SHOSTAKÓVICH 14

“When Anette Dasch spoke to me about Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14, the truth is that I did not know this work by the great Russian master very well. But I was deeply moved when I began to work with the music and with the combination that Shostakovich himself created with texts by Federico García Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Wilhelm Küchelbecker and Rainer Maria Rilke.

This music, perhaps written from the composer’s abyss, but also from an obstinate fidelity to the human being, reminds us that every unjust death disfigures the living. As in Elias Canetti, at its core there is insubordination, a rebellion: the refusal to accept that death should have the final word.

These texts do not teach us how to die. Each poem is a person who does not want to be reduced to a number. Each musical phrase sustains, with a restrained hand, a life that disappears too soon. The music will not save it; but it will accompany it without lying. It is as if it were saying: you are alone, yes, but you are not abandoned. And music becomes an act of care. It does not heal. It does not save. But it accompanies. It accompanies the one who is dying, the one who remains, the one who cannot find meaning and yet insists on living one more day. And that — in a world that anaesthetises — is a radical, stark and deeply human form of love.

I am grateful to Anette Dasch for having introduced me to this wonderful work of art about something profound within ourselves. And to my professional colleagues Leigh Melrose, Barbora Horáková, Alejo Pérez and, naturally, to the entire Teatro Arriaga for their ability to take on this masterpiece.”

Calixto Bieito

Composed in 1969, Dmitri Shostakovich’s *Symphony No. 14 in G minor, Op. 135* is an intense, deeply introspective and funereal work. Scored for soprano, bass, string ensemble, and percussion, this symphony departs from the traditional form and leans more toward an orchestral song cycle. It is based on eleven poems by authors such as Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker, and Rilke. Although originally written in Russian, Shostakovich authorized performances sung in the original languages of the poetry: Spanish, French, Russian, and German.

Shostakovich composed this work following a serious health crisis, and in it he reflects on mortality in a stark, unadorned manner. Musically, he avoids grandiosity in favor of a bare, taut, and expressive texture where every instrument plays a dramatic role.

The performance will also feature the participation of the choir Leioa Kantika Korala, whose youth and freshness will provide an engaging musical and aesthetic counterpoint. The vocal ensemble, conducted by Basilio Astúlez, will perform several pieces outside Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14, yet fully integrated into the staging conceived by Bieito.