Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony were composed just five years apart, yet they evoke sharply contrasting soundscapes. Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder (1948), set to poems by Joseph von Eichendorff and Hermann Hesse, transports the listener to a world of lyrical, late-romantic melancholy and resignation. In stark contrast, Shostakovich wrote his Eighth Symphony in 1943, echoing themes from his other major 'war' symphony, the Seventh. The first movement subtly evokes an atmosphere of threat, followed by a burst of conflict: bombings, resistance, and sometimes a glimmer of hope resonate through the subsequent movements. A new work by a CvA composition student will complement the program.
