It is hard to believe that Tchaikovsky’s wondrous ballet music was being written only decades before the events of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The subsequent chapter of Russian political history radically altered the course of one of the great musical and literary cultures of the world.
Music@Menlo's two-evening residency, "Art Under a Tombstone", explores Russia’s transformation and Soviet repression through the music of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, poems of Aleksandr Blok, and life stories of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as told by his son, pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn.
Ignat will share unpublished works by his father in this deeply personal and multi-dimensional Residency, which features a discussion of music and literature on November 7. This is followed by a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in a minor, and both early and late works by Shostakovich, on Friday, November 8.