The theme day’s closing concert gets off to a glittering and carefree start: Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano and Trumpet combines delightful passages of dexterity with a series of blissfully drawn-out melodies. With none other than Queen Elizabeth Competition winner Lukáš Vondráček at the keyboard.

In his subsequent Symphony no. 15, written forty years later, however, clouds are cumulating in front of the sun. We hear the composer now as tormented artist. Toy soldiers are trampled underfoot by fearsome battalions, playful dances are given a macabre edge, brutal trombones mercilessly shred the previously cheerful flutes to bits. At the end, Shostakovich even calls on Wagner’s help to usher in the unconcealed presence of death into his symphony.

This symphony is absolutely a work without rival and in ideal hands with the Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Kazushi Ono.

Dmitri Shostakovich, Concerto for Piano and Trumpet, Op. 35 Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony no. 15, Op. 141