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About the programme

Today we openly call Mozart and Beethoven classics. And at the same time we interpret Don Giovanni and Eroica as revolutionary, even subversive in a political sense.

With Dmitri Shostakovich, the situation is different. The Soviet government, which had emerged from a revolution, would have liked to see him as a "classic." But at least since his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the composer always had to fear the strong arm of the state. From Shostakovich's early days comes the Concerto for Piano, String Orchestra and Trumpet. The movement is cinematic, music full of references and humour. What Shostakovich later smuggled into his music as hidden messages is often within reach here: Rossini is quoted as well as Tchaikovsky, a Broadway hit of the time, and especially Beethoven with the Appassionata and the Fourth Piano Concerto.

Pianist Alexander Melnikov, however, places not Beethoven but Mozart at the beginning of the programme, indeed with the latter's Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major. About this music, Mozart once wrote that connoisseurs would get “satisfaction,” yet without disappointing the rest of the audience. Which means nothing other than that several layers of meaning are hidden here too, even without direct quotations like Shostakovich.

Beethoven then naturally also gets his place in this programme. The CAMERATA BERN plays his String Quartet No. 11 in F minor. Music through which Napoleon's cannons thunder before Vienna. But perhaps Beethoven was only dealing with private lovesickness. Or – who knows? – both.