Classical Concert Reviews Cinci

@cincysymphony continued its 2025-26 season with a fabulous pairing of two of the most innovative yet powerful works of the early 20th century by Samuel Barber and Dimitri Shostakovich.
Under the direction of Giancarlo Guerrero (@giancarloguerrero.conductor), Music Director Laureate of the Nashville Symphony, the orchestra was joined by the rising American violinist Stella Chen (@stellafaychen) for a sensuous, dynamic and invigorating performance of Barber’s Violin Concerto. Chen’s bright, ringing tone shone through most clearly in the concerto’s first two lyrical movements, built on an overflow of melody which builds the foundation of the work. Its final movement allowed Chen many opportunities to show off her consummate virtuosity in its many dissonant climaxes, leaving the audience at Music Hall richly rewarded.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 is a work which personifies how composers can evoke the agony and terror of war. Dating from 1935-36, it did not receive its official premiere until 1961, due to Soviet leaders banning what they considered ‘formalist’ music during Stalin’s regime.
A central highlight of this symphony was the first and third movements which form the work’s musical and emotional core. Under Maestro Guerrero, the CSO gave a performance that was truly for the ages, with bone-chilling perxussion (across no fewer than 7 players in addition to two sets of timpani), brass and strings in some of the most powerfully dark climaxes ever committed to music.
The more I became absorbed in these sonorities, the more I truly understood that this was a score that deserves to be heard by a wider audience, as the ideas of democracy and civil liberties have become more fragile and tenuous than ever, more do in the United States. From the symphony’s first themes evoking soldiers marching in Moscow to the third movement’s final haunting minutes evoking the horror and chill of being mortally wounded in battle, Shostakovich’s music truly was appropriate for this moment, particularly as this was the CSO’s first performance of this work.
Bravi tutti!