The works

We begin with two composers who, in different places and circumstances, were 
constrained by the shadows cast over Europe at the time, unable to fully exercise 
their artistic freedom: Shostakovich and Webern.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 10 (1964) was composed during a particularly fraught period in the always complicated history of the Soviet Union. The regime exerted relentless control over culture and the arts. The composer lived in fear, in silence, facing constant criticism, censorship, and threats from the Stalinist regime. This work reflects the war, the pressure of life under Soviet rule, and the uncertainty of never knowing if tonight might be your turn, if someone would knock on your door and uniformed men would take you away, never to return. In it, we feel the mental strain, psychological torment, echoes of machine-gun fire on city streets, trains transporting the enemies of the state to concentration camps, the buzzing of flies over abandoned bodies, and perhaps, fleeting moments of hope… hope ultimately trapped 
within the mental cage of dictatorship.

Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz (1905) presents a different perspective. Initially rooted in post-Romanticism, Webern’s music was later denounced and banned, and his career was tragically cut short. Targeted by the Nazis, he barely made a living and would die shortly after World War II from a shot by an Allied soldier—an incident still shrouded in uncertainty. This piece feels like a love letter from the young Webern: a young man eager to embrace the world, with everything ahead of him, fully confident that his actions would leave a mark on society.

We then travel back in time to Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major (1903). His music captures the artistic trends and movements emerging in Europe at the time, also shaped by his personal experiences and emotions surrounding World War I, during which he witnessed the horrors of war as a volunteer ambulance driver. In this interwar period, Ravel’s music offers an escape into imaginary worlds. He plays with colors and sensations through harmony, much like Impressionist painters used strokes of light and color to capture fleeting moments. This work was composed in Paris, ten years before the construction of the Eiffel Tower, during the Exposition Universelle, a period of discovery when the dream of flight was taking shape, new machines appeared, and human imagination seemed limitless. The exposition showcased exotic products from distant colonies—perfumes never before smelled, fabrics of unimaginable texture—and in art, the East provided a vehicle for expressing hidden desires in the West.

Looking toward the present, we arrive at Valentin Silvestrov’s Icon (2004). Silvestrov, the greatest living Ukrainian composer, recently exiled to Berlin after the war in Ukraine, uses traditional tonalities and modal techniques to create intensely textured music. This work is a hymn to freedom, equality, and hope in Europe.

Despite all the darkness, through artistic creation the highest human emotions can emerge—though many questions remain unanswered, we are called to build a hopeful future together, grounded in values such as diversity, tolerance, and equality.