Ignat Solzhenitsyn, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia's conductor laureate, is on the podium for this month's broadcast. Maestro Solzhenitsyn has devised a program with a connection to the idea of freedom that he explains as follows:
"The young East Germans in East Berlin and throughout the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) were clamoring for freedom in the hot summer of 1989, and then received it dramatically with “Der Fall der Mauer” (The Fall of the Wall) on November 9th. The first work on this program, by Klaus Meine, represents, if you will, a yearning for freedom. The second, by Mikhail Dmitrievich Smirnov, expresses mourning for those who perished never having tasted it. And the third, Beethoven’s 9th (apart from its universal symbolism, specifically associated with the fall of the wall through its performance by Leonard Bernstein on Christmas Day 1989 in Berlin) completes the arch by celebrating the joy and power of freedom and brotherhood.
Hear this moving concert in its entirety, with commentary by the Maestro, on Sunday, April 21 at *4:30 PM (*a half-hour earlier than usual) on WRTI.