Prom 69 – Boston Symphony Orchestra Bernstein and Shostakovich

Part of the BBC Proms.

This second concert by Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra sets Bernstein’s intensely lyrical Serenade (after Plato’s ?Symposium’) for solo violin and orchestra – a work composed for Isaac Stern and performed here by the prize-winning Latvian violinist Baiba Skride – alongside Shostakovich’s uncompromising Fourth Symphony. This dazzling musical manifesto of the composer’s modernist beliefs was withdrawn under duress before its scheduled 1936 premiere and wasn’t heard publicly until 25 years later.