Video: Interview with Andris Nelsons : Stalin's influence on Shostakovich April 2-4

Summary: Watch a video featuring Andris Nelsons. The marvelous German violinist Christian Tetzlaff joins Andris Nelsons and the BSO for Beethoven's peerless Violin Concerto, which, through its lyricism, intensely musical virtuosity, and expansive scope elevated the genre of the violin concerto to ambitious new heights. Shostakovich-a Beethoven devotee-purportedly wrote his Symphony No. 10 as a response to Joseph Stalin's death in 1953. Considered one of his finest, most characteristic orchestral works, the musically and emotionally rich Tenth seems partly to have been an exorcism of his conflicted personal feelings toward the Soviet dictator.