicts revolutionary ideals, which leads to another act of resistance. During the concert at the NFM, Ilia, Daniel Raiskin’s son, will play the drum kit.

The second part of the concert will begin with Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale prelude O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß in an arrangement for strings prepared by Max Reger. The melody is based on a Lutheran Passion hymn. The last work of the evening, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, was written in 1939, a period in which the composer was recovering from brutal press attacks inspired by the authorities. In Stalinist times, accusations of insufficient communicativeness of musical language could end tragically, of which the artist was well aware. His reaction to this situation was to create music in which he seemingly followed the authorities’ recommendations, but in reality mocked them. The Symphony No. 6 is such an ambiguous and enigmatic piece, consisting of a tragic slow movement, followed by two “joyful”, dynamic and brilliant fast movements. But the circus-like, bombastic parade that crowns the composition is not sincere. Its cheerful mood seems forced, like the “triumphant” ending of The Fifth Symphony, another Shostakovich work from the 1930s.