Courage?

Caught up in the turmoil of totalitarian political censorship, Gubaidulina and Shostakovich share the ability to draw from their musical language and inspirations the force and courage to resist. 

With the delicate Fairy Tale Poem, Sofia Gubaidulina, who passed away last March, composed one of her most emblematic and spiritual works. This fable tells the story of a small piece of chalk, a tyrannical object on the blackboard but also an instrument for drawing and imagination. 

Forced by Stalin to compose a work glorifying the USSR, Shostakovich turned his Fifth Symphony into an ‘artist's response’, both a sublime snub and a powerful masterpiece whose finale stirs emotions to their highest degree.